Fukushima’s Radioactive Waste Is Leaking Into the Soil and Water
It doesn’t take a science degree to know that the ocean currents were going to transport that waste or that it was going to seep deeper into the soil.
Food chain and environment FAIL.
New research published this week in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences shows that radioactive cesium from the Fukushima nuclear power plant is collecting in the sands and groundwater along a 60-mile (100-km) stretch of coastline near the facility.
Cesium-137 is a radioactive isotope of cesium (a soft, silvery-gold metal) that’s formed by nuclear fission and potentially fatal to humans when exposed to high concentrations.
The scientists who led the study, Virginie Sanial of Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and Seiya Nagao of Kanazawa University, say the levels of radiation “are not of primary concern” to public health, but that this new and unanticipated source “should be taken into account in the management of coastal areas where nuclear power plants are situated.”
approximately half of the 440 operational nuclear reactors in the world are situated on a coastline