High levels of radioactive strontium found near Fukushima

More bad news from Japan – in the wake of last week’s revelation that 3 of the 4 reactors had gone into meltdown and beyond, we now learn that high levels of radioactivity – in particular, particles of strontium 89 and 90 – are being found in groundwater and sea water around the facility, and even further than 60 miles away.

This is very bad. When they tell you, “There is radiation, but it’s not enough to be harmful to human health”, they’re talking about temporary stuff that breaks down quickly (like iodine 139).

Now that they’re finding levels of strontium up to 240 times the legal limit (via), it’s a whole other ball game. When you ingest strontium 90 into your body – either by breathing it, drinking it in water, or eating it in your food – it gravitates toward your bones. It remains there for years, irradiating your tissues and potentially causing bone cancer or leukemia. And stontium doesn’t decay quickly – it has a half-life of 29 years, keeping the danger level in the hundreds of years.

And now it’s in the soil, in the groundwater, and in the ocean. As it’s ingested by plants and animals up the food chain, it will get more and more concentrated, too. Seafood from the region will be too toxic to eat for years, and agriculture in the surrounding country will be completely out of the question.

Worse and worse

At a press briefing, officials from plant owner Tokyo Electric (Tokyo Electric) said the material was probably released during the meltdown f the reactors three months ago.

“With the arrival of the rainy season, more and more radioactive fallout is being washed into groundwater and the sea, raising the levels of strontium contamination,” Ikuro Anzai, professor emeritus at Ritsumeikan University, told the Wall Street Journal.

Meanwhile, Japan Today’s “picture of the day” shows the utter shambles in the fourth floor of the reactor No 4 building, a photo just released by TEPCO (at the top of this article).

There is still more than 100,000 tons of radioactive water at the site itself, and officials are worried that could leak or overflow into the groundwater as well. TEPCO is supposed to start decontaminating that water on Wednesday – that was supposed to start last week, but discovered leaks in the machine.  They’ve also set up a machine to filter seawater – but really, there’s not much they can do to clean up thousands of square miles of ocean.

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