{"id":187,"date":"2014-01-14T14:07:58","date_gmt":"2014-01-14T14:07:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.propectin.com\/blog\/?p=187"},"modified":"2014-01-14T14:07:58","modified_gmt":"2014-01-14T14:07:58","slug":"fukushima-update-the-nuclear-disaster-that-wont-go-away","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.propectin.com\/blog\/2014\/01\/14\/fukushima-update-the-nuclear-disaster-that-wont-go-away\/","title":{"rendered":"Fukushima Update: The Nuclear Disaster That Won’t Go Away"},"content":{"rendered":"

http:\/\/truth-out.org\/news\/item\/21169-fukushima-update-the-nuclear-disaster-that-wont-go-away<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Truthout<\/a><\/h1>\n
TUESDAY, 14 JANUARY 2014 \/ TRUTH-OUT.ORG<\/p>\n
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Fukushima Update: The Nuclear Disaster That Won’t Go Away<\/h2>\n

Sunday, 12 January 2014 10:35By\u00a0Beth Buczynski<\/a>,\u00a0Care2<\/a>\u00a0| Report<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\"Reporters<\/p>\n

Reporters wear personal protective gear while touring the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in Fukushima, Japan, Nov. 7, 2013. (Photo: Tomohiro Ohsumi \/ Pool via The New York Times)<\/p>\n

When was the last time you heard an update about the Fukushima nuclear disaster on the evening news? Yeah, that\u2019s what I thought. You might take the silence to mean that everything\u2019s fine, but it\u2019s not. In fact, if the little blips and pieces of news coming out of Japan are any indication, things are far from fine, and are getting worse by the second. Those of us in other countries, even on the other side of the world, may soon get our own taste of nuclear fallout.<\/p>\n

Imminent Meltdown<\/a>?<\/strong><\/p>\n

On New Year\u2019s Day (nearly three years after the initial incident) operators of the Fukushima plant reported that \u201cplumes of most probably\u00a0radioactive steam<\/a>\u201d had been seen rising from the reactor 3 building. According to RT.com, \u201cthe Reactor 3 fuel storage pond still houses an estimated 89 tons of the plutonium-based MOX nuclear fuel composed of 514 fuel rods.\u201d Unfortunately, high levels of radiation inside the building make it nearly impossible to determine the source of the mystery steam. Although TEPCO, the plant\u2019s operator, claims there\u2019s no increased danger (small comfort from the people who admitted to the world that they\u00a0have no control<\/a>over the situation), most agree that the plant is just seconds away from\u00a0another disaster<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Farmland Contamination<\/strong><\/p>\n

Just a year after the nuclear disaster,\u00a0Japanese farmers<\/a>\u00a0were allowed to return to their fields near the plant. This despite government\u00a0estimates that it could take as long as 40 years to clean up the farmland around the Fukushima plant. Despite claims that the area has been cleaned up, the farmers themselves know that they\u2019re simply growing food stuffs in contaminated soil. Although\u00a0all farm produce must be checked for the cesium level prior to shipping (below\u00a0100 becquerel is considered \u201csafe\u201d), the farmers refuse to eat it themselves and are stricken with guilt over selling it to their countrymen.<\/p>\n

Seafood Industry Threatened<\/strong><\/p>\n

Toward the end of last year, U.S. scientists and wildlife specialists officially became worried about Fukushima\u2019s impact on the fishing industry. As I\u2019ve mentioned before, it\u2019s all one big ocean. If a massive amount of contamination is dumped into the ocean on one side of the world, rest assured it will eventually make it\u2019s way to the other. We saw this with physical rubble from the Japanese earthquake and tsunami, and the same currents are bringing the invisible contaminants as well. Fish, especially salmon,\u00a0must migrate through the radioactive plumes<\/a>\u00a0coming off Fukushima before being harvested on North American coasts. Some believe this represents an eventual health crisis, and that it\u2019s\u00a0no longer safe to eat fish<\/a>\u00a0from the Pacific Ocean<\/p>\n

Radiation in U.S. Snow and Beach Sand<\/strong><\/p>\n

If you live in a landlocked state, you might think you\u2019re safe from toxic fish and Fukushima fallout, but that\u2019s not necessarily the case. Just days ago,\u00a0snow falling in Missouri was found to contain\u00a0double the normal radiation<\/a>\u00a0amount. No snow where you live? You\u2019re not out of the clear yet. Early in the New Year,\u00a0Infowars reported<\/a>\u00a0on a YouTube video that showed\u00a0background radiation at a Coastside beach reaching over 150 micro-REM per hour. Health officials in San Mateo County\u00a0confirmed the spike<\/a>\u00a0but remain \u2018befuddled\u2019 as to its cause.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

http:\/\/truth-out.org\/news\/item\/21169-fukushima-update-the-nuclear-disaster-that-wont-go-away Truthout TUESDAY, 14 JANUARY 2014 \/ TRUTH-OUT.ORG Fukushima Update: The Nuclear Disaster That Won’t Go Away Sunday, 12 January 2014 10:35By\u00a0Beth Buczynski,\u00a0Care2\u00a0| Report Reporters wear personal protective gear while touring the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in Fukushima, Japan, Nov. 7, 2013. (Photo: Tomohiro Ohsumi \/ Pool via The New York Times) When was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.propectin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/187"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.propectin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.propectin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.propectin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.propectin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=187"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.propectin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/187\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.propectin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=187"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.propectin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=187"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.propectin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=187"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}