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Fukushima radiation scare in Pacific pales compared to acidification

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In Environment
Feb 28th, 2014
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By Bob McDonald, Quirks & Quarks

A plume of radioactive contamination from the damaged Fukushima Nuclear plant in Japan has reached the coast of North America earlier than expected. But while concerns for the plume are making headlines, a far more serious effect of human activity is already having dire consequences for West Coast fisheries.

Last August, about 250 tonnes of contaminated water – that had been sprayed onto the damaged reactors to keep them cool – leaked out of storage tanks into the ocean. This added to the contamination from the original disaster, when the plant was damaged by a tsunami in 2011, and from ground water that has flowed through the site since.

The amount of radioactive material released into the ocean is unprecedented. Now, that plume has been carried by ocean currents across the Pacific to North American shores.

But thanks to the immense size of the Pacific, radiation levels measured so far on this side of the ocean are extremely low trace amounts – well within safety guidelines for drinking water. Those levels are not expected to rise significantly, because of the dilution effect of the plume crossing thousands of kilometers of open ocean.

This is not to say the problem has been solved; the ocean is just giving us some time while the source of contamination is fixed.

As part of the monitoring of the contamination, as well as an effort to reassure the public, the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute is offering testing kits to people living along the west coast of the U.S. and Canada so they can test the water themselves. Samples of seawater taken while strolling on beaches can be sent back to Woods Hole for analysis.

The kits are not cheap, at $600 U.S. each, so it is suggested that the project should be crowd-sourced through a community of volunteers. This is a good way to do research over a wide area through “citizen science” during these times of funding cutbacks.

But while testing the ocean for radiation levels is important, there is another invisible contaminant in the water that is being overlooked and which is already doing much more harm to the fisheries: ocean acidification.

Since the industrial revolution, about one-third of the carbon dioxide produced by burning fossil fuels has been absorbed by the oceans, making the water more acidic.

When carbon dioxide is absorbed, it reacts with sea water to produce carbonic acid.  If you remember back to high school chemistry class, acids and bases are opposites and will react with each other. Sea shells and corals are made of calcium carbonate, which is basic. As the oceans become more acidic, coral reefs, oysters, clams, scallops, sea urchins, and even some plankton suffer.

This was reported this week by fishers in B.C. who are seeing yet another season of dramatic declines in the number of scallops, as well as a lower quality to their shells. In acidic waters, shells grow thinner, providing less protection for the animals against predators. It also lowers the immune systems, so more are killed off by disease.

These effects of ocean acidification and rising seawater temperatures due to climate change are showing up in all parts of the globe. Half of the Earth’s coral reefs have been bleached out because the algae that live in symbiosis with the corals, and give it its colour, cannot tolerate the changing conditions.

These ocean creatures that are affected by acidification are at the bottom of the food chain, so we are eroding the very foundation of life in the sea during a time when we are depending more and more on the oceans as a source of food.

Ocean acidification is an invisible menace that threatens the entire ecosystem and it’s only getting worse. Carbon emissions worldwide, and especially in Canada, continue to rise.

Without diminishing the significance of several hundred tonnes of radioactive water released from Fukushima into the ocean, its effect on sea life is dwarfed by the billions of tonnes of carbon dioxide being absorbed by sea water every day.

It’s ironic that people will pay to test ocean water, to be reassured that they will not be poisoned from almost non-existent radiation, yet they’ll not consider the impact of their much more damaging fossil-fuel-burning vehicles that they drove to the beach to do the test.

 

2 Responses to “Fukushima radiation scare in Pacific pales compared to acidification”

  1. Steven Kaasgaard says:

    Having watched this gigantic nuclear accident at Fukushima Dai-ichi, Japan since Day 1, the points made by environmentalist/scientists like Bob McDonald appear to be a ‘ major down playing’ of the potential for ‘Death by Fukushima’ to millions. More disturbing (if anything can be more disturbing than death to millions of humans) is the ongoing threat to most of the living world as we know it due to what is known as the ‘bio-accumulative effect’ of nuclear fall out.

    While acidification of the oceans is a serious issue we cannot ignore that many of us will likely expire because of Fukushima before we actually witness Bob’ s claim come to pass. The deadly nuclear ‘hot particles’ being delivered over and over again to the Northern Hemisphere in 40 day cycles will claim the lives of most living things completely by random selection. These the unfortunate winners of this ‘reverse lottery’ of hot particles will be blamed on anything but Fukushima’s multiple melt outs.

