Fukushima: Over 100 New Radioactive Contamination Sites Found Off North America’s West Coast

fukushima_deathBy Star Fox

New research has found that radiation from the damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in Japan has reached more sites off North America’s west cost with the highest levels of radiation detected to date.

From the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution:

Scientists monitoring the spread of radiation in the ocean from the Fukushima nuclear accident report finding an increased number of sites off the US West Coast showing signs of contamination from Fukushima. This includes the highest detected level to date from a sample collected about 1,600 miles west of San Francisco. The level of radioactive cesium isotopes in the sample, 11 Becquerel’s per cubic meter of seawater (about 264 gallons), is 50 percent higher than other samples collected along the West Coast so far, but is still more than 500 times lower than US government safety limits for drinking water, and well below limits of concern for direct exposure while swimming, boating, or other recreational activities.

Ken Buesseler, a marine radiochemist with the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) and director of the WHOI Center for Marine and Environmental Radioactivity, was among the first to begin monitoring radiation in the Pacific, organizing a research expedition to the Northwest Pacific near Japan just three months after the accident that started in March 2011. Through a citizen science sampling effort, Our Radioactive Ocean, that he launched in 2014, as well as research funded by the National Science Foundation, Buesseler and his colleagues are using sophisticated sensors to look for minute levels of ocean-borne radioactivity from Fukushima. In 2015, they have added more than 110 new samples in the Pacific to the more than 135 previously collected and posted on the Our Radioactive Ocean web site.


“These new data are important for two reasons,” said lead researcher Ken Buesseler from the WHOI. “First, despite the fact that the levels of contamination off our shores remain well below government-established safety limits for human health or to marine life, the changing values underscore the need to more closely monitor contamination levels across the Pacific.”

“Second, these long-lived radioisotopes will serve as markers for years to come for scientists studying ocean currents and mixing in coastal and offshore waters,” he added.

Brusseler plans to present his latest findings on the spread of Fukushima radiation at the American Geophysical Union conference in San Francisco on Monday.

Although Brusseler makes the point that radiation levels are far below government safety limits, it is interesting to note that shortly after the 2011 meltdown of the Fukushima nuclear plant governments around the world, including the United States, raised the level of permissible radiation exposure to humans. Read here and here.

In October, scientists admitted that Fukushima Daiichi Power Plant No. 2 nuclear reactor fuel is missing from the core containment vessel. This has led some to believe a meltdown could be underway or that potentially a full-blown meltdown has already occurred in the reactor.

See Activist Post’s Fukushima archive from Dr. Richard Wilcox HERE

Image Credit: Dees Illustration

Star Fox is a U.S. based journalist who contributes to Eyesopenreport.com. His works have been published by recognizable alternative new sites like GlobalResearch.ca, ActivistPost.com and Intellihub.com. Follow @StarFoxReport


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29 Comments on "Fukushima: Over 100 New Radioactive Contamination Sites Found Off North America’s West Coast"

  1. As soon as I see ‘Woods Hole’, I know I’m reading a government-sponsored propaganda piece.

  2. “but is still more than 500 times lower than US government safety limits for drinking water”
    But didn’t “they” raise the “safety limits” 2000 % after fukushima? All it takes is “one” RCI to get into the system, just one, via air, water seafood (and then the fireworks begin). Personally, I stopped eating seafood a couple of years ago. And my trips out to the beach are a thing of the past, too.

    • I’m with you…I stopped eating seafood about 3 years ago, and not only did I stop going to the beach I stopped surfing, which had been my favorite hobby for over 30 years. They have killed us…dead men walking 🙁

    • They use conservative values for dose limits. I wouldn’t worry if I were you ESPECIALLY since 11 becquerels is simply 11 gamma emissions due to decay. Cesium is also a single decay chain meaning that one emission is all to expect from a given atom. Any dose would be insanely insignificant, especially compared to simply being out in the sun while going for a dip. Overall, it’s truly not a problem in terms of exposure.

    • Between BP poisoning the Gulf with COREXIT, and Fukushima, all fish and seafood is off the menu for good.

    • Russia also raised safety limits right after Chernobyl. I read that over one million early deaths across Europe have been attributed to the Chernobyl fallout. Hundreds of thousands of Americans were expected to die early deaths when US atom bomb testing was actively being done. It adds up.

    • No. The limits for radioactive materials in the drinking water are are the same now as they were before 2011.

  3. “11 Becquerel’s per cubic meter” – in the English language, one does not form a plural with an apostrophe. Don’t mean to be petty, but if you want to be credible, best to use the language properly.

    • Here is that extra apostrophe’ for you. I think you know where to put it. Priggish snoot!

      • I did not mean it as an ad hominem comment, but advice to whomever wrote or (didn’t) edit this. I see now that it’s form Woods Hole, not Activist Post, so unnecessary. As is your immature response.

        • Immature response…Pfffffffffff! If you don’t mean to be petty, then don’t be petty. And did you really mean “form Woods Hole” or did you intend to type ‘from’ Woods Hole? If you want to be credible, best to use the language properly — seems like I heard that somewhere.

