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Fish taken from a lake in northern Vermont had similar levels of strontium-90 and cesium-137 as fish taken from the Connecticut River near Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant in Vernon. During a Feb. 3 meeting of the House Fish, Wildlife and Water Resources Committee in the Vermont Statehouse, committee members heard from Bill Irwin, chief of radiological health for the Vermont Department of Health. "We got preliminary results from our fish sample analysis from Lake Carmi in northern Franklin County," Irwin told the Reformer on Monday. Irwin said Lake Carmine, in Enosburg Falls, is about as far away from Yankee as you can get and still be in the Green Mountain State. "The results are that cesium-137 and strontium-90 in Lake Carmi fish is in the same range as Connecticut River fish," said Irwin. "We take this as some evidence that all fish in Vermont are likely to have radioactive cesium and strontium at these levels and that, as we've hypothesized, it is from nuclear weapons fallout and the releases of Chernobyl. All of us are glad to have proof and not just conjecture." The fish taken from Lake Carmi were small-mouth bass, he said, and were taken from the lake by Vermont Fish and Wildlife fisheries personnel. Cesium was found in both edible and inedible portions of the bass, he said, while strontium was found only in inedible portions, which include bones, the head, fins and scales. "There's no danger in eating the fish," said Irwin. "Should we ever find that there are reasons to restrict diet from any sampling for any kind of radioactive or toxicological events, we would keep in mind different cultures have different diets."

In the same analyses, the fish had almost 500 times more potassium-40 in them than they do cesium-137, he said. Potassium-40 is a naturally occurring radioactive material that is in nearly everything and was created when the planet was formed billions of years ago, said Irwin. A fish taken from the Connecticut River in 2010 had the highest levels of strontium-90 in bone that his department has seen in any samples. "In that same sample we did find very low but measurable amounts of strontium-90 in the meat of the fish," said Irwin, which could have been a sampling or contamination error. "But we don't know that." The sampling is part of an ongoing multi-state operation to help determine what is the level of the two radioactive isotopes in fish in Vermont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts and New York. "We hope to further populate this data with fish taken from waters unaffected by nuclear power plants," said Irwin. The states are also working with the a Food and Drug Administration laboratory in Winchester, Mass., to develop sampling and analysis protocols. When more data has been assembled from around the region, Irwin said they hope to publish it in scientific journals. The results of the sampling from Lake Carmi will be posted soon on DOH's website, he said. When this year's fishing season begins, Fish and Wildlife personnel will be taking more fish for the Department of Health.

On November 15, the Ministry of the Environment announced the result of the survey of the radioactive material density in bottom soil in 193 locations in rivers, lakes and dams in Fukushima Prefecture. Radioactive cesium was detected in almost all locations, with the highest density of 60,000 becquerels/kg of radioactive cesium in the riverbed soil in the Ota River that runs through Minami Soma City, which was designated as "evacuation-ready zone" after the Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant accident.

The Ministry also conducted the survey of the water. Maximum 27 becquerels/liter of radioactive cesium was detected in the water from a dam inside the "no-entry zone" [within 20-kilometer radius], but in most locations it was not detected. The Ministry's analysis is that "radioactive materials have been absorbed by sludge and sands and sunk to the bottom, and that is why the radiation density is high [in the soil in rivers, lakes and dams]."The survey result is not yet uploaded at the Ministry's website.The provisional "safety" standard for drinking water in Japan is 200 becquerels/liter of radioactive cesium. (For reference, in Belarus, it is 10 becquerels/kg.)

As if the closing steel mills and automobile manufacturing plants weren't bad enough, some of the oldest, most risky atomic reactors in the U.S. are located in the Midwest. Worse still, they are on the shores of the Great Lakes, putting at risk the drinking water supply for 40 million people downstream in the U.S., Canada, and a large number of Native American First Nations. Altogether, 33 atomic reactors are located on the shorelines of the Great Lakes. Two of the most infamous of these radiologically risky "Rust Belt reactors" are Entergy Nuclear's Palisades in southwest Michigan, and FirstEnergy's Davis-Besse in northwest Ohio.

