FUK-U-SHIMA: The United Nations Says TEPCO May Need To Dump Fukushima Water Into The Sea - As Officials Record 6,000 PERCENT Cancer Rate Increase In Children's Thyroid; And Mysterious Deadly Transparent Fungus Is Found In Fish In The Pacific Northwest!

Posted by Andre Heath

Tokyo Electric Power Co. (Tepco) employees, wearing protective suits and masks, are seen near tanks of radiation-contaminated water at the company's

Fukushima Dai-Ichi nuclear power plant. Photographer: Issei Kato/Pool via BloombeMay 21, 2015 - JAPAN - 
Tokyo Electric Power Co. should consider discharging water contaminated by the Fukushima Daiichi reactor meltdowns into the Pacific Ocean, 
the International Atomic Energy Agency said.

More than four years after the nuclear power-plant disaster in Japan, the United Nations agency renewed pressure for an alternative to holding the tainted water in tanks and offered to help monitor for offshore radiation.

“The IAEA team believes it is necessary to find a sustainable solution to the problem of managing contaminated water,” the Vienna-based agency said in a report. “This would require considering all options, including the possible resumption of controlled discharges into the sea.’

Tepco officials are still using water to cool molten nuclear fuel from the reactors and while on-site tanks were installed to hold 800,000 cubic meters of effluent, engineers have battled leaks and groundwater contamination. The assessment, published Thursday, 
was based on visits by an IAEA team in February and April.

The IAEA also said it would send scientists to collect water and sediment samples off the Fukushima coastline to improve data reliability.

‘‘TEPCO is advised to perform an assessment of the potential radiological impact to the population and the environment arising from the release of water containing tritium and any other residual radionuclides to the sea in order to evaluate the radiological significance,’’ the agency said.
 ‘‘The IAEA team recognizes the need to also consider socioeconomic conditions .’’

Fishermen ProtestPrevious releases of Fukushima contamination into the Pacific have drawn protests by Japanese fishermen and environmental groups. Fish caught off the coast of Fukushima have been subject to testing for radiation before being sold.

Contamination from Fukushima has been measured off the western coasts of the U.S. and Canada, signaling the need for more monitoring, according to the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, the largest private non-profit research group looking at the world’s oceans.

Though contamination levels off the North American coast are ‘‘extremely low,’’ oceans need to be monitored ‘‘after what is certainly the largest accidental release of radioactive contaminants to the oceans in history,’’ Ken Buesseler, a marine chemist at Woods Hole, said last month. - Bloomberg.




Mysterious deadly transparent fungus being found on fish in Pacific Northwest — Gov’t: There was some concern Fukushima radiation could be involved — Biologists investigating how this landbased mold is now appearing in ocean — Many reports of unusual rotting sores, growths, bumps, cancer [PHOTOS]

The Nome office of the Alaska Department of Fish and Game received several reports of tomcod with transparent lesions this year… 
ADF&G fishery biologists speculate that the lesions are a fungus… Specifically, transparent mold, commonly found in houses… 
What the pathology lab finds interesting is that this fungus is landbased and yet it is appearing on fish… 
Fish pathologists would like to receive as many samples as possible so that they may adequately research what exactly is infecting these fish, 
as well as its affect on humans. Until further notice, ADF&G recommends that fish with lesions should not be eaten due to possible human health concerns
 (CAPTION: DON’T EAT THIS— ADF&G biologists are investigating transparent lesions found on tomcods in the region. 
Until it is known what the lesions exactly are, the department recommends not to consume fish showing these symptoms) - 
[PDF], Nov 27, 2014 (emphasis added) - Nome Nugget.


Just a quick word on this fungus that people are seeing more and more of. It’s probably what’s called saprolegnia. It’s a water mold… It’s in the water at all times… healthy fish will swim around and never get it,
 but if the fish is stressed nutritionally or its immune system has been compromised… that gives a pathway for the mold to attack… It will eventually kill the fish… We saw something similar last summer. 
We had a very big die-off on the Kobuk River…
 we had thousands of dead chum salmon… and they had had presence of the same mold on them.  - [PDF], Mar 17, 2015 - Brendan Scanlon, fishery biologist for North Slope Dept. of Fish & Game.


