Japan Earthquake: Radiation Concerns In The U.S. Remembered After Fukushima (PHOTOS)

After the March 11 earthquake and tsunami that devastated parts of Japan and caused the largest nuclear accident since Chernobyl, concerns about radiation exposure emerged in North America.

From airborne radiation to contaminated seafood, fears persisted that the Japanese nuclear accident would have lasting consequences for Americans.

Many of these fears were unfounded though. Radiation from Japan was reportedly only detected at "trace" levels in the U.S. An EPA official reminded Americans that "it's important to understand how these low levels compare to the radiation we experience from natural sources every day," reported the Denver Post.

Within Japan, however, radiation is a much greater concern. A year after the disaster, a 12 mile exclusion zone still remains around the Fukushima plant, according to Discovery News. One of the radioactive isotopes emitted by the nuclear plant, cesium-137, has a half-life of 30 years, meaning it "is likely still in the environment."

To learn more about radiation exposure, click here for a visualization of radiation levels absorbed from common products and activities.

Look back in history and read about some of the most common, and ultimately probably overstated, radiation fears that hit North America in the year after the Fukushima disaster below:

Comments

[professor]

05:22 PM on 05/31/2012

http://www.ucsusa.org/assets/documents/nuclear_power/nuclear_subsidies_report.pdf

Look at page 129. There is a list of all the subsidies that nuclear power enjoys--including some that the trose say it doesn't enjoy. Never let them say that solar enjoys subsidies. Solar's subsidies are chicken-feed, absolute chicken-feed compared to nuclear. And someday solar will not need subsidies. Nuclear always will.

[professor]

05:06 PM on 05/31/2012

Just because they have a few geiger counters at a few disparate points doesn't mean they know how much radiation is in the air or the earth or the water. And a little bit, lodged as a particle inside you, will do ya.

[Michael Mann]

03:20 PM on 03/14/2012

A year after the Fukushima nuclear accident, the emerging consensus among scientists is that its effects on physical health and the environment have so far been minimal. There have been no reported radiation-related deaths or illnesses from the accident, even among workers who faced very high exposure. That's a stark contrast with the world's last major nuclear accident, in Chernobyl in 1986, when 28 workers died of acute radiation syndrome within the first year.

"From a radiological perspective, we expect the impact to be really, really minor," said Kathryn Higley, a specialist in tracking radiation in the environment at Oregon State University.
Dr. Higley is a Professor in the Department of Nuclear Engineering. She holds a B.A. in
Chemistry (1978) from Reed College; an M.S. in Radiological Health Sciences (1992)
and a Ph.D. in Radiological Health Sciences (1994) from Colorado State University. Her
fields of interest include environmental transport and fate of radionuclides;
radiochemistry; radiation dose assessment; neutron activation analysis; nuclear
emergency response; and environmental regulations
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203961204577271152728725214.html

[Michael Mann]

05:10 PM on 03/14/2012

From CaptD, who asked me to critique this scientific study for him.
http://www.happysmile.se/dokument/science_plutonium_litauen.pdf

I am not a health physicist, but it looks like they found extremely low levels, on the order of 1/4 what was seen with Chernobyl: From the article ”The comparison of the Chernobyl and Fukushima accidents indicated the higher activity concentration of radionuclides by 4 orders of magnitude and a broader spectrum of radionuclides in the Chernobyl plume as compared to the Fukushima one." It seems like a credible study, but as you point out I am not qualified to critique it, it's probably some of the same data which Dr. Higley used for her determination.

[Silken17]

05:53 PM on 03/14/2012

Several anti-nukes have posted links to this study as support for various points. As it turns out, this study undermines the Sherman-Mangano mortality study.

The study provides overwhelming support for the fact that the Chernobyl plume was magnitudes worse than the Fukushima plume. This would certainly undermine the reasoning behind Sherman and Mangano's refusal to accept the EPA's fallout measurements in this country. They said that EPA's measurements must have been faulty since they were way too low. Since they assumed that Fukushima's plume was comparable to Chernobyl's plume, the EPA's measurements of Fukushima fallout should have been comparable to Chernobyl's. We now know the Fukushima plume was NOT comparable to Chernobyl so Sherman and Mangano have absolutely no justification for ignoring EPA's measurements. This completely destroys any correlation they claimed between Fukushima fallout and mortality in this country.

[Michael Mann]

05:14 PM on 03/14/2012

Note: CaptD's post seems to have been removed.

[CaptD]

06:24 PM on 03/14/2012

I wondered about that...
To bad they do not post a good reason
... and or even a notice that a comment was "removed"...

[WeMustDoBetter09]

02:43 PM on 03/13/2012

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/peter-c-burns/nuclear-meltdowns_b_1339987.html

[WeMustDoBetter09]

02:28 PM on 03/13/2012

RT @TheDoctorRAB This is why the GenIIIs have passive cooling Living with the Risk of Meltdowns http://t.co/NABpglIw via @addthis

[outnow]

02:10 PM on 03/13/2012

I detected a metallic taste in my mouth from Sulphur-35. That radionuclide was measured at Scripps Pier in La Jolla. UCSD published the results. Iodine and cesium were measured in milk.

I did take kelp tablets after 3-15 to guard against Iodine 131. I chelated some heavy metals out and just hope that I didn't inhale enough hot particles to cause lung cancer. I avoided the rain whenever I could. I avoided food products from Japan.

Take a HEPA filter and then run air through it. Your car is actually doing just that with its air filter. Expose the contents of the filter to photographic paper to see if you have hot particles because the photopgraphic paper will turn black in spots where hot particles lie in the filter. You can wipe off glass and expose photographic paper that way, too. You may also use a Geiger counter on what you wipe off. In areas where the is little or no naturally-occuring radon in the background, you should have some idea of the existence of the fallout. It comes down in precipitation and as dust. Spiders spin radioactive silver into their threads and pollen bioaccumulates, too.