Last month, U.S. Rep. Ed Markey (D-MA), a long-time watchdog on the nuclear industry, wrote the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) about an acidic, radioactive leak representing a "crisis in the control room at the Palisades nuclear power plant." The leakage had been ongoing for a year, and was being "contained" in glorified buckets referred to by Entergy PR spokesman Mark Savage as "catch basins." Although the leak came to light when Palisades was forced to shutdown after its rate reached more than 30 gallons per day, it had been ongoing for months at a rate of 15 gallons per day. The tritiated and borated water is leaking from a 300,000 gallon Safety Injection Refueling Water storage tank, which is safety critical for both reactor core and radiological containment cooling. Whistleblowers contacted Washington, D.C. attorney Billie Pirner Garde, who alerted Rep. Markey, who wrote NRC. The NRC Office of Investigations has launched a probe into potential Entergy wrongdoing. On July 17th, NRC issued a "Confirmatory Action Letter" which enables Palisades to keep operating into 2013, even if the leak increases to nearly 38 gallons per day!

Markey demanded a copy of an internal Entergy report surveying its own workers on "safety culture" at Palisades. Michigan Radio obtained a copy, which reveals "a lack of accountability at all levels," and a workforce deeply distrustful of management, fearful that they will be harassed and punished if they dare to raise safety concerns.

EnergySolutions Inc. is making a deal with a Sweden-based competitor, Studsvik, to dispose of solid nuclear waste in Utah. The Deseret News of Salt Lake City reported Tuesday that EnergySolutions signed a contract in December with Studsvik Inc. That's a U.S. subsidiary of Sweden's Studsvik Holding.

The plan is to use the company's THOR (Thermal volume/Weight Reduction Technology) to process nuclear power plant waste into solid form rather than a mix of powdery, radioactive resins.

Studsvik's patented technology features a pyrolysis / steam reforming system to volume and mass reduce organic waste streams to a non-reactive waste form for efficient Disposal or On-site Storage. Bead Resins, Powdered Filter Medias, Sludges, Activated Charcoal, Non-Metal Filter Cartridges, and Dry Active Wastes (DAW) all have been successfully processed. This entire process is referred to as Thermal Organic Reduction or THOR.

While the 2011 earthquake and worries surrounding Fukushima have brought the threat of radioactivity back into the public consciousness, many people still don't realize that radioactive contamination is a worldwide danger. Radionuclides are in the top six toxic threats as listed in the 2010 report by The Blacksmith Institute, an NGO dedicated to tackling pollution. You might be surprised by the locations of some of the world’s most radioactive places — and thus the number of people living in fear of the effects radiation could have on them and their children.

10. Hanford, USA

The Hanford Site, in Washington, was an integral part of the US atomic bomb project, manufacturing plutonium for the first nuclear bomb and "Fat Man," used at Nagasaki. As the Cold War waged on, it ramped up production, supplying plutonium for most of America's 60,000 nuclear weapons. Although decommissioned, it still holds two thirds of the volume of the country’s high-level radioactive waste — about 53 million gallons of liquid waste, 25 million cubic feet of solid waste and 200 square miles of contaminated groundwater underneath the area, making it the most contaminated site in the US. The environmental devastation of this area makes it clear that the threat of radioactivity is not simply something that will arrive in a missile attack, but could be lurking in the heart of your own country.

UPDATE: Nine Mile Point 2 nuclear facility shut down twice in 1 week due to a "higher than normal leak".  On August 8th the plant was shut down, then again on August 11th.  Nine Mile Point 2 is situated on Lake Ontario and was leaking into it.  Could that be the source of the extremely high radiation found in Toronto area rainwater? 9wsyr.com (WSYR-TV) -- The Nine Mile Nuclear Plant's unit two is back up and running. The plant needed to be shut down twice this week because of leaks, but Friday night all the repairs were complete.

Inspections have assured that there are no other issues and the unit is back up to about 24 percent power.   It will take a little more time to get the unit back up to 100 percent.   Representatives say the leaks were never a risk to the public, or to plant employees.

Nine Mile Point 2 shut down for second time in a weekAugust 11, 2011

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

The impacts on the ocean of releases of radionuclides from the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plants remain unclear. However, information has been made public regarding the concentrations of radioactive isotopes of iodine and cesium in ocean water near the discharge point. These data allow us to draw some basic conclusions about the relative levels of radionuclides released which can be compared to prior ocean studies and be used to address dose consequences as discussed by Garnier-Laplace et al. in this journal.(1) The data show peak ocean discharges in early April, one month after the earthquake and a factor of 1000 decrease in the month following. Interestingly, the concentrations through the end of July remain higher than expected implying continued releases from the reactors or other contaminated sources, such as groundwater or coastal sediments. By July, levels of 137Cs are still more than 10 000 times higher than levels measured in 2010 in the coastal waters off Japan. Although some radionuclides are significantly elevated, dose calculations suggest minimal impact on marine biota or humans due to direct exposure in surrounding ocean waters, though considerations for biological uptake and consumption of seafood are discussed and further study is warranted.

