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University of Alaska Scientists: Fukushima Radiation May Be Making Alaska Seals Sick
Zero Hedge ^ | January 26, 2014

Posted on 01/25/2014 11:50:54 PM PST by Zakeet

Preface: Leading Scientist On Fukushima Radiation Hitting West Coast of North America: “No One Is Measuring So Therefore We Should Be Alarmed

American sailors on the USS Reagan got really sick after having snowball fights with radioactive snow blowing off of the coasts of Fukushima.

University of Alaska professors Doug Dasher, John Kelley, Gay Sheffield, and Raphaela Stimmelmayr theorize that radioactive snow might have also caused Alaska’s seals to become sick (page 222):

On March 11, 2011 off Japan’s west coast, an earthquake-generated tsunami struck the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant resulting in a major nuclear accident that included a large release of airborne radionuclides into the environment. Within five days of the accident atmospheric air masses carrying Fukushima radiation were transiting into the northern Bering and Chukchi seas. During summer 2011 it became evident to coastal communities and wildlife management agencies that there was a novel disease outbreak occurring in several species of Arctic ice-associated seals. Gross symptoms associated with the disease included lethargy, no new hair growth, and skin lesions, with the majority of the outbreak reports occurring between the Nome and Barrow region. NOAA and USFWS declared an Alaska Northern Pinnipeds Usual Mortality Event (UME) in late winter of 2011. The ongoing Alaska 2011 Northern Pinnipeds UME investigation continues to explore a mix of potential etiologies (infectious, endocrine, toxins, nutritious etc.), including radioactivity. Currently, the underlying etiology remains undetermined [i.e. scientists don't yet know what caused the seals' sickness, but they think it might have been Fukushima radiation]. We present results on gamma analysis (cesium 134 and 137) of muscle tissue from control and diseased seals, and discuss wildlife health implications from different possible routes of exposure to Fukushima fallout to ice seals. Since the Fukushima fallout period occurred during the annual sea ice cover period from Nome to Barrow, a sea ice based fallout scenario in addition to a marine food web based one is of particular relevance for the Fukushima accident. Under a proposed sea ice fallout deposition scenario, radionuclides would have been settled onto sea ice. Sea ice and snow would have acted as a temporary refuge for deposited radionuclides; thus radionuclides would have only become available for migration during the melting season and would not have entered the regional food web in any appreciable manner until breakup (pulsed release). The cumulative on-ice exposure for ice seals would have occurred through external, inhalation, and non-equilibrium dietary pathways during the ice-based seasonal spring haulout period for molting/pupping/breeding activities. Additionally, ice seals would have been under dietary/metabolic constraints and experiencing hormonal changes associated with reproduction and molting.

Here are some pictures of the sick seals:

Many other West Coast animals have gotten sick. Scientists need to get to the bottom of what is making them sick, whether it’s radiation or something else.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Japan; News/Current Events; US: Alaska
KEYWORDS: alaska; environment; fukushima; fukushimaradiation; japan
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To: PreciousLiberty

It is estimated that there are 180 + quintillion gallons of water in the pacific ocean. Just for chuckles and giggles, let’s say an Olympic size pool holds 684,000 gallons of water.

2 billion gallons of water would be about 1500 swimming pools. In the big picture and using Rush’s estimates for the gulf oil spill, this would be the equivalent of less than 1 drop of an eye dropper of ink in a full bathtub.

Note: This is not intended as a math lesson as the numbers are just estimates to show the sheer size of the ocean.


21 posted on 01/26/2014 6:27:21 AM PST by EQAndyBuzz ("The GOP fights its own base with far more vigor than it employs in fighting the Dims.")
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To: bgill

“It is the continual leakage that the naysayers refuse to consider. With a bomb, it’s a one time thing and X days to half life. With this, it’s 24/7/365 for nearly 3 years and no end in sight.”

You missed a few inconvenient facts:

1) The nuclear testing occurred over a period of twelve years. So there was a good bit of replenishment going on...

2) The half-life of iodine-131 is almost exactly eight days. There is extremely little new I-131 being produced at Fukushima, so it is a non-concern at this point - making the frenzy surrounding potassium pill sales very amusing! Ignorance, the gift that keeps on giving. :-)

3) Caesium-137 has a half life of just over 30 years. So, even 30 years after the testing, fully half of the Cs-137 fallout was still in the ocean. Today, around one-quarter of it is still in the ocean (although like much of the Fukushima waste, harmlessly sitting on the bottom in deep water).

