Got Milk ??? Low levels of radiation found in West Coast milk

By MARY CLARE JALONICK Associated Press

Low levels of radiation have turned up in milk samples from two West Coast states.
 
Traces of radioactive Iodine-131 were found in milk in California and Washington, according to federal and state authorities who are monitoring for contamination as the nuclear crisis unfolds in Japan. But the officials say the levels are still 5,000 times below levels of concern and do not represent a public health threat.
 
The Environmental Protection Agency and the Food and Drug Administration said Wednesday that radiation was found in a March 25 milk sample from Spokane, Wash. The California Department of Public Health said on its website that a similar result was found March 28 in San Luis Obispo County.
 
The EPA always monitors radiation levels in the air at several sites throughout the country, but the agency said this week that it is increasing the level of nationwide monitoring of milk, precipitation and drinking water in response to the situation in Japan. Those substances are normally monitored for radiation only a few times a year.
 
EPA spokesman Brendan Gilfillan said the radiation detected in Spokane is different than what is normally found there.
 
"While there can be naturally occurring levels of radiation in milk _ as there are in the air, at levels far below levels of concern _ we don't generally see this particular isotope as part of those background levels," Gilfillan said.
 
The EPA has found very low levels of radiation in the air connected to the Japanese incident in Alaska, Alabama, California, Hawaii, Idaho, Nevada, Saipan, Guam, Northern Mariana Islands and Washington state. Gilfillan said the low level of radiation most likely ended up in the milk after a cow ate grass or drank rainwater that contained it.
 
The FDA, which oversees the safety of the nation's food supply, said such findings were to be expected in the coming days because of problems with the nuclear plant in Japan, and that the levels were expected to drop relatively quickly. Japan's Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power complex began leaking radiation after it was damaged by a devastating earthquake and tsunami earlier this month.
 
"Radiation is all around us in our daily lives, and these findings are a minuscule amount compared to what people experience every day," said Patricia Hansen, senior scientist at the FDA. "A person would be exposed to low levels of radiation on a round-trip cross-country flight, watching television, and even from construction materials."
 
The United States had already halted imports of dairy products and produce from the affected area of Japan. Other foods imported from Japan, including seafood, are still being sold to the public but are screened first for radiation.
 
Japanese foods make up less than 4 percent of all U.S. imports. The FDA has said it expected no risk to the U.S. food supply from radiation. 

Japanese Radiation Spread Across U.S.

AP/TEPCO

In this photo released on March 16, 2011, by Tokyo Electric Power Co., the top part of the badly damaged No. 4 unit of the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant, is shown.

WASHINGTON –  Traces of radioactive material from the endangered Japanese nuclear plant are being detected from coast to coast in the United States and in Iceland, but amounts continue to be far below levels that would cause health problems.

The development of super-sensitive equipment to detect radiation is both a blessing and a curse, allowing scientists to monitor materials released in nuclear accidents, but also causing unnecessary worry, said Kathryn Higley, director of the nuclear engineering and radiation health physics at Oregon State University.

Traces of radioactive cesium and iodine are being reported from Nevada to Vermont, South Carolina to Massachusetts, thanks to equipment that Higley says can detect material "many orders of magnitude below what would be hazardous."

The traces of radiation outside of Japan are "absolutely of no concern," added Ahmed Hassanein, head of nuclear engineering at the Purdue School of Nuclear Engineering.

Curiously, one spot where extremely small amounts of the radioactive isotopes were detected was Las Vegas' Atomic Testing Museum, about 65 miles from the desert site where the United States tested atomic bombs in the 1950s

Ted Hartwell, manager of environmental monitoring at the Desert Research Institute, said he's certain the isotopes came from Japan because they're not usually detected in Nevada. But he said the readings were far below levels that could pose any health risks.

Gerhard Wotawa of Austria's Central Institute for Meteorology and Geodynamics, said the amounts of radiation detected so far were a fraction of what people are normally exposed to, adding that doctors, pilots and others are often confronted with much higher concentrations.

He also said that several types of material flung into the air at the Chernobyl plant 25 years ago are not turning up in the aftermath of the Fukushima accident because there has been no explosion to propel these heavier elements in the atmosphere.

Graham Andrew, a senior aide to International Atomic Energy Agency chief Yukiya Amano, said it was too early to compare Chernobyl and Fukushima, but also suggested that to some degree the two accidents are like comparing apples and oranges.

"In the case of Chernobyl there was a large graphite fire that lifted radioactivity to high altitudes and spread it over large distances," he said. "To the best of my knowledge, there has not been that process in the case of Fukushima."

Highly sensitive equipment to detect radiation was first developed to make sure countries were observing the nuclear test ban treaty, Higley explained, and more recently there has been a focus on preventing terrorism.

In addition, she noted, iodine-131 is often used in medical treatments, meaning it may be released around manufacturing plants and also in wastewater from hospitals where people undergo treatment. Indeed, she noted, radiation detectors are scattered around her university and at others where researchers work with radioactive isotopes.

Recent increases in levels of iodine and cesium are being attributed to the Japan release because of the timing and tracking of winds from the region. Southern utility companies on Monday said air monitors at power plants in Florida and South Carolina had detected iodine-131, which they concluded was coming from Japan.

Unlike Chernobyl when the isotopes were blasted high into the stratosphere where it could spread quickly, the radiation from Japan has remained in the lower atmosphere, noted Ross J. Salawitch, a University of Maryland researcher who has been tracking the plume from Japan.

