Scientists report that radiation from Fukushima has been picked up on the California coast line. The Fukushima nuclear reactor had a meltdown after the March 2011 tsunami. Scientists at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution had been worried about when the radiation would reach the United States and it seems like that day is upon us. While it is alarming to see radiation levels grow on the California coast line, the scientists say levels are far too low to be a serious threat to American citizens.
The radiation is closest to Eureka, a town in California. The team from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, led by Ken Buessler, has been conducting tests with ocean water samples from the coast of California, Alaska and Canada and their findings prove the presents of a low level of radiation in the water. While they said that the radiation isn’t an immediate threat, it might be harming ocean life as we speak. Since the Fukushima meltdown is considered the biggest nuclear disaster since Chernobyl, it is understandable that people have been worried about radiation from the plant traversing the oceans.
Buessler turned to crowd funding to help his research into the contamination of California water and other waters around the world. With the help of non-profit organizations and the crowd funding project, Buessler managed to gather and tests hundreds of samples of water from the ocean, with provenience all around the American coast. People who were worried about how the Fukushima meltdown might be affecting their lives and environment helped fund the gathering, shipping and testing of water samples by Buessler and his team at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. After testing all the samples from California, Alaska and even the Japanese coast, the scientists determined that the radiation levels in the water weren’t an immediate threat to humans. Nonetheless, they also said that in the next few years, the radiation levels surrounding the California coast might increase. At the same time, scientists in Japan reported that after the Fukushima meltdown, the water around the Japanese coast was contaminated enough to affect the reproduction of marine life, which is quite alarming.
In any case, most non-profit organizations who were worried about the radiation surrounding California impacting their lives and environment, as well as most scientists and researchers, have agreed upon the fact that the levels of radiation currently present in the ocean are negligible. Buessler and his team will still continue testing samples from the ocean and monitor the radiation levels around California and around the world. They can identify the radiation coming from the Fukushima plant meltdown because it is unique, nature not being able to reproduce the same compounds.