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After the Chernobyl nuclear disaster in 1986, Soviet officials were vilified for hiding the impacts from the public. But when Japan’s Fukushima nuclear accident took place last March, public officials in Japan and Canada alike jumped straight into Chernobyl-style damage-control mode, dismissing any worries about impacts. Now evidence has emerged that the radiation in Canada was worse than Canadian officials ever let on. A Health Canada monitoring station in Calgary detected radioactive material in rainwater that exceeded Canadian guidelines during the month of March, according to Health Canada data obtained by the Georgia Straight.

Canadian government officials didn’t disclose the high radiation readings to the public. Instead, they repeatedly insisted that fallout drifting to Canada was negligible and posed no health concerns. In fact, the data shows rainwater in Calgary last March had an average of 8.18 becquerels per litre of radioactive iodine, easily exceeding the Canadian guideline of six becquerels per litre for drinking water. “It’s above the recommended level [for drinking water],” Eric Pellerin, chief of Health Canada’s radiation-surveillance division, admitted in a phone interview from Ottawa. “At any time you sample it, it should not exceed the guideline.”

Radioactive-iodine levels also spiked in March in Vancouver (which saw an average of 0.69 becquerels per litre), Winnipeg (which saw 0.64 becquerels per litre) and Ottawa (which saw 1.67 becquerels per litre), the data shows. These levels didn’t exceed the Canadian guidelines, but the level discovered in Ottawa did surpass the more stringent ceiling for drinking water used by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, which is 54 times less than the six becquerels per litre of iodine-131 (a radioactive isotope) allowed in this country.

On Friday Canadian regulators published their post-Fukushima Daiichi report on nuclear safety, concluding the country’s reactors could stand up safely to the conditions that triggered the crisis in Japan. As in the United States, the Canadian government ordered inspections of its operating nuclear plants and a review of their accident preparedness in response to the March station blackout that severely damaged three reactors. The Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission’s Fukushima Task Force Report “concludes that Canadian nuclear power plants are safe and pose a very small risk to the health and safety of Canadians or to the environment.” The report identified no gaps in emergency planning or regulatory oversight related to severe accidents. Further, the CNSC said in a release the country’s reactors can “withstand conditions similar to those that triggered the Fukushima event.”

After Japan's Fukushima catastrophe, Canadian government officials reassured jittery Canadians that the radioactive plume billowing from the destroyed nuclear reactors posed zero health risks in this country.

In fact, there was reason to worry. Health Canada detected massive amounts of radioactive material from Fukushima in Canadian air in March and April at monitoring stations across the country.

For 22 days, a Health Canada monitoring station in Sidney detected iodine-131 levels in the air that were 61 percent above the government's allowable limit. In Resolute Bay, Nunavut, the levels were 3.5 times the limit.

The rainwater data is just one example of failings in how Canada monitored radiation from Fukushima. The accident has exposed a pattern of nonchalance and seeming willful ignorance on the part of Canadian health authorities when it comes to the dangers of nuclear power. Drinking water is another example. In Vancouver, the city did its first test of the drinking-water supply on March 16, a few days after the Fukushima accident on March 11. No radiation was detected in that day’s sample. But this was to be expected because it took until March 18 and 19 for the radioactive plume from Fukushima to first hit the west coast of Canada. Instead of continuing with frequent monitoring, the city didn’t do another radiation test until March 25—nine days after the first test. On March 25, testing detected alpha radiation at 0.11 becquerels per litre in the drinking water at the city’s Seymour-reservoir intake. Alpha radiation comes from isotopes like plutonium-238 and is the most dangerous form of radiation when ingested or inhaled. The level at the Seymour intake was lower than the current Canadian and World Health Organization guideline of 0.5 becquerels per litre in drinking water. On the other hand, the WHO guideline used to be 0.1 Bq per litre before it was adjusted higher in the mid-2000s.

That nine-day hole between March 16 and 25 is exactly when SFU prof Starosta found massive radiation spikes in rainwater in Burnaby. Did the alpha radiation ever surpass the ceiling? We can’t say for sure. Because of the long gap between tests, it’s not clear how high radiation levels may have gotten and for how long. When the city tested its drinking water again on March 28, the alpha radiation was no longer detectable. Food is another big question mark. The Canadian Food Inspection Agency briefly tested Japanese food imports from the area around Fukushima, but it dropped those measures in June. Canada now relies on Japanese authorities to screen contaminated food. But Japan’s food inspections have proven to be highly controversial since Fukushima. The country has no centralized food-inspection system, and poor monitoring after Fukushima allowed food contaminated with radiation to be sold to Japanese consumers.