I hope this cleared a few things up for you.


22 posted on 01/26/2014 6:47:45 AM PST by PreciousLiberty
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To: norwaypinesavage

I know. They are safe. And they are clean... Until they get hit with a tsunami because they get built, by, wreckless, secretive, bold people, on a fault line and the get rocked by an earthquake, and something like that always happens, then its not just a secretary out with the drunk boss,

We’ll never know how many have been killed there, they don’t pride themselves in disclosure like we do.
But I think they’ve figured out not to build on a fault line. I suspect they’ve had enough of nukes


23 posted on 01/26/2014 7:12:06 AM PST by stanne
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To: ansel12

Great you don’t know the story but you have an opinion

When nukes have been around as long as oil rigging and coalining, you can talk about your point

The Japanese haven’t destroyed their image. This is what they do, how they handle things

A bunch of men got together and said, lets do this its safe safe safe safe safe

And it now is as predicted by some unheard in heeded voices who are now haunting them, leaking radioactivity into
The environment and it has just begun.

And they might have to have to break protocol, and start talking, because nuks cannot be contained just within the country, maybe not

They wanted to build one of these things on the end of Long Island. The housewives wanted to know what kind of an evacuation plan they were considering That was back in the seventies

These women are not tree huggers, and they are not secretive and demure like the Japanese women. They ARE sick of having the highest breast cancer rate by far of any other region, and rather untrusting. In my sisters group of 50 yr old friends six of them have it. That’s after most of them burying half their mothers from it

Anyway, going along for a moment with the idea, they listened to evacuation plans, in case of a meltdown or even less, the engineers agreed to admit this was the very slightest of remote possibilities, and they got some team to explain, to people who have travelled the LIE (expressway) on thanksgiving, how they would get everyone off the now permanently uninhabitable island 3,500,000 people in good time

No sale

Only 74% protested, just to illustrate the high percentage that say its worth the risk of displacing this’s my plus the 11 million in the city

That debate happened while Harrisburg and Chernobyl were going on

But 2,000,000 long islanders are wrong, it’s safe- until something happens


24 posted on 01/26/2014 7:39:11 AM PST by stanne
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To: angcat; LesbianThespianGymnasticMidget
You like that BP Oil taste. :)

...complemented with that of Corexit...

25 posted on 01/26/2014 7:45:30 AM PST by logi_cal869
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To: Kozak

I know it is very safe. People are hysterical. It is safe.

Safe safe safe.

Of course, the Japanese, the tech savvy Japanese won’t be building anything else too soon. If we ever find out what’s going on there we’ll have better data

A lot of us know how it works guys get together with some meat technology and they buy the salesmans rap it’s safe clean bla bla don’t listen to your hysterical wives on this. And then a disaster happens and, depending on the country but overall, no one talks. But the wives were right. Well a lot of wives will put up with this fooling around but the wise ones, the jaded ones who’ve been lied to for eras, about things they can see, they say no

After Fukushima, I can guarantee the Long Islanders are glad they don’t have to worry it won’t happen in their backyard wisdom prevails

And they are NOT tree huggers.


26 posted on 01/26/2014 7:47:32 AM PST by stanne
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To: Zakeet

And how much sense does it make to build the damn things on top of or close to earthquake fault lines? They were just begging for something like this to happen. And when, not if, another major quake and/or tsunami hits those crippled reactors, heaven help the entire planet.


27 posted on 01/26/2014 8:00:49 AM PST by chessplayer
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To: norwaypinesavage
Spoken like a true alarmist kook. If we chose to be alarmed by everything that wasn't being measured, we would spend our entire lives in sheer panic.

And one wonders why we have a national health crisis over cholesterol...let alone 'Anthropogenic Global Warming'.

We're only served the data that benefits others, skewed or otherwise. When data 'is willingly not collected', I, for one, get suspicious.

...spend our entire lives in sheer panic

If due-diligence & 'preparedness' equate to 'sheer panic', then those that agree with that thinking don't have any plans but to be pure-reactionary & rely on government when there's a regional emergency (tsunami, earthquake, wildfire, hurricane, tornado, etc.). That means eliminating seismographs, tsunami warning systems, weather radar...on & on...

