Japan's ocean radiation hits 7.5 million times legal limit

[Zebedeo]

latimes

On edit: The LA Times changed the headline to: "Japan nuclear plant operator reports some success on leak" instead of "Japan's ocean radiation hits 7.5 million times legal limit" but the article still contains the following sentence: "Tokyo Electric Power Co. had said Tuesday that it had found iodine-131 at 7.5 million times the legal limit in a seawater sample taken near the facility, and government officials instituted a health limit for radioactivity in fish."

[CanonRay]

1. Where's the "no harm to human health" standard denial line?

It's always in there, no matter how bad the numbers. Because remember kids! Nuclear power is safe, clean, and efficient!

[jimlup]

3. Note the two standard unrecs...

From me :kick: and rec

[Zebedeo]

11. I love sushi

I guess I will be taking it easy on the sushi eating for a while, though.

[seabeyond]

2. i just dont want to eat ocean fish, anymore. so sad, .... all the mess we have created

in such a small time, in all the different ways.

[freshwest]

7. Perhaps adopting a vegetarian lifestyle will be in the best interest of the ecosystem.

But I never suggest to anyone what they should do it as that would be telling them what to do with their own bodies.

People make their own choices and live with the consequences.

This is going to be a blow to the people who make a living fishing, if it ends up worse case scenario, huge fish die off, etc.

[Urban Prairie]

4. Stopping the leaks is definitely a priority

And it appears that they have apparently have stopped one problem leak using "liquid glass" injected into a hole dug into a layer of stone below a cement trench next to the #2 reactor, but the primary and most problematic issue is of course, the continued intake and storage of much if not most of the highly radioactive runoff water from cooling the reactors, and this remains unanswered. What types of containers have and will TEPCO use(d) to store the excess runoff? Where will all of the containers be located? How much volume is their total capacity? Will the containers have any shielding? Will they obtain more containers? Will they use empty ocean tankers or barges? What ships "crews" would be willing to pilot or tow a tanker or barge filled with highly radioactive wastewater? Where would they be permitted to go with them?

If TEPCO stores the tons of accumulating radioactive runoff onsite, or more "practically" reuses it to spray onto the crippled reactors, much of the entire Fukushima Daiichi plant area as well as the equipment being used and reused, would, IMO, gradually and inevitably become increasingly and much more highly radioactive, and perhaps greatly interfere with and/or further endanger the health of the workers that are trying to stabilize and cool the reactors, since doing so may take many more months at the very least.

[freshwest]

6. That sounds better, but why did they dump tons of radioactive water into the ocean, then?

At least they are doing all they can, obviously there is nothing to be done about all the pollution created by this.

[Raschel]

9. Three million gallons.

Getting rid of that pooling water has vexed TEPCO; it has ordered a floating storage facility and is also requesting a vessel that decontaminates water from Russia.

With those solutions not available for some time, the utility decided to take a drastic measure Monday: pumping 3 million gallons of less contaminated water into the sea to make room in a warehouse for the more highly radioactive water.



Read more: http://www.newsobserver.com/2011/04/05/1106182/japan-sets-first-radiation-standard.html#ixzz1Il815QuF

[freshwest]

10. Is there any technology to slow the energetic problem of radioactive material?

Does the process decontamination only mean cleansing one area and transfering the contamination to another area?

Still sounds irresponsible to not address this contigency at the get go on the level of physics. That's why many people want to eliminate pollution at its source. Yes, it would involve leaving technology behind that is simply not the best, for the future good.

We should not make a mess from a faith based perspective, counting on time, money or people and creatures of lesser concern to fix it for us. If we can't figure out to do it clean, don't make the mess in the first place. Slowing down and thinking, not driven by the fear of loss of something. because that creates disasters.

The nuclear power industry has been tarred with the effects on uranium miners and the surrounding environment and the use of its inevitable byproducts by the MIC for weaponry. It's the smiley face sticker on the war machine, trying to make atomic bombs seem to be just a part of the way things should be done. It's part of a crude and destructive industrial age being rejected now.

Air, water, food and shelter are what the human race needs to live, and they should be our top priority. From them, all other things are created, but we have taken them for granted. Westerners got busy chasing shiny new things and forgot the ancient lessons the native peoples tried to impart. Guess we'll learn the hard way, as usual.

Thanks for your comment.

[Raschel]

8. Great post. Although they have stopped the leak they are still pumping water into the ocean.

I think I read it on Huffpost. I can't look for the link right now.

[freshwest]

5. This is the source for the baffling numbers. So the fish (or whoever eats them) will die or mutate?

Apparently, science and industry have no solution. They have exhausted their bag of tricks. They aren't putting their blurbs out about how manageable the risk was and they can handle it, if only the hysterical hippies would shut up and get out of the way of the clean up.

Sounds like a long term disaster that will affect everything and everyone who lives around the Pacific and we might as well get used to it. Perhaps the local effects will not translate to the entire ocean, more colossal numbers of the volume of water being the mitigating factor. The UK Mail has a good overall article with many pictures on the events from the earthquake(s), tsunami and even one at the moment of the explosion at Fukushima.

On a more unstandable level, Youtube has an AJ video with the Japanese saying some of their best farmland, their version of the country breadbasket, will be unusable for over ten years. That will be from the sea water and toxic waste from other industries alone. The Japanese described how people were getting sick trying to clean that up. Their irrigation systems and other infrastructure which had taken years to create for agriculture were all destroyed. All of that sans the radiation.

What can be done practically speaking? I've accepted that this is going to go on for years, if not the rest of our lives.