Meanwhile, it’s becoming clear that the radiation has spread much farther across Japan than government officials have acknowledged. Citizen monitoring groups have found 22 “hot spots” in Tokyo where radiation levels are higher than the level at which zones were considered contaminated near Chernobyl, the New York Times reported on October 14. The CFIA also told the Straight it has no plans to monitor food products from the Pacific Ocean fishery. You’d think this would be a concern, because many fish caught in the Pacific still have large amounts of radiation months after the accident, according to data reported on the website of the Japanese government fisheries agency. In September, 21 Japanese fish catches exceeded the Japanese radiation ceiling—the same number as in August. Two catches in September exceeded the ceiling for radioactive cesium by more than four times.

The official journal of the Canadian Medical Association (CMA), "Canadian Medical Association Journal" is a peer-reviewed scientific journal. On their website, there is an article dated December 21, 2011 which severely criticizes the Japanese government's response (or lack thereof) to the nuclear disaster which has just been declared "over" by the current Noda administration.Written by Lauren Vogel of CMAJ quoting medical experts, the article states:The Japanese government has been "lying through their teeth" ever since the March 11 accident;The Japanese government hasn't disclosed enough information for the citizens to make informed decision, with “extreme lack of transparent, timely and comprehensive communication”;

The response to the Fukushima nuclear disaster by the Japanese government is far worse than the response to the Chernobyl accident by the Soviet Union government;The annual radiation exposure limit for the general public of 20 millisieverts is "unconscionable", and there has been no government "in recent decades that's been willing to accept such a high level of radiation-related risk for its population"

For the first time in Canadian history, First Nations, whose territory encompasses the entire coastline of British Columbia, have publicly united to oppose the transport of tar sands crude oil through their land. Over 60 nations have signed the Save the Fraser Declaration, which bans tar sands oil pipelines throughout the Fraser River watershed, an area that was never ceded to the Canadian government, and therefore not legally under the government’s control. “North or south, it makes no difference. First Nations from every corner of BC are saying absolutely no tar sands pipelines or tankers in our territories,” said Chief Jackie Thomas of Saik’uz First Nation, a member of the Yinka Dene Alliance. “We have banned oil pipelines and tankers using our laws, and we will defend our decision using all the means at our disposal.” The First Nations’ refusal to allow tar sands oil extraction or transport through their would make it legally impossible for the Canadian government to move forward with many high price oil production projects. Monday’s announcement – on the first anniversary of the Save the Fraser Declaration – comes in response to recent calls from the Harper government and oil executives to push through pipeline and tanker projects against the wishes of British Columbians and First Nations.

After the Fukushima nuclear accident, Canadian health officials assured a nervous public that virtually no radioactive fallout had drifted to Canada.But last March, a Health Canada monitoring station in Calgary detected an average of 8.18 becquerels per litre of radioactive iodine (an isotope released by the nuclear accident) in rainwater, the data shows.

The level easily exceeded the Canadian guideline of six becquerels of iodine per litre for drinking water, acknowledged Eric Pellerin, chief of Health Canada's radiation-surveillance division."It's above the recommended level (for drinking water)," he said in an interview. "At any time you sample it, it should not exceed the guideline."

The data still isn't posted on Health Canada's web page devoted to the impacts of Fukushima.

Gentilly reactor [in Quebec, Canada] releases 200 trillion becquerels of tritium every year Tritium is a chronic problem No way it can be filtered out of [drinking] water Becomes a part of all living things Beta particle goes ripping through nearby molecules Sometimes manifests itself as cancer

A Vancouver woman wants Canadian governments held more accountable for protecting public health in the wake of the Fukushima nuclear crisis. In an August 8 interview at the Georgia Straight office, Isabel Budke pointed out that citizens and nongovernmental organizations can exert a great deal more pressure on Health Canada and other regulators to improve monitoring, measuring, and reporting on radiation levels in water, soil, and food.

“I really think we need to have localized and regional testing because, from what I understand, the plumes that have drifted over the Pacific Ocean with this radiation are touching down on different areas in different ways, depending on where the jet stream is going and what weather conditions are,” Budke said. “We can’t rely on testing results from the United States or testing that has been done somewhere else in the country. I think we need to have our own testing in B.C.”

Budke, who has an SFU master’s degree in environmental and resource management, said that if governments won’t do this work, she wants the public to work collaboratively to have food, soil, and water tested. Her group has created a “Canadian Network for Radiation Awareness & Monitoring” website, which will post results from citizen-initiated laboratory tests.