Jeffrey Stehr, an atmospheric research scientist at the University of Maryland, said that while the radiation from Japan has been widely detected, it could take as much as a year to spread throughout the Northern Hemisphere. It could take another year before it is widespread in the Southern Hemisphere because of blocking at the equator caused by rising air currents where winds from north and south collide.

While memories of the Chernobyl disaster in what is now Ukraine have raised concerns, the amounts of radioactive material released in Japan have been much less than at that event., said William H. Miller, a professor at the University of Missouri Research Reactor.

As much as 5 percent of the core at Chernobyl went directly into the atmosphere, Miller explained, while that has not occurred at Fukushima.

"This is not anywhere close to Chernobyl," said Miller.

In its study of Chernobyl, the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation noted that in that disaster large quantities of radioactive substances were released into the air for about 10 days as the reactor burned.

"The radioactive cloud dispersed over the entire Northern Hemisphere, and deposited substantial amounts of radioactive material over large areas of the former Soviet Union and some other countries in Europe," contaminating land and water, the report said.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/us/2011/03/28/threat-japanese-radiation-spread/#ixzz1HxzTefuR.

Doctors/Nurses Risk All, Stay With Patients in Japan's "No Go Zone."

Water Spraying Fails, Radiation High at Reactor Buildings

As of Thursday night Japan time, it appears that delivery of water from helicopters and the ground has been ineffective, radiation rates are still high around the reactor buildings, installation of an electric supply to run coolant pumps is delayed until Friday at the earliest, the US is organizing evacuation flights and China is calling for more information from the Japanese government.

The Guardian reports on the ineffective aerial and ground water delivery:

Attempts to cool down a stricken reactor at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant in Japan have suffered a further setback with radiation levels rising rather than falling after attempts to douse it with high-pressure hoses.

Six fire engines and a police water cannon were sent in on Thursday evening to spray the plant’s No 3 reactor. But afterwards radiation emissions rose from 3,700 microsieverts per hour to 4,000 per hour, the Kyodo news agency quoted Tokyo Electric Power (Tepco) as saying.

Part of the futility of this approach was explained a bit later in the article:

Each helicopter can carry 7.5 tonnes of water per load but the pools each hold 2,000 tonnes, an expert has told public broadcaster NHK.

In addition, NHK is reporting that 30 tonnes of water were sprayed in the aborted attempt, so it is clear that this route provides an insignificant amount of water compared to what is required for the spent fuel storage pools alone, not to mention what is needed for the reactors, as well.

Forbes reports on how the extremely high radiation levels around the reactor buildings has forced TEPCO to bring in additional workers as many of the current workers have reached the maximum permissible radiation dose for a year:

More workers were drafted for the frontline of Japan’s biggest nuclear disaster as radiation limits forced Tokyo Electric Power Co. to replace members of its original team trying to avert a nuclear meltdown.

The utility increased its workforce at the Fukushima Dai- Ichi plant to 322 today from 180 yesterday as it tried to douse water over exposed nuclear fuel rods to prevent melting and leaking lethal radiation. Levels beside the exposed rods would deliver a fatal dose in 16 seconds, said David Lochbaum, a nuclear physicist for the Union of Concerned Scientists and a former U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission safety instructor.

As mentioned in the water story above, these extremely high exposure rates around the reactor buildings are what forced the aerial water drop and ground spraying attempts to be aborted.   These same rates are now responsible for TEPCO having to rotate through plant workers very quickly.

Multiple sources have been reporting that TEPCO also is attempting to provide a high voltage electrical line to the Fukushima Daiichi plant from the outside power grid, but NHK television now is reporting that those connections will not be complete before Friday at the earliest. Also, multiple sources point out that there will be some time required for the coolant pumps to be put back into service before they can be effective in supplying cooling water to the reactor cores and spent fuel pools.

Meanwhile, the US, while not advocating that US citizens leave Japan, is making arrangements for those who wish to leave Japan to do so:

After reports that some spent fuel rods at Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant may now be completely dry, the US embassy on Thursday urged American citizens within 50 miles of the threatened plant to relocate and announced it would help US citizens evacuate the country by plane.

“The Department of State has authorized the voluntary departure, including relocation to safe areas within Japan, for family members and dependents of US Government officials who wish to leave northeast Japan. The US Government is also working to facilitate the departure of private American citizens from the affected areas – that is a 50-mile radius of the reactor,” announced US Under Secretary of State Patrick Kennedy.

The poor quality of information coming from TEPCO and the Japanese government has frustrated China:

China on Thursday urged Japan to provide prompt, precise information about its nuclear crisis in a bid to control a flurry of rumors sweeping the region about possible dangers

/snip/

The Foreign Ministry called on Japan to provide information swiftly.

“We hope the Japanese side will release information to the public in a timely and precise manner as well as its evaluation and prediction of the situation,” ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu told a regular briefing, when asked about the panic buying. She added, “I do not see any necessity to panic.”

For those who wish to monitor NHK’s English broadcast, it can be seen here.

The poor quality of information is leading to rumors swirling in China, with panic-buying of iodized salt stripping supplies in Bejing and other parts of China.

We will continue to monitor developments and provide updates as events dictate.

U.S. Naval Commander: "Presidential Order--Evacuate Our People."

Jerusalem Post: Radiation Confirmed Leaking From Japan Nuke Plant

Jerusalem_Post: Japan confirms explosion, leakage at nuclear plant: Chief Cabinet secretary says "we are looking into cause" of ... http://bit.ly/gxQJsT