    Bob McDonald’s claim that we have the “dilution effect” on our side protecting us from radiation exposure gives people a false sense of hope. Bob in his haste to promote his desperate cause for the oceans, buries the little reported fact that radionuclides released by this ongoing nuclear disaster by ocean currents and prevailing winds ‘are bio-accumulative’ and therefore increasing the danger we face from radiation exposure daily. Nuclear fall out from Fukushima will not dissipate, rather it will accumulate within the food chain and is accumulating within the food chain in the Northern Hemisphere. It will be exponentially higher at the top of the food chain over time, and those animals at the top of the food chain will feel the effects most intensely, but that doesn’t mean that micro organisms are not going die off … Consider what the means to our soil and farm land that depend upon those micro organisms …

    According to Arnie Gundersen nuclear physicist turned anti-nuclear activist, “the data we’re getting indicates — we found a particle in a vacuum cleaner bag 300 kilometer from the accident, the particle is microscopic and is emitting 200 disintegrations per second — in other words 200 x-rays every second are coming off of this microscopic particle” If you think that’s OK for you and your family just ask your dentist if he or she would like to give that a try?

    Please see more information on the most pressing of all environmental issues to face life on planet earth ever at:
    http://enenews.com/gundersen-im-very-afraid-for-people-living-far-away-from-fukushima-1000000-cancers-could-result-japanese-interpreter-infant-death-is-increasing-steadily-already-shows-the-effect-of-radi

    If there was ever anything to stand up for folks this is it! Thank you for paying attention and please stay safe.

    Warmest regards,

    Steven Kaasgaard,
    WildGreens-CANADA
    ***

  2. Steven Kaasgaard says:

    For those who still doubt Fukushima’s deadly nuclear fallout/ plume delivery over the Northern Hemisphere please see the following articles suggesting otherwise. Please also note the similarities between the mass bird and mammal die off in Monterey Bay, California a few weeks ago and the mass bird and mammal die off AT Wasaga Beach ON. and other surrounding communities of Nottawasaga Bay Oct 22/11.

    http://enenews.com/marine-mystery-whats-behind-a-toxic-outbreak-threatening-marine-life-in-california-worst-they-have-ever-seen-birds-falling-out-of-sky-sea-lions-convulsing-sea-otters-really-affected
    Monterey Bay, CA. USA

    Watch the KSBW broadcast here

    Watch CTV broadcast at Wasaga Beach, ON Oct 22/13 here:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SXAK8Zpcr7c

    POSTED MAY 4/14
    http://enenews.com/govt-investigator-owls-on-pacific-coast-suffered-terminal-intestinal-hemorrhaging-during-2011-2012-mortality-event-in-very-poor-condition-upon-arrival-in-vancouver-from-arctic-bad

    Gov’t Investigator: Acute hemorrhaging found in dead owls along west coast — Mortality event began 8 months after Fukushima explosions — “In very poor condition… badly emaciated” when arriving in Pacific Northwest from Arctic

    Campbell River Mirror, Feb. 18, 2014: Guest Speakers in the morning include Dr. Victoria Bowes, avian pathologist, with BC Min. of Agriculture, who will present “The Overwintering Snowy Owl Mortality Investigation”

    Dr. Victoria Bowes, British Columbia Ministry of Agriculture, June 2013: In the winter of 2011, and again in 2012, an unexpected record number of overwintering Snowy Owls arrived along the southern coast of BC […] from the high Arctic already in poor body condition, and over a short period of time many of the weakened birds were admitted to local wildlife rehabilitators. Others […] were found dead or dying. […] The unanswered question was whether or not there were underlying predisposing factors that made these birds more vulnerable. In January 2013, and again in April, a team of investigators assembled […] to examine a total of 49 Snowy Owl carcasses […] the majority of birds in both necropsy sessions were emaciated adult or sub-adult males. An associated finding was carcass pallor accompanied by acute gastric and intestinal hemorrhage […] terminal intestinal hemorrhage has been recognized as a manifestation of severe physiologic stress […]

    South China Morning Post, Jan. 20, 2013: […] snowy owls arrive in Vancouver […] worrying bird welfare experts […] The owls perch listlessly […] the second winter in a row that Vancouver has been treated to a visit […] raising concern among experts who say the owls should normally only visit Vancouver every five or so years […] some of the birds are badly emaciated.

    Rob Hope, Orphaned Wildlife Rehabilitation Society: Some were suffering from asperogillosis, a breathing problem […] that can be triggered by a weakened immune system or malnutrition. [Owls arrived in] November, earlier than they would normally venture so far south […] “We have been finding a lot in very poor condition by the time they arrive. They are already in a weakened state.”

    See also: Scientists present links between unusual Alaska seal deaths and Fukushima fallout — Skin lesions, hair loss, lethargy — ‘Pulsed release’ when built-up radionuclides were set free as ice melted — “Wildlife health implications” due to radiation exposure discussed (PHOTOS & MAP)

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