Radioactive materials found off the coast of Miyagi and Ibaraki

[Generic Other]

Japan's science ministry has detected extraordinarily high levels of radioactive cesium in seafloor samples collected off Miyagi and Ibaraki Prefectures.

Experts say monitoring should be stepped up over a larger area to determine how fish and shell fish are being affected.

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Radioactive cesium 137, measuring 110 becquerels per kilogram or about 100 times the normal level, was found in samples collected from the seabed 30 kilometers off Sendai City and 45 meters beneath the surface.

Samples collected from the seabed 10 kilometers off Mito City and 49 meters beneath the surface measured 50 becquerels or about 50 times the normal level.

http://www3.nhk.or.jp/daily/english/28_23.html


Would you eat the fish in that water?

[L0oniX]

1. So uhm ...you could use a geiger counter instead of a fish finder?

[RC]

2. The average human experiences 4400 becquerels from decaying potassium-40 within the body.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Becquerel

That's 1.4% of what is normal radiation present in the human body.
Other normal sources within the human body drive the normal radiation even higher.

Yeah and we do eat the fish from those waters with no problems.

[Generic Other]

3. "Fish, shellfish and seaweed all showed significant levels of radioactive contamination"

According to Greenpeace:

“Despite what the authorities are claiming, radioactive hazards are not decreasing through dilution or dispersion of materials, but the radioactivity is instead accumulating in marine life," Greenpeace radiation expert Jan Vande Putte said in a press release.

Greenpeace said its teams collected samples of marine life along the Fukushima coast and in international waters outside Japan's 12-mile territorial limit. The samples were tested by nuclear research laboratories in France and Belgium, and high levels of radioactive iodine and cesium were found, it said.

Fish, shellfish and seaweed all showed significant levels of radioactive contamination, according to Greenpeace. All are widely consumed in Japan.

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“Ongoing contamination from the Fukushima crisis means fishermen could be at additional risk from handling fishing nets that have come in contact with radioactive sediment, hemp materials such as rope, which absorb radioactive materials, and as our research shows, radioactivity in fish and seaweed collected along Fukushima’s coast,” Wakao Hanaoka, Greenpeace's Japan oceans campaigner, said in the statement.

http://news.blogs.cnn.com/2011/05/26/greenpeace-japan-nuclear-plant-radiation-accumulating-in-marine-life/