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Radioactive waste from Sellafield has been found in Scottish farmed salmon sold in major British supermarkets. Tests commissioned by Greenpeace revealed traces of radioactive waste in packets of fresh and smoked salmon. The tests, conducted independently by Southampton University's oceanography centre, found low levels Technetium-99 (Tc-99) in farmed Scottish salmon sold at Sainsbury's, Tesco, Asda, Safeway, Waitrose and Marks & Spencer. Tc-99 is a byproduct of Magnox fuel reprocessing. Dr David Santillo, a scientist at Greenpeace's research laboratories at Exeter University, said: "Tc-99 should not be there at all. It is inexplicable yet significant. Scottish salmon is marketed as something that comes from a pristine environment."

Extract Salmon is no longer cherished as a local specialty in northeast China, where people fear the fish have been contaminated by the radiation from the meltdown at the Fukshima nuclear plant in Japan following the devastating earthquake in March this year. “It has been a long-time privilege for me to preserve salmon at the request of relatives and friends but lately they have refused it, even when I called to offer them some,” said Xing Guo, a fishery worker in Fuyuan county on the border with Russia in the northeastern province of Heilongjiang. Guo’s mother told him not to eat salmon after she heard rumors that the fish had been contaminated in the Sea of Japan before making their migration to local fresh water. “I have seen some fish thrown in the rubbish bin outside. Not daring to eat it, those who received salmon as a present threw it away,” he said. End Extract http://www.wantchinatimes.com/news-subclass-cnt.aspx?cid=1103&MainCatID=11&id=20110930000055

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.

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

While readings of radiation in the air have returned to pre-3/11 levels in most areas of Japan — not including areas close to the plant and the so-called hot spots — the contamination of soil, which affects the food chain, could pose a long-term health risk, experts say. Iodine-131, cesium-134 and cesium-137 were released in large quantities by the nuclear plant, and if they are accumulated in the body, they could cause cancer.

Kunikazu Noguchi, lecturer at Nihon University and an often-quoted expert on radiological protection, assures that consumers need not worry too much about any produce on the market, because at present, radiation levels in most vegetables, meat, dairy and other foods, even those from Fukushima Prefecture, are far below the government's safety limits and often undetectable. But for consumers concerned about the few incidents of tainted food slipping through the government checks (such as the beef from cattle that had been fed with tainted straw in Fukushima, which was shipped nationwide in July), or families with small children, Noguchi suggests a simple way to minimize their radiation exposure through food: rinse it.

rinsing the food well before cooking, preferably with hot water, and/or boiling or stewing it, a large portion of radioactive elements can be removed. In his book, published in Japanese in mid-July, "Hoshano Osen kara Kazoku wo Mamoru Tabekata no Anzen Manyuaru" ("The Safety Manual for Protecting Your Family From Radiation Contamination"), Noguchi offers tips on how to prepare food, item by item, so consumers can reduce their radiation intake at home.