Tuesday, May 31, 2011

#Radioactive Strontium from Soil Within 10 Kilometers of #Fukushima I Nuke Plant

A slow dribbling of information on the extent of radiation contamination, so that people in Japan don't connect the dots and figure out that their soil, water, ocean have probably been contaminated beyond repair.

It took the Ministry of Education and Science one month to announce the test result, just like when it announced the result for the locations 30 kilometers away from the plant back in mid April.

Asahi Shinbun (6/1/2011):

文部科学省は31日、福島第一原発から10キロ圏内の大熊町、双葉町の4カ所の土壌から、半減期が約29年と長い放射性物質ストロンチウム90が検出されたと発表した。

The Ministry of Education and Science announced on May 31 that the radioactive strontium-90 was detected from the soil samples at 4 locations in Okuma-machi and Futaba-machi, the towns located inside the 10-kilometer radius from Fukushima I Nuke Plant.

 土壌は4月29日~5月1日に採取した。原発から西南西約2キロの大熊町夫沢では、1キロあたり最大で68ベクレルが検出された。他の3カ所では 2.5~12ベクレルだった。半減期が約50日と短いストロンチウム89も4カ所で出ており、過去の核実験によるものではなく、第一原発から放出されたも のとみられる。ストロンチウムの土壌での基準はないが、体内に入ると骨にたまる傾向がある。

The samples were taken from April 29 to May 1. At Ottozawa district of Okuma-machi, located 2 kilometers west by southwest of the plant, 68 becquerels/kilogram strontium-90 was detected. At the other 3 locations, it was 2.5 to 12 becquerels/kilogram. Strontium-89, whose half life is 50 days, was also detected at all 4 locations. They are thought to have come from Fukushima I Nuke Plant, not from the past nuclear tests. There is no standard on the amount of strontium in the soil. Strontium tends to accumulate in the bones once ingested.

 文科省が3月中旬に浪江町と飯舘村の土壌を採取したときは、最大で1キロあたり32ベクレルが出た。東京電力が4月中旬に第一原発の敷地内で採取した土からは約570ベクレルが検出されている。

When the Ministry tested the samples taken at Namie-machi and Iitate-mura in mid March, the maximum amount of strontium detected was 32 becquerels/kilogram. From the sample that TEPCO took in mid April at Fukushima I Nuke Plant, 570 becquerels/kilogram strontium was detected.

The result of this particular test has been uploaded at the Ministry's site (image is below), but it is not just strontium that they found. They also found:

  • Cesium-136 (half-life 13 days);
  • Tellurium-129m (half-life 33.6 days)
  • Uranium-234, -235, -238;
  • Plutonium-239 and 240 (at three locations)

The Ministry believes uranium there is naturally occurring, and plutonium is from the past nuclear tests.

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

Wouldn't it be fairly easy to check whether uranium there is naturally occurring, and plutonium is from the past nuclear tests if you would take samples at a non-contaminated area (for example soil under a building) that was covering it from the fallout?

By the way, I have heard from a reliable source (I can email you privately) about Strontium and others detected in air filters from cars in Tokyo).

Anonymous said...

"They are thought to have come from Fukushima I Nuke Plant, not from the past nuclear tests... " Hello, I am puzzled with these words. Is it the kind of nuclear test that emit radiations?

Anonymous said...

Hmmmm so, radiation isn't so bad? Then Japan is fine. The Japanese people are just overreacting! What a bunch of kidders!

The technicians who are wearing those radiation suits should stop wearing them....it's making the Public nervous for no reason. They should also stay in the building more than 10 minutes...what's wrong with a 40 hour shift?

You might think radiation can kill you? Never had a confirmed death from a nuclear power plant...oh well, cigarettes don't kill people either....people just stop breathing for no reason.....

Anonymous said...

For Pu-238 and Sr-90 at Fukushima site see
http://www.tepco.co.jp/en/nu/fukushima-np/f1/images/f12np-gaiyou_e_2.pdf (page 12)

Results of Analysis of Accumulated Water in the Turbine Building (Uranium, Plutonium and Strontium):
http://www.tepco.co.jp/en/nu/fukushima-np/images/handouts_110522_04-e.pdf

Anonymous said...