    • …not to mention the confusion between ‘radiation’ and radioactive material.

  4. yEshUA ImmAnUEl * ben-'Adam | December 15, 2015 at 7:04 am |

    All that man is is because of his wisdom.
    All that he shall be is the result of his cause.
    List ye, now to my voice and become
    greater than common man.
    Lift thine eyes upward,
    let Light fill thy being,
    be thou ever Children of Light.
    Only by effort shall ye grow upward to
    the plane where Light is the All of the All.
    Be ye the master of all that surrounds thee.
    Never be mastered by the effects of thy life.
    Create then ever more perfect causes
    and in time shalt thou be a Sun of the Light
    Free, let thine soul soar ever upward,
    free from the bondage and fetters of night.
    Lift thine eyes to the Sun in the sky-space.
    For thee, let it be a symbol of life.
    Know that thou art the Greater Light,
    perfect in thine own sphere,
    when thou art free.
    Look not ever into the blackness.
    Lift up thine eyes to the space above.
    Free let thine Light flame upward
    and shalt thou be a Child of the Light.

  5. yEshUA ImmAnUEl * ben-'Adam | December 15, 2015 at 7:15 am |

    ”Man is essentially a permanent and immortal principle; only his bodies pass through the cycle of birth and death. The immortal is the reality; the mortal is the unreality. During each period of earth life, reality thus dwells in unreality, to be liberated from it temporarily by death and permanently by illumination.”

  6. The NRC safety standards are off by a factor of 100x to 1000x depending on the isotope in question. This fact was revealed by AEC scientists Drs. Gofman and Tamplin; however when concerned citizens from Shippingsport, PA (home of the first nuclear power plant) tried to petition the government for open hearings with the NRC to revise the standards; Ronald Reagan as president removed the possibility of this venue of citizens right to action. To this day we are stuck with an obsolete standard and view of safe limits for human exposure. In reality there is no known safe limit or safe distants; we are 93.000,000 miles away from the Sun and people can still get radiation poisoning from our life giving star.

    • If there was a safe dose, 11 Bq from Cs wouldn’t even come close to delivering it. Also, I believe a paper will be presented to the NRC in the next couple of months suggesting a curve on which doses of radiation may cause beneficial effects. That said, the average individual is already exposed to 620 mRem annually. This is insignificant. Truly the most hazardous thing is a lack of information, and not understanding that the no safe levels is also a method of administrative protocol to encourage greater safety in all fields pertaining the use of radiation either medical, nuclear, or other.

  7. yEshUA ImmAnUEl * ben-'Adam | December 15, 2015 at 7:39 am |

    ”There is an old parable about a deep-sea fish that finds its way into a very small pond. When it gets to the pond, it strikes up a conversation with the pond fish. This pond fish has never left his pond before. The pond fish is very excited to have a new friend, and says to the ocean fish, “You wouldn’t believe how deep my pond is. Just watch as I swim to the bottom.”
    So the little fish dives proudly down to the bottom of the pond, and comes back up and says to the ocean fish, “Did you see how far I went?” And the ocean fish says, “That really was amazing, but do you know that where I come from it’s even deeper than that?” And the pond fish asks to hear more about the place the ocean fish comes from. The ocean fish says, ‘I can’t tell you any more, but someday I will take you there, and you will see for yourself.’ ”
    ”Occasionally throughout history, someone comes along and moves a religion from being a pond religion to an ocean religion. Someone comes onto the scene and blows the lid off the top of religion, reforming it, transforming it.”

    • Whenever there are explosive revelations about government/corporate crimes, blather like this appears in the comments to distract citizens.

      MODERATOR: Can we get these nonsense comments removed?

      • Nonsense such as what you just posted? I liked the parable and thought it was apt for the topic.

        • It was the least nonsensical of the three comments this spammer posted. The Moderator has removed the other two (thanks Moderator!).

          I disagree it was apt for the topic. It had the word “ocean” in it, but that’s the limit of its alleged relevance. This topic is about an emerging health threat to the U.S. and the world and has nothing to do with religion or expanding one’s frame of reference. You may be that spammer.

  8. it wont matter much longer jesus is comeing back and all this will be remade…..

  9. here are some photos of the cleanup – ssshhhhh

  10. Edgardo L. Perez-De Leon | December 16, 2015 at 9:48 am |

    Given the relationship of Wood Hole Oceanographic Institution with the US Navy I perceive that there is more radioactive contamination than reported.What was reported was for the value of the radioisotopes for the study of marine currents and their effects on the coasts,purely in the field of physical oceanography. Cynically the US Navy is taking advantage of the Fukoshma global disaster to study the North Pacific.

  11. That is just a dumb comment.

  12. Okay, what am I missing here? “This includes the highest detected level to date from a sample collected about 1,600 miles west of San Francisco. ” 1,600 miles west of San Francisco is out in the middle of the North Pacific Ocean! I would not consider that part of the West Coast of America.

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