I don't expect the government to be totally candid. The damage is done and some people will become sick. It's just that simple.

[WeMustDoBetter09]

02:39 PM on 03/13/2012

I've missed you outnow!!
I think I remember a youtube doing that very thing, showing what you describe.
Good advice. I would only add...SEND RESULTS TO ELECTED OFFICIALS
AND/OR WHITEHOUSE. :-(

[WeMustDoBetter09]

01:52 PM on 03/13/2012

RadChick is on the radio LIVE now.
You may know RadChick as ichicax4, who does the youtube videos of radiation fallout. http://www.youtube.com/user/ichicax4#g/u
Let's all support those who are trying to get the truth out.

Listen LIVE from 12pm to 1pm, Monday thru Friday.

http://www.oriontalkradio.com/Default.aspx?PID=27&T=Nuked%20Radio%20with%20RadChick%20Home

♥ WE ARE THE MEDIA NOW ♥

[WeMustDoBetter09]

12:07 PM on 03/13/2012

Bobby:
Nuclear Food Chain… excellent video:
http://tekknorg.wordpress.com/2012/03/12/nuclear-food-chain/

[WeMustDoBetter09]

09:37 AM on 03/13/2012

#Fukushima: ♥FRYING DUTCHMAN♥ Giving Voice to 'Generation Fukushima' http://bit.ly/yTVEA3 via @AddThis

[CaptD]

11:27 AM on 03/13/2012

Yes,
Listen to the sound of Global Radioactive pollution :-)

[CaptD]

11:30 AM on 03/13/2012

The sound of Global Radioactive Pollution
... And not Low, Low, Low levels either
:-)

[WeMustDoBetter09]

11:57 AM on 03/13/2012

Morning CaptD...always good to see you. Hope your well. I am...
;-)

[WeMustDoBetter09]

09:05 AM on 03/13/2012

Fukushima Worker: “There is radiation that is coming from the ground” — “There are no rights being observed at the moment” (VIDEO)
SABURO KITAJIMA [worked at Fukushima Daiichi]: [translated] The workers at the Fukushima plant are currently working under extreme circumstances. To be more specific, the wages are extremely low, and there are no rights being observed at the moment. In spite of being exposed to radiation, the levels of wages run to about maybe $100 a day, more or less.
AMY GOODMAN: And exactly what were they exposed to, and what continues to happen at these plants? I mean, in the United States, we know very little about what’s happening in Japan.

SABURO KITAJIMA: [translated] In the course of our work, the type of work where people are exposed to the highest levels of radiation would be maintaining the water pipes that are being put in place to cool the reactor. And, of course, the entire site is extremely contaminated, and there is radiation that is coming from the ground.
http://enenews.com/fukushima-worker-there-is-radiation-that-is-coming-from-the-ground-there-are-no-rights-being-observed-at-the-moment-video

[WeMustDoBetter09]

08:36 AM on 03/13/2012

NUCLEAR POWER: THE DREAM THAT FAILED
http://www.startribune.com/business/142393925.html
Looking at nuclear power 26 years ago, The Economist [concluded] that the industry was “safe as a chocolate factory” proved something of a hostage to fortune. Less than a month later one of the reactors at the Chernobyl plant in Ukraine ran out of control [...]

Then, 25 years later, when enough time had passed for some to be talking of a “nuclear renaissance,” it happened again. The bureaucrats, politicians and industrialists of what has been called Japan’s “nuclear village” were not unaccountable apparatchiks in a decaying authoritarian state like those that bore the guilt of Chernobyl; they had responsibilities to voters, to shareholders, to society. And still they allowed their enthusiasm for nuclear power to shelter weak regulation, safety systems that failed to work and a culpable ignorance of the tectonic risks the reactors faced, all the while blithely promulgating a myth of nuclear safety.

Nuclear’s promise of a global transformation is gone.

YES IT IS....!

[WeMustDoBetter09]

10:57 PM on 03/12/2012

Wow...just wow
Miles O’Brien Interview: Gov’t should apologize and evacuate citizens right away — Mayor: Decontamination is impossible, but should be done anyway (VIDEO)
http://enenews.com/miles-obrien-interview-govt-apologize-evacuate-citizens-away-mayor-decontamination-impossible-be-anyway-video

IMPOSSIBLE....
EVACUATE IMMEDIATELY!!!

[WeMustDoBetter09]

09:07 PM on 03/12/2012

Omg. New tweet: After 500 Years in Family, Rice Farmers Forced Off Land by Fukushima: Listen to the AudioOne year after an earth... http://to.pbs.org/w45MAO

[WeMustDoBetter09]

08:58 PM on 03/12/2012

HIGHEST LEVELS YET RECORDED IN CALIF
http://theintelhub.com/2012/03/09/highest-radiation-levels-since-fukushima-disaster-recorded-in-california/

[WeMustDoBetter09]

08:49 PM on 03/12/2012

Report: Mayor clearly stated “Tokyo citizens were irradiated” on NHK News
Tweet by sayakaiurani translated by Fukushima Diary
On today’s News9 of NHK, Mr.Sugaya, the Matsumoto city mayor, who has been involved in medical care in Chernobyl clearly stated, “After all, Tokyo citizens were exposed.”. Did you see it ? Media has started reporting Tokyo citizens have been exposed. Yes, I thought “exposure” was a story of WWW2 too but I have been too. I’m Hibakusha too.
http://enenews.com/report-mayor-clearly-stated-tokyo-citizens-were-irradiated-on-nhk-news