Custom Search
Wall St. Journal: Plutonium levels 1,000 times normal on seafloor 50 miles from San Francisco — Expert Appalled: Major nuclear dump offshore is a threat to health — Around 50,000 containers of radioactive waste in globally significant ecosystem
ENENews
Wall St. Journal, Dec. 31, 2013:
- [There's] a major [nuclear] dump site [...] about 50 miles west of San Francisco [in] “a globally significant” ecosystem “that supports abundant wildlife and valuable fisheries.”
- [A]n estimated 47,000 containers lie at the site near San Francisco
- 2010 report from [NOAA] [...] called the waste site a “potentially significant resource threat.”
The ’91 Study
- [S]tudy found fish contamination and recommended follow-up research
- A spokeswoman for the California Department of Public Health said [...] researchers “didn’t find anything in the first survey.”
- “I would beg to differ,” Thomas Suchanek, the principal investigator and lead author of the 1991 study, said recently
- [P]lutonium in underwater sediment at the dump site was up to about 1,000 times normal background levels
- The study found americium, a radioactive decay product of plutonium, in some fish samples from the site as well as a comparison area about 60 miles away
- Regularly eating such contaminated fish, about a pound a week, could expose a person to up to 18.5 millirems [...] A chest X-ray typically gives about 2 to 10 millirems
More ‘Studying’
- A 2001 federal study of part of the Farallon dump site [off San Francisco] found indications of leakage from barrels
- Estimates of the radioactivity amounts in the containers “could be off as much as a factor of 10 [...] little is known of the fate of radioisotopes added to the sea.”
- [FDA] said that in 1990 it found traces of plutonium in fish samples from the site but at levels well within safety standards
- W. Jackson Davis, a now-retired professor of biological and environmental sciences at the University of California, Santa Cruz [...] [said] evidence showed environmental damage and health threats were already arising at the dump sites
- In a recent interview, Mr. Davis recalled that the more he learned about the subject, “the more appalled I became.”
- EPA and FDA would continue radiation sampling of commercial seafood purchased in cities, such as San Francisco and Boston, near dump sites
Interesting timing for the Journal to publish this article. See: Scientist: Leading edge of Fukushima plume is now showing up on West Coast -- Fish Market Owner: My customers have a lot of concerns about the nuclear contamination, they're very smart and educated... I didn’t expect this much concern (AUDIO)
Published: January 2nd, 2014 at 1:34 pm ETBy ENENews 247 comments |