Robbie001 sez:

@ Anon 12:24

They are talking about all the fallout that was generated during above ground nuclear weapons tests from 1945-1963. This material is found all over the Earth and is used a justification by morons for current and future nuclear contamination. Most people blindly claim that nuclear weapons tests didn't hurt anything when the facts couldn't be further from the truth. The world stopped atmospheric testing because it was becoming obvious that "distant" chronic low-level fallout exposure was a health hazard to everyone.

"And is not peace, in the last analysis, basically a matter of human rights - the right to live out our lives without fear of devastation - the right to breathe air as nature provided it - the right of future generations to a healthy existence"

-J.F.K. test ban speech excerpt

"Efforts to keep damaging information about nuclear weapons hidden from the public began early. The very first nuclear test on July 16, 1945, led to severe fallout and hot spots of radioactive contamination 32 kilometers from the site. The affected people were not informed even after the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, nor were they evacuated. A fallout cloud hung over much of southeastern New Mexico in the days following the test, but even 60 years later, there has been no official investigation of the health effects. Col. Stafford Warren, a medical doctor in the Army who was the chief of radiation safety for the test, recommended that future tests should not be done within 240 kilometers of human habitation. The recommendation was ignored, with tragic effects.

In 1950, the United States had considered setting up a weapons testing site in North Carolina at a coastal location that would have allowed most fallout to land in the ocean. Instead, the United States chose to set up a continental nuclearweapon test site in Nevada with the knowledge that a western location would blow fallout over most of the country. The federal government risked the health of its citizens in large part to make life more convenient for weapons scientists at New Mexico’s Los Alamos National Laboratory and to avoid the political difficulties of acquiring coastal private property through eminent domain."

"In 1997, when the National Cancer Institute acting under congressional directive assessed milk contamination, it found that fallout from the tests would eventually cause between 11,000 and 212,000 thyroid cancers. The cancer risk fell primarily to those who had been children, with girls being at twice the risk of boys. Those who believed that they were leading healthy farm lives by drinking fresh milk got the highest doses."

http://www.nuclearfiles.org/menu/key-issues/nuclear-weapons/issues/health-environment/readiness-to-harm.html

Anonymous said...

Robbie001 sez:

Sr-90 is a concern because it has almost two and a half times the total decay energy of Cs-137.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_transmutation#Long-lived_fission_products

Sr-90 is also know as a "bone-seeker" it is a calcium mimic whereas Cs-137 mimics potassium as is mostly found in soft tissues.

http://toxnet.nlm.nih.gov/cgi-bin/sis/search/r?dbs+hsdb:@term+@na+@rel+strontium,+radioactive

Fallout Folly's:

"Although Sr-90 was just one of the 100-plus chemicals in fallout, it quickly became the favorite for in-body testing, as its half life of 28.7 years makes it detectable for a long period after a bone or tooth is extracted from the body. But Sr-90 was also recognized as one of the most harmful components of the clouds. It was known to penetrate into the bone marrow, where red and white blood cells crucial to the immune response are formed. (3)

Sr-90 became a standard part of the American vocabulary during the Cold War. In the 1956 presidential campaign, Democratic nominee Adlai Stevenson declared Sr-90 as:

"the most dreadful poison in the world. For only one tablespoon equally shared by all the members of the human race could produce a dangerous level of radioactivity in the bones of every individual." (4)

One month after this statement, an article in Newsweek described the Sr-90 threat:

"the testing of hydrogen bombs may have already propelled enough strontium 90, the most pernicious aftermath of nuclear fission, into the stratosphere to doom countless of the world's children to inescapable and incurable cancer." (5)

With the AEC bone program largely a secret government venture, the need for a more public study of fallout in bodies became clear. In August 1958, biochemist Herman Kalckar proposed an international, long-term program measuring fallout in baby teeth. Kalckar noted that young children "take up radioactive strontium and caesium more intensely than adolescents and adults." (6)

http://www.nuclearfiles.org/menu/key-issues/nuclear-weapons/issues/health-environment/readiness-to-harm.html

Stock said...

Why is 1st commenter wanting to "email privately", you got info, post it up.

Stock said...

I pretty much nailed this disaster on March 16 when the few publicly available sources just weren't adding up to anything that made sense.

http://oahutrading.blogspot.com/2011/03/nuclear-japan-stock-market-holding-up.html

Stock said...

For months I have been compiling the best of the best resources on radiation and treatments, they are here: Please comment or send links to sites that should be added.

http://oahutrading.blogspot.com/p/japan-nuclear-information.html

Anonymous said...

Greenpeace has been detecting Tellurium in the ocean off of Fukushima, also.

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