there was no large explosive release of core reactor material, so most of the isotopes reported to have spread thus far via atmospheric fallout are primarily the radioactive gases plus fission products such as cesium, which are volatilized at the high temperatures in the reactor core, or during explosions and fires. However, some nonvolatile activation products and fuel rod materials may have been released when the corrosive brines and acidic waters used to cool the reactors interacted with the ruptured fuel rods, carrying radioactive materials into the ground and ocean. The full magnitude of the release has not been well documented, nor is there data on many of the possible isotopes released, but we do have significant information on the concentration of several isotopes of Cs and I in the ocean near the release point which have been publically available since shortly after the accident started.

We present a comparison of selected data made publicly available from a Japanese company and agencies and compare these to prior published radionuclide concentrations in the oceans. The primary sources included TEPCO (Tokyo Electric Power Company), which reported data in regular press releases(3) and are compiled here (Supporting Information Table S1). These TEPCO data were obtained by initially sampling 500 mL surface ocean water from shore and direct counting on high-purity germanium gamma detectors for 15 min at laboratories at the Fukushima Dai-ni NPPs. They reported initially results for 131I (t1/2 = 8.02 days), 134Cs (t1/2 = 2.065 years) and 137Cs (t1/2 = 30.07 years). Data from MEXT (Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology—Japan) were also released on a public Web site(4) and are based on similar direct counting methods. In general MEXT data were obtained by sampling 2000 mL seawater and direct counting on high-purity germanium gamma detectors for 1 h in a 2 L Marinelli beaker at laboratories in the Japan Atomic Energy Agency. The detection limit of 137Cs measurements are about 20 000 Bq m–3 for TEPCO data and 10 000 Bq m–3 for MEXT data, respectively. These measurements were conducted based on a guideline described by MEXT.(5) Both sources are considered reliable given the common activity ratios and prior studies and expertise evident by several Japanese groups involved in making these measurements. The purpose of these early monitoring activities was out of concern for immediate health effects, and thus were often reported relative to statutory limits adopted by Japanese authorities, and thus not in concentration units (reported as scaling factors above “normal”). Here we convert values from both sources to radionuclide activity units common to prior ocean studies of fallout in the ocean (Bq m–3) for ease of comparison to previously published data.

Dismissed as a “nobody” by Japan’s nuclear industry, seismologist Katsuhiko Ishibashi spent two decades watching his predictions of disaster come true: First in the 1995 Kobe earthquake and then at Fukushima. He says the government still doesn’t get it.The 67-year-old scientist recalled in an interview how his boss marched him to the Construction Ministry to apologize for writing a 1994 book suggesting Japan’s building codes put its cities at risk. Five months later, thousands were killed when a quake devastated Kobe city. The book, “A Seismologist Warns,” became a bestseller.That didn’t stop Haruki Madarame, now head of Japan’s Nuclear Safety Commission, from dismissing Ishibashi as an amateur when he warned of a “nuclear earthquake disaster,” a phrase the Kobe University professor coined in 1997. Ishibashi says Japan still underestimates the risk of operating reactors in a country that has about 10 percent of the world’s quakes.

“What was missing -- and is still missing -- is a recognition of the danger,” Ishibashi said, seated in a dining room stacked with books in his house in a Kobe suburb. “I understand we’re not going to shut all of the nuclear plants, but we should rank them by risk and phase out the worst.”Among Japan’s most vulnerable reactors are some of its oldest, built without the insights of modern earthquake science, Ishibashi said. It was only in the last four years that Japan Atomic Power Co. recognized an active fault line running under its reactor in Tsuruga, which opened in 1970 about 120 kilometers (75 miles) northeast of Osaka and close to a lake that supplies water to millions of people in the region.New Fault LinesJapan Atomic is reinforcing the plant to improve quake tolerance and believes it’s safe despite the discovery of new active faults lines in 2008, Masao Urakami, a Tokyo-based spokesman for the utility, said.“We can’t respond to every claim by every scientist,” he said. “Standards for seismic ground motion are not decided arbitrarily, but are based on findings by experts assigned by the government.”

Reactor 1 at the Tsuruga plant, which had its license extended for 10 years in 2009, is one of 13 on Wakasa bay, a stretch of Sea of Japan coast that is home to the world’s heaviest concentration of nuclear reactors. The area is riddled with fault lines found in the last three or four years, according to Ishibashi.

