Citizen Scientists Sought for Ocean Radiation Monitoring
A citizen scientist takes a water sample in Trinidad, Calif. for the Our Radioactive Ocean program sponsored by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute’s Center for Marine and Environmental Radioactivity. (Photo: Center for Marine and Environmental Radioactivity)
By Larry Coonrod
NEWPORT—A Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute researcher hopes citizen scientists on the West Coast will monitor and help fund ocean testing of a radioactive plume from Japan expected to arrive sometime this year.
To educate the public and study the Fukushima radiation plume, Ken Buesseler, a chemical oceanographer at Woods Hole in Massachusetts founded the Woods Hole Center for Marine and Environmental Radioactivity (CMER).
To pay for the West Coast study, and CMER took the novel tact of crowdfunding the individual collection points through Kintera.org.
In less than three months, 26 sites have been sponsored in California, Oregon, Washington, British Columbia, Alaska and Hawaii. The site received more than 270 donations and 80,000 page views.
Each sampling from the Oregon, California and Washington coastlines cost $550 to ship and analyze. As of March 31, a proposed Newport site had received $165 in donations. Buesseler wants samples from each site every three months for the next few years.
Buesseler emphasized that computer models predict arriving radiation from Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant as minimal.
“Even if the levels are expected not to be of human health concern on the West Coast, we should be measuring and confirming those values, he said”
No Federal Monitoring
A March 11, 2011 9.0 earthquake and resulting tsunami onJapan's east coast damaged the Fukushima plant, releasing radiation into the Pacific Ocean. The Japanese government still prohibits fishing in the area around the nuclear plant.
Because of the expected low levels of radiation predicted to reach North America, federal agencies do not presently monitor U.S. waters for contamination. Some state agencies, including the Oregon Health Authority do test ocean waters.
“They’re looking for public health levels that are thousands of times higher than what’s in the ocean today,” Buesseler said.
Some computer models predict the radioactive plume could reach the West Coast as early as April 2014.
Looking for Fukushima Fingerprint
Buesseler says because of its two-year half-life, Cesium 134 is the “fingerprint” of the Fukushima radiation contamination. Fukushima also released Cesium 137. With a half-life of 30 years, Cesium 137 is still detectable in the Pacific Ocean from nuclear weapons testing in the 1960s, so isn’t a reliable marker of Fukushima radiation. A half-life is the amount of time it takes radiation to decay by 50 percent.
Water samples analyzed to date have not detected Cesium 134. Buesseler says that establishes a baseline to compare against future samples. Scientists expect radiation levels to increase over the next two or three years once the leading edge of the bloom reaches U.S. shores.
“As a scientist, I want to measure those levels and make sure we have a good understanding of what they are today and over the next couple of years,” Buesseler said.
Cesium and Fish
Bluefin tuna swim between Japan and the United States. Because Cesium is a salt, it goes in and out of a fish’s body quickly. When a tuna reaches U.S. waters its Cesium level would be 10 to 20 times lower than when it left Japan.
“The levels we expect in the water here will be so low that they won’t pick up an additional amount,” Buesseler said.
Low Health Risk
Bluefin tuna caught off California’s coast in 2012 had “minuscule” traces of radiation, according to research published in the National Journal of Science. Nicholas Fisher, a marine science professor at New York’s Stony Brook University led the study.
Fisher reported that populations that consume large amounts of the contaminated bluefin tuna would see an additional two cancer deaths per 10 million people. By example, Fisher noted that a serving of the tuna contained about 5 percent of the radiation found in a banana, which contains naturally occurring radioactive potassium.
The three radiation dispersal models used by scientists predict the contamination level of Cesium 137 at between 2 and 30 Becquerels per liter of seawater. The federal drinking water limit is 7,400 Becquerels per cubic meter.
Why Study if Low Risk?
Some have questioned why bother with the trouble and expense of monitoring the ocean over the next two or three years if the health risks are low.
“Even if the levels are considered below our health concerns we should still be trying to make measurements to improve those predictions,” Buesseler answers. “We and many other countries have nuclear reactors on our coastlines and rivers. We might need to do a better job next time.”
For more information about the sampling sites and radiation from Fukushima plant, see the Center for Marine and Environmental Radioactivity website: http://www.whoi.edu/cmer
The Newport testing crowdfunding page can be found at http://ourradioactiveocean.kintera.org/faf/donorReg/donorPledge.asp?ievent=1092921&supid=403481044
Contact Larry Coonrod by emailing editor@lincolncountydispatch.com