I'll let someone else define that...

28 posted on 01/26/2014 8:01:15 AM PST by logi_cal869
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To: Viktor1959

Well he can have our Tuna. We quit eating any kind of seafood a week after the accident. Better safe than sorry.


29 posted on 01/26/2014 8:04:49 AM PST by Georgia Girl 2 (The only purpose of a pistol is to fight your way back to the rifle you should never have dropped.)
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To: stanne

“But I think they’ve figured out not to build on a fault line.”

I don’t know if the plant is “on a fault line” or not, but earthquake damage had nothing to do with the problems there. What caused them was the tsunami, which knocked out power used to circulate coolant.

There were backup generators, but the real failure in planning was not storing them in watertight bunkers. If that simple precaution had been taken, there would have been no release of radioactive material.

Even then, backup generators were brought in before things went south - sadly the connectors on those generators weren’t the right type. The rest is history.

“I suspect they’ve had enough of nukes”

Perhaps. Japan is of course extra sensitive about nuclear, as the only country ever to get hit by nuclear weapons in anger.

Looking forward though, nuclear power is an extremely important strategic capability. Perhaps LENR will pan out, but if not it’s critical that the US lead on nuclear power. The Chinese are investing heavily.

BTW, thorium based nuclear power has many advantages over U/Pu generated power. There’s a great deal of research going into it at the present time.

One last fact for you - of the powers that possess nuclear weapons, the US is the only one that presently cannot produce new plutonium “pits” - the key component to making nuclear weapons.


30 posted on 01/26/2014 9:17:04 AM PST by PreciousLiberty
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To: PreciousLiberty

They are safe. anyone who says they’re not is a loon. And let’s bring up Hiroshima and Nagasaki, just for aggression.

I will say, I have noticed, since the late 1970s when Long Island Lighting Company demanded the same trust of the locals that you demand of all American nuclear plant constructors, their supporters and all those who say nuclear power is safe, that there is an aggression and a condescending tone. Rush takes it on. All the Long Island boys who supported it (and lost handily) I remember them. Very nasty and aggressive, like you.

In fact watch this argument go on for days, with a nastier tone.

Meanwhile, Shoreham Nuke plant sits vacant. No one was able to win over the protectors of that region with their bullying.

Those housewives were content to put up with aggressive bullies, if it meant they would never have to worry about the incompetence of the people they’d worked with for generations and know how far they could be trusted to not cut corners.

so, you really ought to save your effort.


31 posted on 01/26/2014 10:53:34 AM PST by stanne
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To: PreciousLiberty

I know how these discussions go, and I imagine you’ll say you have different info than today’s issue of the Telegraph, but you’ll only solidify the decades old argument that pride, arrogance and condescension are no match for the corruption, money, and corner cutting that rules in constructing these plants.

BTW, they can’t even get in it to investigate, two years later. Death toll?

Telegraph.co.uk

Sunday 26 January 2014

Japan

Japanese nuclear plant ‘sitting on active fault line’

The operator of Japan’s Tsuruga nuclear power plant may be ordered to decommission the facility after seismologists confirmed that it sits directly atop an active fault line.

The operator of Japan’s Tsuruga nuclear power plant may be ordered to decommission the facility after seismologists confirmed that it sits directly atop an active fault line.

The Tsuruga nuclear power plant 200 miles west of Tokyo Photo: AP

By Julian Ryall in Tokyo

6:12AM GMT 11 Dec 2012

If regulatory authorities do order Japan Atomic Power Co. to shut down the plant, it would be the first permanent closure of a nuclear facility since the Fukushima power plant was crippled by a tsunami triggered by last year’s magnitude-9 earthquake.

Tuesday marked 21 months to the day since the second-worst nuclear accident in history, with emergency teams still attempting to limit the damage caused by radiation leaks from four of the Fukushima plant’s reactors.

The disaster prompted a closer inspection of the nation’s nuclear facilities, with the Nuclear Regulation Authority confirming on Monday that an active fault is below the No. 2 reactor at the plant, in the central Japan prefecture of Fukui.

The No. 1 reactor at Tsuruga is the oldest commercial reactor in Japan and Japan Atomic Power Co. had announced planned to construct two new reactors at the site, before the Fukushima disaster.