A Canadian company has been threatening to confiscate private land from South Dakota to the Gulf of Mexico, and is already suing many who have refused to allow the Keystone XL pipeline on their property even though the controversial project has yet to receive federal approval.

Randy Thompson, a cattle buyer in Nebraska, was informed that if he did not grant pipeline access to 80 of the 400 acres left to him by his mother along the Platte River, “Keystone will use eminent domain to acquire the easement.” Sue Kelso and her large extended family in Oklahoma were sued in the local district court by TransCanada, the pipeline company, after she and her siblings refused to allow the pipeline to cross their pasture.

“Their land agent told us the very first day she met with us, you either take the money or they’re going to condemn the land,” Mrs. Kelso said. By its own count, the company currently has 34 eminent domain actions against landowners in Texas and an additional 22 in South Dakota.In addition to enraging those along the proposed pipeline’s 1,700-mile path, the tactics have many people questioning whether a foreign company can pressure landowners without a permit from the State Department — the agency charged with determining whether the project is in the “national interest.” A decision is expected by year’s end on the pipeline, which would carry crude oil from Alberta to American refineries.

An unstoppable tide of radioactive trash and chemical waste from Fukushima is pushing ever closer to North America. An estimated 20 million tons of smashed timber, capsized boats and industrial wreckage is more than halfway across the ocean, based on sightings off Midway by a Russian ship's crew. Safe disposal of the solid waste will be monumental task, but the greater threat lies in the invisible chemical stew mixed with sea water.

This new triple disaster floating from northeast Japan is an unprecedented nuclear, biological and chemical (NBC) contamination event. Radioactive isotopes cesium and strontium are by now in the marine food chain, moving up the bio-ladder from plankton to invertebrates like squid and then into fish like salmon and halibut. Sea animals are also exposed to the millions of tons of biological waste from pig farms and untreated sludge from tsunami-engulfed coast of Japan, transporting pathogens including the avian influenza virus, which is known to infect fish and turtles. The chemical contamination, either liquid or leached out of plastic and painted metal, will likely have the most immediate effects of harming human health and exterminating marine animals.

Many chemical compounds are volatile and can evaporate with water to form clouds, which will eventually precipitate as rainfall across Canada and the northern United States. The long-term threat extends far inland to the Rockies and beyond, affecting agriculture, rivers, reservoirs and, eventually, aquifers and well water.   Falsifying Oceanography

President Obama is feeling election-year pressure over the pending decision on the Keystone XL pipeline. Republicans say the Canadian project would provide the U.S. with oil and new jobs, but environmentalists want Obama to block it. They say Alberta's oil sands generate more greenhouse gases than other kinds of oil, and Americans must not become dependent on such a dirty source of energy. But it may already be too late to change that.

Ben West, an anti-oil tanker activist with a group called the Wilderness Committee, says when the pipeline company Kinder Morgan bought this facility in 2005, it shifted its focus to exports — primarily to the American West Coast. "We've seen this huge increase of tanker traffic," he says. "We went from 22 tankers in 2005, up to 79 [in 2010]. You know these 700,000-barrel tankers that are now coming through the Burrard Inlet, which passes through one of the most populated areas of British Columbia."

The pipeline also has a branch that crosses the border, feeding crude oil to refineries in Washington state. Kinder Morgan is now exploring the possibility of doubling the pipeline's capacity. West calls it the "quiet repurposing" of the Trans Mountain Pipeline. And because of it, oil sands gasoline is now fueling cars from Seattle to San Francisco.

Since a tsunami and earthquake destroyed the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant last March, radioactive cesium has consistently been found in 60 to 80 per cent of Japanese fishing catches each month tested by Japan’s Fisheries Agency.

In November, 65 per cent of the catches tested positive for cesium (a radioactive material created by nuclear reactors), according to a Gazette analysis of data on the fisheries agency’s website

In November, 18 per cent of cod exceeded a new radiation ceiling for food to be implemented in Japan in April – along with 21 per cent of eel, 22 per cent of sole and 33 per cent of seawee

As Canadians learned about dangerous radiation falling on them in rain on Tuesday as far east as Toronto registered at 20,000 CPM, equivalent to the highly targeted dose of radiation for cancer radiotherapy,  the Fukushima catastrophe escalated even higher Wednesday with evidence that the ground is cracking under the crippled nuclear power plant, causing radioactive steam to escape, "very serious and alarming" according to Anissa Naouai's guest on Russia Today, Dr. Robert Jacobs, Professor of nuclear history at Hiroshima Peace Institute. 

