–
The Alaska nuclide test report Stock pointed out is very
informative, and I urge people to read the whole thing, and to find out
more about the monitoring that has been being done there since 1965.
Amchitka was the site of several underground nuclear tests; the
neighboring island of Adak is used as a “control” to which nuclide
levels can be compared.
More info here:
http://www.lm.doe.gov/Amchitka/Sites.aspx
Report link:
http://www.lm.doe.gov/Amchitka/S08833_Biological_Monitoring.pdf
Brief fact sheet:
http://www.lm.doe.gov/Amchitka/AmchitkaBioResults.pdf
The 2011 monitoring season came 3 months after the start of the Fukushima disaster. As the report notes (section 9.0):
“The results imply that Dolly Varden, rockweed, and to a lesser
extent, Irish lord appear to contain a significant cesium isotope
signature from Fukushima Dai-ichi. ……
… Observations of Fukushima-derived fallout impacting on this region are
supported by findings of elevated levels of 134Cs (and 137Cs) in lichen
and soil collected from both the Adak and Amchitka regions.”
So there’s no doubt that Fukushima nuclides made it to the Aleutians,
and yes, they also made it to CA and elsewhere. The important question
is “In what concentrations?” And, “How can we find out how much we
got, and where it is?” The Amchitka tests focus on lichen because it’s
one of the greatest biological concentrators of Cs. The levels in lichen
are regularly hundreds or thousands of times higher than what’s found
in the soil beneath them. Amazing creatures, and somewhat like
mushrooms in this regard. In arctic regions, species like reindeer feed
on the lichen, which contributes to high contamination levels in their
flesh which persists for decades. It’s worth pointing out, however,
that caribou in northern Canada, for instance, show eye-openingly high
levels of internal contamination from natural radionuclides as well,
particularly Po210, and people who have relied on them as a food source
for centuries had high internal contamination themselves even before the
nuclear era because of it.
They tested fish, seaweed, and other marine species caught off
Amchitka and Adak for Cs137, Am241, U234, 235, and 238, and Pu239 and
240at the same time, and came up with less than 1 Bq/kg of Cs in the
highest sample, which was mussels. Table 15 shows that samples from the
Irish Sea are much higher, up to around 11 Bq/kg. All this is just for
context
.
I agree that there are good reasons to do more monitoring right about
now, and not wait until 2016. And no good reason not to do more testing
in CA as well.
Anyway, we’ve established that Fukushima contamination was clearly
detectable in Alaskan lichen in the sumer of 2011. But how did that
compare to before the Fukushima disaster? A look at table 40 (it’s
posted on the website Stock linked to) gives a very good idea:
In table 40: Cs137 in lichen
1970-71 Clam lake range 8000-27000 pCi/kg (
300-1000 Bq/kg) (
stock --after three massive atomic bombs were set off on the island)
1971-79 Clam lake range 1500-67000 pCi/kg (55-2479 Bq/kg) (
stock --after the three atomic bombs were set off on this island, the radiation in lichens tripled after the first initial dosing, and then lasted for a decade)
1997 Amchitka range 64-74 pCi/kg (2.3-2.7 Bq/kg)
2011 Amchitka range 1890-7120 pCi/kg (
70-263 Bq/kg) (
stock--after Fukushima)
STOCK--So Fukushima, 2000 miles away caused a radiation level about 1/4 of what three direct atomic bombs would do at ground zero. Look at the blue highlights above. Think about that now.)
The point being that while Cs levels in 2011 had increased compared
to 1997 due to Fukushima, they were still lower than anytime between
1970-79, due to nuclear testing. (
Stock --due to direct bombing of the island the tests were conducted on, not at all a fair comparison!)
Stock Here-- This reviewer is kind of pretending that the high rates at Clam lake are due to overall world wide nuclear testing "fallout". Clam lake is in the Anchitka Island which was not receiving just worldwide nuclear fallout, but was the actual site of several direct nuclear bomb tests.
Here is some background
http://inthesetimes.com/projectcensored/stclair2317new.html
Amchitka Island sits at the midway point on the great
arc of Alaska's Aleutian Islands, less than 900 miles across the
Bering Sea from the coast of Russia. Amchitka, a spongy landscape
of maritime tundra, is one of the most southerly of the Aleutians.
The island's relatively temperate climate has made it one of the
Arctic's most valuable bird sanctuaries, a critical staging ground
for more than 100 migratory species, as well as home to walruses,
sea otters and sea lions. Off the coast of Amchitka is a thriving
fishery of salmon, pollock, haddock and halibut.
All of these values were recognized early on. In 1913,
Amchitka was designated as a national wildlife refuge by President
William Howard Taft. But these ecological wonders were swept aside
in the early '60s when the Pentagon and the Atomic Energy Commission
(AEC) went on the lookout for a new place to blow up H-bombs. Thirty
years ago, Amchitka was the site of three large underground nuclear
tests, including the most powerful nuclear explosion ever detonated
by the United States.
Back to the Review
And this is one of the points: outside
of the most contaminated parts of Fukushima itself, the fallout from
this disaster was much less than that from the nuclear testing period.
(stock here---from the nuke testing of 3 bombs on one island, including the largest nuke bomb ever set off by the USA, and they are comparing that to contamination from the Fukushima over 2000 miles away--stock out)
That doesn’t make it alright, and we’re not saying bomb test fallout was
ok either. In fact as a society we’re still trying to understand what
the health effects from testing were.
From our point of view, as a group
of people very committed to characterizing and measuring the
contamination in order to help people make well-informed decisions
regarding their health and well-being, the more we understand about how
this compares with past radioactive releases and their effects, the
better our decisions and choices will be.
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