Announcing the findings of the NRA’s research, Shunichi Tanaka, chairman of the NRA, said, “We cannot conduct safety checks for the Tsuruga reactors to restart at this point.”


32 posted on 01/26/2014 11:06:30 AM PST by stanne
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To: Zakeet

Quick throw money into the water to soak up the radiation then plant some trees.


33 posted on 01/26/2014 1:46:18 PM PST by Mike Darancette (Do The Math)
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To: stanne

We know what does kill, and it kills a lot of us, nuclear is safer.

I don’t know what the Japanese are doing, but it is sure ruining their image.


34 posted on 01/26/2014 2:01:29 PM PST by ansel12 (Ben Bradlee -- JFK told me that "he was all for people's solving their problems by abortion".)
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To: norwaypinesavage; stanne
As it has been said before, more people have died in the passenger seat of Ted Kennedy's Oldsmobile than in all of the nuclear releases from US powerplants in the history of nuclear power.

After I got out of the Army in the early 1970s, I lived close to and worked around some of the fossil fuel industry, death and destruction was pretty frequent.

I would like to see the fossil fuel death count, for the last 60 years.
We know that the left hates the environmental damage of not using nuclear (LA for instance), and the health effects on the public at large, but I have never seen the death figures for the public health problems and the industry workers compared to the nuclear industry and contamination, I would like to see the death comparisons for the French as well.

France has 59 plants and it produces 75% of their electricity.

35 posted on 01/26/2014 2:26:33 PM PST by ansel12 (Ben Bradlee -- JFK told me that "he was all for people's solving their problems by abortion".)
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To: ansel12

It is clean and it is good as long as there’s not a major compromise, and when there is, it is devastating. I don’t expect, after all these years of encountering the nastiness and the denial I have encountered to change anyone’s mind, and not your mind either. I do ask you to notice I am not entitled to my opinion on this.


36 posted on 01/26/2014 2:43:46 PM PST by stanne
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To: ansel12

THe Japanese image? come on. You didn’t know they were secretive, that they take chances, and that they ignore their women?

Here’s our image:

From Blooomberg, today:

Bridge Engineers Say California Ordered Flaws Overlooked

By James Nash Jan 24, 2014 11:01 PM CT 12 Comments E

In their haste to finish the $6.4 billion eastern span of the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge, California officials ordered engineers to overlook cracked welds and other flaws and to avoid documenting problems, two former workers told a state Senate committee yesterday.

“There was tremendous pressure not to stop during the procedure because of the race for time,” said Douglas Coe, a 25-year veteran of the California Department of Transportation, known as Caltrans, who was removed from the project in November 2009.

The eastern section of the bridge, which carries 270,000 vehicles each weekday, partly collapsed in the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake. By the time it reopened in September, it was California’s most expensive public-works project ever, running almost $5 billion over budget and more than six years behind schedule.

Malcolm Dougherty, the Caltrans director, told the state Senate’s transportation and housing committee that project managers didn’t cut corners to speed up the work.

“The quality assurance on this project, in my opinion, exceeded the norms, not fell short,” Dougherty said. “It is safe. Quality is not compromised.”

James Merrill, then a senior engineer with the quality assurance company Mactec, told Senate investigators that his complaints about work done at Shanghai Zhenhua Heavy Industry Co. Ltd. (900947), known as ZPMC and based in Shanghai, were rebuffed by Caltrans managers as “too rigorous,” according to a Senate committee report released Jan. 22.


37 posted on 01/26/2014 2:47:04 PM PST by stanne
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To: stanne

Lol, you are one hopped up guy, now you are posting articles about a bridge.


38 posted on 01/26/2014 3:05:43 PM PST by ansel12 (Ben Bradlee -- JFK told me that "he was all for people's solving their problems by abortion".)
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To: ansel12

This is the quality of construction we can expect.


39 posted on 01/26/2014 3:09:23 PM PST by stanne
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To: logi_cal869

It isn’t bad to be honest. Just adds a tad to the natural oil seep taste. ( google natural oil seep ). A tiny extra tang. Just tiny.

Way better than the zing you get from cesium. That zing is too much for my delicate constitution.


40 posted on 01/26/2014 5:24:16 PM PST by LesbianThespianGymnasticMidget (God punishes Conservatives by making them argue with fools.)
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