Global scientists plan Vancouver Fukushima session

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      The lack of available information about Fukushima-associated radiation risks in the Pacific Ocean and for North America’s Pacific Northwest region has caught the attention of a prestigious group of international scientists.

      The Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry (SETAC)—which represents about 5,500 chemists, biologists, and toxicologists from more than 100 countries—is hosting a session on Fukushima’s continuing radioactive legacy during its 35th annual North American meeting, to be held in Vancouver this fall.

      The rationale behind the session—according to an April 25 release from SFU faculty of environment adjunct professor and session cochair Juan Jose Alava—is to “stress the need to conduct lines of research and monitoring aimed to understand baseline data and bioaccumulation potential of radionuclides and radiation risks in the region” since the March 2011 nuclear-reactor-meltdown disaster in Japan.

      This urgency came about as a result of “the lack of knowledge and data from regional governments regarding potential risks of Fukushima-associated radiation in the Pacific Northwest and Pacific Ocean”.

      According to SETAC’s website, as many as 2,500 members are expected to attend up to 1,900 presentations during the five-day convention, which will take place from November 9 to 13.

      The society issued a general invitation to members to submit abstracts to the session, entitled “The Fukushima Legacy: Monitoring and Assessing Risks of Radioactive/Radionuclide Contamination Along North America’s West Coast and North Pacific”. Abstracts cannot have been previously presented or published.

      As-yet-unnamed experts in the field have been invited to attend, according to the release, which went on to characterize as “unfortunate” the “scant attention and lack of radiation monitoring…by the Governments of Canada and United States”.

      The possible contamination of coastal and ocean food webs through bioaccumulation of radioisotopes such as Cesium 137 are described as “issues of major concern for the public health of coastal communities”.

      The release singled out First Nations that rely on traditional seafoods as "particularly vulnerable".

      Comments

      5 Comments

      Barry

      Apr 30, 2014 at 3:23am

      As the radiation continues to pour into the pacific ocean at Fukushima the ocean life will become more and more contaminated with radiation! Anyone eating this tuna or any pacific ocean fish or seafood should consider doing a radiation detox with the mineral called zeolite that has been proven to safely remove radiation from the body! I urge people that could be contaminated with radiation to at least research the word zeolite to learn more about how it works to remove radiation from the human body!

      Deeann

      Apr 30, 2014 at 9:04pm

      Let's hope these scientists don't downplay the situation.

      Let's hope these scientists scroll through the headlines on www.enenews.com which has been chronicling Fukushima from the beginning and is a veritable wealth of information/studies which could assist these scientists.

      A small sampling of headlines from Enenews:

      Radiation from Fukushima in fish:
      >> "Radiation tripled in some albacore tuna off West Coast after Fukushima"
      >> "All 15 bluefin tuna samples off California had Fukushima radiation… back in AUGUST 2011"

      Radiation from Fukushima in the air:
      >> "Uranium-238 spiked to 50 times normal levels in Hawaii air after Fukushima disaster"

      Radiation from Fukushima in milk:
      >> "Highest level of radioactive cesium in San Francisco-area milk since September 2011"

      Radiation from Fukushima in the ocean:
      >> “Surprisingly, high concentrations [of Fukushima cesium] found in Vancouver area”
      >> "Expert: ‘The worst’ from Fukushima has left Japan and is headed to US, Canada — “Most of the radioactivity” moving with currents toward west coast — Report: Front edge of plume arrives in Gulf of Alaska — State: “There’s been a detection of cesium from Fukushima”

      Axel

      May 1, 2014 at 2:07pm

      There's nothing verifiable or creditable about enenews.com. Judging from it's home page it has 125 pages of stories that attack the nuclear industry but doing a keyword search of the term "shale gas" returns 3 article two of which are anti nuclear. My suspension is that this is a front site for the oil and gas industry who are notorious for lying to the public to protect their mega profits while doing real harm to the earth.
      If you want some unbiased information from serious ocean scientists who are rightly concerned about the issues surrounding the Fukushima accident but who maintain a professional level of rational thought this is one of the best sites with regards to the dangers of Fukushima with respect to it's affects on the Pacific; http://deepseanews.com/2014/01/all-the-best-scientifically-verified-info....
      Professionals are looking very closely at this issue get your information from them not a black ops Oil and Gas promoting scam of a news page.

      Froggy

      May 4, 2014 at 2:45pm

      Don't worry. I just read in Forbes that Tepco is going to remove all of the melted fuel, so they must know where it is now. Right? How can anyone make any determination about food safety as the cores continue to go "somewhere", and contaminated water continues to flow into the ocean.