Fukushima fish 'may be inedible for a decade'

[xchrom]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/oct/25/fukushima-fish-inedible-decade-radioactivity?intcmp=122


Tests have found that radioactivity levels in fish near the Fukushima nuclear site have been slow to fall. Photograph: Jeremy Sutton-Hibbert

Fish from the waters around the Fukushima nuclear plant in Japan could be too radioactive to eat for a decade to come, as samples show that radioactivity levels remain elevated and show little sign of coming down, a marine scientist has warned.

According to a paper published in the journal Science on Thursday, large and bottom-dwelling species carry most risk, which means cod, flounder, halibut, pollock, skate and sole from the waters in question could be off limits for years, .

Sample fish caught in waters near the stricken reactors suggest there is still a source of caesium either on the seafloor or still being discharged into the sea, perhaps from what is left of the cooling waters. As the levels of radioactive isotopes in the fish are not declining as fast as they should have, the outlook for fishing in the area is likely to be poor for the next 10 years, the paper's author told the Guardian.

"These fish could have to be banned for a long time. The most surprising thing for me was that the levels [of radioactivity] in the fish were not going down. There should have been much lower numbers," said Ken Buesseler, senior scientist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in the US, who wrote the paper titled Fishing For Answers Off Fukushima.

[madokie]

1. Nuclear power plants are perfectly safe

[NNadir]

3. Unlike, of course, your pals in the coal, gas, and oil industry.

Apparently, being a classic anti-nuke you care a whole lot more about the stupid fish paranoia than you do about the 3.3 million people who die each year

It is only in the imagination of intellectually and morally lazy cretin in the gas, oil and coal apologetic anti-nuke industry that nuclear energy needs to be "perfect."

Actually, nuclear energy need not be "perfect" - either in the minds of educated people or in the minds of sloganeering barely literate anti-nukes - to be better than every thing else. It only needs to be better than everything else.

Heckuva job anti-nuke. Fear,. ignorance and superstition has won the day: While you were lying around hoping, praying that someone, anyone, would die from radiation from Fukushima, so to justify the millions of tons of toxic dangerous fossil fuel waste that was burned by dumb guys carrying on about Fukushima, all of the world's coral reefs, and many of its prime agricultural areas spiraled toward total destruction. But I'm quite sure that the problems of poor people who will have

Congrats again. You must be very, very, very, very, very, proud.

[no_hypocrisy]

2. Unless you shop with a Geiger Counter, there's always a risk of the radioactive

fish being purchased.

[hunter]

4. If I was an octopus I'd rather be slightlly radioactive than someone's dinner.

[Nihil]

5. Why don't they stop killing the fish needlessly then?

> the outlook for fishing in the area is likely to be poor for the next 10 years

So put a 10 year moratorium on fishing anywhere near the region.

This will not only protect the humans from consuming polluted fish (knowingly or
otherwise) but it will give the fish stocks a chance to recover from the appalling
over-fishing that has been exterminating them.

[FBaggins]

6. I don't think there's any commercial fishing nearby

It has been banned since the accident.

This is likely the spot catch they're doing (quite close to the reactors) just to produce these numbers.

[pscot]

7. That's good, for the fish. Right?