Dr. Jayde Ferguson, Alaska Dept of Fish & Game: The first confirmed report was from fish caught on Oct. 12, 2013… There was some concern that radiation from the Japanese disaster could be involved,
so the North Slope biologist measured ionizing radiation in fish with a geiger-mueller counter and found that there was no elevated levels there… There was no food in the GI track and there was no fat or very 
little fat internally…
 The external lesions… corresponded to saprolegnia… it can act as a pathogen particularly in stressed fish because their immune system is depressed… I wanted to touch on a totally unrelated fungal case that is of interest
 to our lab because there’s not a lot known about it and it’s distinctly different from the saprolegnia in that it’s very transparent and large… there’s not a lot out in the literature on this transparent fungus… There’s just not a lot known about transmission or anything else, so we’re wanting to get a better idea of what’s going on…
Dr. Todd Sformo, Wildlife Biologist: I think the main concern was that if this mold is really present in the environment… it’s been reported a lot… why is the mold coming up being on fish at this point? So we have very few records in the north slope and Jayde mentioned the one… in the 1980s, so that was just one fish with that mold that we had recorded up until this point… why is it occurring now if it’s so prevalent in the environment?… We measured a number of the fish that were caught that had the mold and that did not have the mold and the size of the fish didn’t seem to matter at all…
Ferguson: If we’re seeing it in juveniles that really does support some environmental issue… How many fish are affected?… It might not have an impact at the population level, but if there’s a large amount of fish that are affected, then that’s a different thing.
[PDF], Feb 20, 2014 - North Slope Federal Subsistence Regional Advisory Council.


02-02-15 – Whitefish that had a bulged out eye ball [and] some type of growth around the cheekbone. Would like to know the cause of these observed abnormalities
12-10-14 – Whitefish… has a brownish moldy growth all over it’s body. We would like to know more about what is going on with our fish and why this is happening
10-24-14 – Trout appeared to have sores… rotting or decaying… [we] have never seen these sores before… We are still seeing a lot of fish with these kinds of conditions
06-12-14 – A codfish that was caught with a deep cut or sore on it was pulled in… We are not really sure what happened to this poor cod, but we think it is unusual
05-26-14 – Whitefish that had a growth… on its dorsal fin. Other fish were also caught with a similar condition… ADF&G: “This whitefish has… probably a neoplasm (cancer)”
02-17-14 – Fish… found with lesions on them… Other people also said they saw these bumps… elders who said they have seen fish with skin bumps like this once before…  people are still worried because they are not sure what it is this time…. these bumps… were like puss. There are quite a few people who are worried…
- Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium.
- See more at: http://thecelestialconvergence.blogspot.hk/#sthash.tqJwWaSI.dpuf

Fuku Mutation? Two-Headed Whale Washes Up On Baja, California Beach! (Disturbing Video & Images)

By Susan Duclos via beforeitsnews

Are we starting to see more than just sea life die-offs and strange behavior from the massive radioactive water dumps into the Pacific ocean from the crippled Fukushima nuclear plant?

Are we starting to see the mutations that are associated with radiation?

In my video below I show photos from a couple places of this mutated baby whale, two heads, two tails, which looks like two whales had been fused together.

With all the strange behavior of multiple different sea creatures as well as the dead sea life scattered along 98 percent of the ocean floor, are we now seeing more proof that the Fukushima radiation is destroying us by air and by sea?

It might be the first documented case of conjoined twin gray whales. (Conjoined twins have occurred in other species, such as fin, sei and minke whales. A database search at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County did not reveal published instances of conjoined gray whale twins, or what might also be referred to as Siamese gray whale twins.)

You Won't BELIEVE What's Going On At Fukushima Right Now - State Of Emergency At Fukushima Declared, Radioactive Water Likely Breached Barrier; Huge Leak Of Tritium Feared, As Toxic Water Entering Sea For Years Tainting Ocean Life!

August 05, 2013 - JAPAN - You’ve heard bad news about Fukushima recently. But it’s much worse than you know.

You Won't BELIEVE What's Going On At Fukushima Right Now.

The Wall Street Journal notes that radiation levels outside the plant are likely higher than inside the reactor:

NRA [Nuclear Regulation Authority] officials said highly contaminated water may be leaking into the soil from a number of trenches, allowing the water to seep into the site’s groundwater and eventually into the ocean.

***

Both radioactive substances are considered harmful to health. An NRA official said Monday that the very high levels were likely to be even higher than those within the reactor units themselves.

***

It was by far the highest concentration of radioactivity detected since soon after Japan’s March 2011 earthquake and tsunami ….

How could it be more radioactive outside the nuclear reactors? The reactors have lost containment, and experts have no idea where the nuclear cores are.

And the problems which have been detected at ground-level are only the tip of the iceberg.  Japan Timespoints out:

Cesium levels in water under Fukushima No. 1 plant soar the deeper it gets, Tepco reveals

***

Tepco found 950 million becquerels of cesium and 520 million becquerels of beta ray-emitting radioactive substances, including strontium, in the water from 13 meters [~43 feet] underground.

