Fukushima: ‘Most important’ source of radioactive releases into Pacific at Fukushima is Reactor 2

Thread: Tokyo Bay cesium even higher than levels reported off Fukushima — Nearly entire sea floor contaminated by 2014 (VIDEO)

Thread: Asahi: Cesium levels spike in Fukushima primates — Radioactivity much higher in 2012 than in June 2011

Thread: Tokyo getting 5 times more radioactive fallout than prefectures closer to Fukushima

Thread: Fukushima radiation ‘underreported’ Metal boxes in monitors are blocking radioactivity — Hundreds of locations in multiple prefectures affected

Thread: Asahi: Gov’t worried about highly radioactive fish — Why are radiation readings still 100s of times over official safe limits?

Yahoo News: Cesium over 500,000 Bq/kg detected in canal soil nearby Fukushima gov’t offices

515,000 becquerels per kilogram of cesium was measured from the soil of an irrigation channel in Fukushima city [60km from Daiichi].

It’s Watari area, where is 2km South East of Fukushima prefectural government office.

The measurement was conducted by a citizen’s organization on 10/14/2012.

[link to headlines.yahoo.co.jp]

[link to fukushima-diary.com]

[link to enenews.com]

Nuclear Engineer: To me it means Tepco knows about a rip in spent fuel pool liner at Fukushima Unit 3 (VIDEO)

Chris Harris, former licensed Senior Reactor Operator and engineer: One of the Tepco releases that really intrigued me was that there is something called ‘curing material’.

Now that means, to me it means they know about a tear or a rip in the spent fuel pool liner.

And they don’t come out and say — a lot of this stuff you have to read between the lines — there’s something called ‘curing material’ [...] what it means to me is they tried to repair with some sort of epoxy and something that needs to cure or cure time on it before they can proceed. Which means that water’s actually being held in not by the stainless steel liner, but by the concrete structure around, that’s not really a great situation to be in.

They didn’t come flat out and say it but I’m going to stick my neck out and say if they’re trying to seal up cracks and everything else, that’s how I would do it too. And so that’s happening now, we’ll see where that comes and I’ll stay on top of it.

[link to podcast.no] link for you/podcast/nutri_med/pcast.php

[link to enenews.com]

Japan Experts: Contamination from Fukushima “is almost irreversible” in coastal sediments

[...] it can be inferred that dissolved radiocesium advected southward from the region adjacent to the 1FNPP and was deposited to the sediment of the study area in the early stage after the accident. The incorporation of radiocesium into sediments was almost irreversible, and higher concentrations of 137Cs were obtained from the finer-grained fraction of sediments. [...]

137Cs levels in sediment decreased considerably between June and August, and then remained at the same level until January 2012. This trend indicates that the initial deposition of 137Cs to the sediment had almost ceased by August, and that the incorporation of 137Cs into sediments was almost irreversible. [...]

In conclusion [...] it can also be inferred that the remarkable decrease in 137Cs level between June and August 2011 (Table 3) was not caused by dissolution of labile 137Cs but by a physical transport (export) of irreversibly bound 137Cs.

[...] Most of radiocesium in the coastal sediments is incorporated into lithogenic fractions, and this incorporation is almost irreversible. Accordingly, the biological availability of sedimentary radiocesium is relatively low, but continuous monitoring of radiocesium inmarine biota is highly recommended because significant amounts of radiocesium have been accumulated in the sediment.

[link to www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov]

[link to enenews.com]

Thread: Japan Times: Time bomb in Tokyo metropolitan area — Experts warn of accumulating Fukushima contamination

Nuclear Expert Arnie Gundersen, Fairewinds Energy Education: Our readers may remember when I came back from Tokyo back in February, I had 5 samples of dirt that I had taken just randomly around the city. They were all over 7,000 disintegrations per second in a two pound bag (Bq/kg). What that told me was that the releases from the accident were really severe even as far away as Tokyo. And I said then that if this were contaminated ground at a nuclear power plant it would have to be considered as nuclear waste. Well, we took a lot flack for that on the Fairewinds site, but we were right on the mark.

What happened just last week was that in a suburb of Tokyo another sample was taken by citizens and they brought it to the attention of the government that then sampled it. But basically they had a hot spot that was in excess of 10,000 disintegrations per second per kilogram of their sample. So here we are 9 months after I took my samples and citizens are still finding hot spots all over the Tokyo area. I think it speaks to one, the magnitude of the initial release. This was a serious release, not just for Fukushima Prefecture but for Tokyo and its suburbs as well. [...]

So if Tokyo could be highly contaminated to the point where its soil should be shipped to a nuclear waste dump [...] if Tokyo can have soil so hot that it should be shipped to a radioactive dump, what might happen to our nation’s capitol, the biggest city in the United States, or to L.A. in the event of a nuclear accident? We’re really not prepared. Our policy makers at the NRC have not even envisioned that as a possibility.

[link to www.fairewinds.com]

[link to enenews.com]

Ken Buesseler, Sr. Scientist in Marine Chemistry and Geochemistry at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute: “There has to be a source. And they’re cooling those reactors quite extensively, some of that water’s getting back into the ocean, either actively being pumped out after some decontamination or through leaks in the buildings, they’re not able to contain all of the water that they use to cool.”

But plant operator Tepco denies the claim and the Japanese ministry responsible for radiation sampling across Japan said they are excluding that possibility from their inquiries at the moment.

[link to enenews.com]