Impact Seen As Roughly Comparable to Radiation-Related Deaths After Chernobyl; Infants Are Hardest Hit, With Continuing Research Showing Even Higher Possible Death Count

An estimated 14,000 excess deaths in the United States are linked to the radioactive fallout from the disaster at the Fukushima nuclear reactors in Japan, according to a major new article in the December 2011 edition of the International Journal of Health Services. This is the first peer-reviewed study published in a medical journal documenting the health hazards of Fukushima.Authors Joseph Mangano and Janette Sherman note that their estimate of 14,000 excess U.S. deaths in the 14 weeks after the Fukushima meltdowns is comparable to the 16,500 excess deaths in the 17 weeks after the Chernobyl meltdown in 1986.

The rise in reported deaths after Fukushima was largest among U.S. infants under age one. The 2010-2011 increase for infant deaths in the spring was 1.8 percent, compared to a decrease of 8.37 percent in the preceding 14 weeks.The IJHS article will be published Tuesday and will be available online as of 11 a.m. EST at http://www.radiation.org . Just six days after the disastrous meltdowns struck four reactors at Fukushima on March 11, scientists detected the plume of toxic fallout had arrived over American shores. Subsequent measurements by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) found levels of radiation in air, water, and milk hundreds of times above normal across the U.S. The highest detected levels of Iodine-131 in precipitation in the U.S. were as follows (normal is about 2 picocuries I-131 per liter of water): Boise, ID (390); Kansas City (200); Salt Lake City (190); Jacksonville, FL (150); Olympia, WA (125); and Boston, MA (92)

The North Anna nuclear plant is expected to begin generating electricity today for the first time since a magnitude-5.8 earthquake shut down both reactors almost three months ago. Dominion Virginia Power started the nuclear-fission process in Unit 1 on Monday at 3 a.m., 2½ days after federal regulators gave permission to return the reactors to service at the power station in Louisa County.

The company expects to begin restarting Unit 2 soon after the first reactor begins producing electricity and return both units to full power by Sunday, about 10 days after receiving the green light from the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The NRC is monitoring the restart. Its staff reported no concerns Monday. Dominion Virginia Power spokesman Rick Zuercher said the process of restarting the first reactor has taken a little longer than the company had expected but had not encountered significant problems.

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission said Dominion Virginia Power performed a quarterly inspection of the Lake Anna dam last week. "Everything checked out OK," said commission spokeswoman Celeste Miller, who said the company also had inspected the dam immediately after the earthquake.

TEPCO to Install Second Water Decontamination System Plant Status Tokyo Electric Power Co. continues its attempts to decontaminate radioactive water that has collected in the basements of buildings and in drains at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear energy facility. With its current decontamination system operating at only 53 percent of capacity, TEPCO is planning to receive new water treatment equipment this week.  TEPCO will use the new system alongside the existing one

Industry/Regulatory/Political Issues The government of Japan will buy beef containing radioactive cesium that has reached the country’s distribution chain. NHK news service reports that more than 2,800 cattle that may have been fed radioactive rice straw have been shipped to 46 of 47 prefectures. The government will inspect the beef and buy any that contains higher-than-permissible levels of cesium.

Media Highlights NEI briefed financial analysts in New York July 26 on the U.S. nuclear energy industry’s response to the Fukushima Daiichi accident. The presentation is available in the Financial Center on NEI’s website. NEI President and CEO Marv Fertel appeared on CNBC prior to the briefing. Media coverage included Dow Jones Market Watch and a New York Times blog. NEI’s news release on the event is here.

After the nuclear catastrophe that followed the earthquake and tsunami in Japan last spring, some Central Virginia activists cautioned that a similar nightmare could unfold right here at the Dominion-operated North Anna nuclear generating plant in Louisa County. Despite Dominion's assurances that the plant made it through the August 23 earthquake unscathed, activists contend that the quake, which measured 5.8 on the Richter Scale and had an epicenter just eleven miles from the plant, may have been more catastrophic than anyone is admitting. New information bolsters their fears.

On Monday, August 29, the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission announced that the quake may, in fact, have produced force that exceeded the North Anna plant's specifications and that the Commission is sending a special Augmented Inspection Team to assess the damage.

Initial reviews determined the plant may have exceeded the ground motion for which it was designed," says the release, which also assures that "no significant damage to safety systems has been identified."