Fukushima nuclear plant workers have reported that the ground under the facility is cracking and radioactive steam is already escaping through the cracks that Dr. Jacobs says is very serious and alarming development because it has happened after two large earthquakes over the past few weeks according to Russia Today. (See embedded Russia Today interviewing Dr. Jacobs on Youtube video on this page left.) "There was a 6.4 earthquake on the 31st of July and a 6.0 earthquake on August 12th," Dr. Jacobs told Russia Today's Naoiai.

"What this indicates is there may have been some breaking of the pipes and some of the structures underground that happened during these earthquakes," he said. "There could be radioactive water that is venting into the soil and what's more, as cracks are opening, the steam and radioactivity is working its way up," he said.

As the country awaits results from a nationwide safety study on the natural gas drilling process of fracking, a separate government investigation into contamination in a place where residents have long complained [1] that drilling fouled their water has turned up alarming levels of underground pollution. A pair of environmental monitoring wells drilled deep into an aquifer in Pavillion, Wyo., contain high levels of cancer-causing compounds and at least one chemical commonly used in hydraulic fracturing, according to new water test results [2] released yesterday by the Environmental Protection Agency.

The findings are consistent with water samples the EPA has collected from at least 42 homes in the area since 2008, when ProPublica began reporting [3] on foul water and health concerns in Pavillion and the agency started investigating reports of contamination there. Last year -- after warning residents not to drink [4] or cook with the water and to ventilate their homes when they showered -- the EPA drilled the monitoring wells to get a more precise picture of the extent of the contamination.

The Pavillion area has been drilled extensively for natural gas over the last two decades and is home to hundreds of gas wells. Residents have alleged for nearly a decade [1] that the drilling -- and hydraulic fracturing in particular -- has caused their water to turn black and smell like gasoline. Some residents say they suffer neurological impairment [5], loss of smell, and nerve pain they associate with exposure to pollutants. The gas industry -- led by the Canadian company EnCana, which owns the wells in Pavillion -- has denied that its activities are responsible for the contamination. EnCana has, however, supplied drinking water to residents.

Ziggy Switkowski, former chair of ANSTO (Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation) and a proponent of nuclear power for Australia, claimed "the best place to be whenever there's an earthquake is at the perimeter of a nuclear plant because they are designed so well", and then quickly added: "On the other hand, you know, if the engineers do lose control of the core, then the answer becomes different."

Strident nuclear advocate Professor Barry Brook gave assurances in his running commentary that seemed ironically prescient of what was about to happen, stating ''I don't see the ramifications of this as damaging at all to nuclear power's prospects'' and that ''it will provide a great conversation starter for talking intelligently to people about nuclear safety''.

Other arguments trotted out by pro-nuclearists about how safe nuclear power is demonstrated their chutzpah more than their good judgment. My favourite: the justification for nuclear power is that it kills fewer people than the coal industry. Ignoring the false choice this proposition entails, what does it say about the safety culture of the nuclear industry when one of its selling points is that it kills fewer people than the competition?

Take NASA scientist James Hansen, who wrote (pdf) a public letter in June suggesting that the fate of the planet rests with the 1,700-mile Keystone XL project.

The climatologist said the proposal is a steppingstone to exploiting the entire oil sands region in Canada, where a vast amount of carbon dioxide sits underground in sand formations. Hansen asserted that its extraction would mean "game over" for the Earth when combined with emissions from coal. Canada holds the second-largest oil reserves in the world after Saudi Arabia.

, proponents of Keystone XL say that oil production in the Canadian region will continue no matter what, and that developers will find a way to transport the oil overseas if the United States declines to approve the pipeline.

The Canadian Food Inspection Agency plans to start testing fish off the coast of British Columbia for the presence of radiation stemming from the Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan earlier this year. The agency has not yet released any specific details on the testing program, but did say it expects the test results to be well below Health Canada's actionable levels for radiation.

Fisheries activist Alexandra Morton with the Raincoast Research Society says she supports the testing, but calls the announcement a political move. Morton says millions of sockeye have started returning to the Fraser River and the fishing season is already well underway. Salmon are a particular concern to Morton and others because their wide-ranging migration patterns can take them right across the Pacific Ocean to the coast of Japan.

"If they were actually concerned about the health of people and the fish, they would have started this actually at the beginning of the commercial openings. But to release this two days before the disease hearings at the Cohen inquiry, to me it's a political statement, it's a political effort to appear responsible," she said.