Fukushima Radiation In US - Still Horribly High,
No Change In 6 Months
Fukushima Power Plant
EMF Protection Devices
Magnetic Field Detector
08/31/2011
(Z: Using ordinary MERV 8 furnace
filter and a fan, we get over 1,000 counts per minute after
4 hours of measuring inside a closed building. Same as 6
months ago, and definitely "not safe". Now looking to reside
in another country, out of the fallout zone. Bye, Bye,
America!)
By Keith Johnson.
For several months, there has been a news blackout in the
United States concerning the devastation and human suffering
caused by a 9.0 earthquake that rocked the east coast of
Japan on March 11. The resulting tsunami claimed nearly
16,000 lives and made hundreds of thousands homeless.
On the island of Honshu, three reactors at the Daiichi
nuclear power facility in Fukushima went into full meltdown.
Explosions and fires caused additional damage to other
reactors and released vast quantities of poisonous
radioactive materials into the environment. Livestock, crops
and drinking water within a 75-mile radius of the accident
were immediately contaminated. Now, reports of lethal doses
of radiation as far as 200 miles away are starting to become
more commonplace.
In the United States, a recent report by Janette Sherman,
M.D. and epidemiologist Joseph Mangano indicate a 35-percent
spike in infant mortality throughout the Pacific Northwest.
Meanwhile, the true extent of the damage and radioactive
contamination caused by the Fukushima disaster continues to
be downplayed or ignored entirely by the mainstream media.
Getting to the truth has been difficult.
“Fukushima is the biggest industrial catastrophe in the
history of mankind,” says Arnold Gunderson, a nuclear power
expert who served as an expert witness in the investigation
of the Three Mile Island accident. In an exclusive interview
with AFP, Gunderson gives a timely assessment of the ongoing
crisis in Japan and aprises us of what he expects to unfold
in the future.
“On the bright side, the reactors are in better condition
than they’ve been in the last three months,” sayd Gunderson.
“Right now, TEPCO has managed to avoid creating new pools of
contaminated water by treating existing water through the
Areva system.”
Areva is a process, devised by a French firm of the same
name, whereby radioactive isotopes are bound together by
chemicals that are injected into the contaminated water of a
reactor’s cooling system.
Gunderson continued, “They’re cooling the reactors by
pouring treated water into the top and onto the floor. That
has a tendency to build up lots more radioactivity in the
filters that are trapping it, but it’s not building up any
more water, and that’s a good thing because they’ve run out
of space on site.”
“What’s happening off site is frightening,” says Gunderson.
“Dangerous levels of radioactive contamination are being
found in kids’ urine, mothers’ breast milk and animal meat.
I’m estimating that over the course of the next 20 years,
there’ll be a million cancers. If they’re not caught soon
enough, many of those will be fatal.”
“The first cancers will affect the thyroids,” Gunderson
predicts. “They take about three years. In three to five
years it’ll move on to the lungs. In the northern
prefectures, I expect a 20 percent increase in lung
cancers.”
Instead of taking steps to raise public awareness about the
dangers of exposure to contaminated food products that will
contribute to these cancer risks, the Japanese government is
doing just the opposite. “They’re raising the radiation
standards,” Gunderson reports. “Before, 600 becquerels
[measure of radioactivity] were the most you could have in
beef. Now they’ve raised the bar to 6,000. They’re telling
people it’s safe.”
These standards are also being applied to humans. According
to Gunderson, “Kids are now allowed to get the same dosages
as adult nuclear workers would get in the U.S. It’s a
complete distortion of radiation physics.”
Another recent development that has Gunderson concerned is
the buildup of radioactive sewage that poses a catastrophic
risk to drinking water. “Before the accident, they used to
turn the sewage into building blocks,” says Gunderson. “Now
they can’t. So they have these enormous piles of sewage
sludge that can’t be disposed of. It’s not yet in the ground
water, but it’s heading that way.”
The Japanese have also initiated a campaign to get people to
return to homes as close as 20 miles from the site of the
accident. They’re clearing streets and playgrounds, but
everything else is still contaminated.
“On the sides of the roads where the runoff is, we’re seeing
50,000- 60,000 becquerels in a pound of dirt,” adds
Gunderson.
Inside the 20-mile radius, Gunderson said: “It’s all ghost
towns. No one is walking around except stray dogs and
cattle. . . . [I]t’s a nightmare.”
Though these are disturbing developments in themselves,
Gunderson has saved the worst for last. “My biggest
concern is that the Japanese are burning rubbish,”
he says. “Farmers in rural areas are burning their
contaminated crops and those in urban areas are burning
their trash. If two pounds of material has less than 8,000
becquerels, the government allows it to be burned.”
Gunderson says the government also allows blending of highly
contaminated material with material that isn’t,
creating an even more
lethal mix that, when burned, revolatilizes the deadly,
cancer-inducing cesium.
The resulting plumes not only drift into neighboring
communities, he said, but are also caught up in wind
currents that reach the western coast of the United States
and Canada..
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