Water from 1 meter down contained 340 million becquerels, and a sample from 7 meters down contained 350 million becquerels.

***

Cesium, a metallic element, is subject to gravity.

Yomiuri reports that highly-radioactive groundwater could start coming to the surface at the Fukushima plant:

TEPCO spokesman Noriyuki Imaizumi revealed the water level of the tainted groundwater in a test well located on the sea side of the No. 2 reactor has risen rapidly.

“If the water level continues to rise, it could reach the ground surface,” Imaizumi, an acting general manager of the company’s nuclear power-related division, said at a press conference Monday.

According to the company, the water level has risen about 70 centimeters over the past 20 days.

***

To prevent contaminated groundwater from leaking into the sea, TEPCO is working to reinforce the ground foundation of seawalls. The rising water level in the test well means the measures to prevent leakage have been working.

However, the company apparently failed to give much thought to the fact that the groundwater would have nowhere else to go ….

Even Tepco admits that the groundwater problems are due to a lack of planning.  NHK points out:

[Tepco] learnt on Wednesday that its efforts to prevent radiation-tainted groundwater from seeping into the sea are failing.

***

TEPCO has been trying to solidify the embankment of the crippled power plant.

***

TEPCO says water levels in one of the contaminated wells have risen by about 1 meter since the work began in early July.

It says this is likely the result of its work to solidify the ground  [to a depth of 16 meters], using chemicals.

The company says soil up to 2 meters below the ground cannot be hardened, and water may be seeping out.

In addition, a top expert says that radioactive water could be flowing beneath the seafloor … and could well up outside of the port “containment” zone:

Atsunao Marui, head of the Groundwater Research Group at the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology, said, “Groundwater also flows beneath the seafloor, so it’s possible that contaminated groundwater could spring up outside the port.”

Marui added that water outside the port also needs to be carefully checked.

Reuters notes that the bolts in Fukushima’s tanks will corrode in just a few years, and a plant workers reveal — “Tepco says it doesn’t know how long tanks will hold”:

Experts say Tepco is attempting the most ambitious nuclear clean-up in history, even greater than the Chernobyl disaster ….

***

Radioactive water that cools the reactors …]mixes with some 400 tonnes of fresh groundwater pouring into the plant daily.

Workers have built more than 1,000 tanks ….

With more than 85 percent of the 380,000 tonnes of storage capacity filled, Tepco has said it could run out of space.

The tanks are built from parts of disassembled old containers brought from defunct factories and put together with new parts, workers from the plant told Reuters. They say steel bolts in the tanks will corrode in a few years.

Tepco says it does not know how long the tanks will hold.

Asahi writes:

[Tepco's] appallingly shoddy handling of radioactive water that is leaking from the crippled plant into the sea.

***

At the No. 3 reactor, highly radioactive “mystery steam” has been spotted.

The fact that radioactive substances are still being released into the ground, the sea and the air is irrefutable proof that the nuclear disaster of March 2011 is not over. The responsible parties must take this situation gravely ….
The utility’s glaring ineptitude with crisis management was noted right from the start of the Fukushima disaster.

***

We have zero faith in the utility’s reliability as an operator of any nuclear power plant.In fact, allowing the company to handle nuclear energy is simply out of the question.

The entire company now needs to be focused on preventing radioactive substances from escaping into the environment.

Yomiuri argues that the government agency overseeing Fukushima has no idea what’s going on:

The Nuclear Regulation Authority, which oversees safety management at the nuclear plant, decided to set up a working team to analyze conditions concerning contamination.

But the NRA’s actions have also been badly delayed. At a meeting Monday, an expert said the NRA “still can’t grasp the risks posed by the current situation.”

As Enformable points out, top Japanese officials are finally calling for Tepco to be fired:

In case one hasn’t paid attention the constant stream of international experts who have called for TEPCO to be removed as the organization in charge of decommissioning the crippled Fukushima Daiichi reactors, Shunichi Tanaka, chairman of Japan’s Nuclear Regulation Authority has also called for Tokyo Electric to be removed. “It is simply too big for one company to handle,” said Tanaka, at a press conference Wednesday. “Placing all the burden (of controlling the site) on them won’t solve the problem.”

(Background.)
Remember, an official Japanese government investigation concluded that the Fukushima accident was a “man-made” disaster, caused by “collusion” between government and Tepco and bad reactor design.  And yet the Japanese government has allowed the culprit – Tepco – to oversee the “cleanup”, in the same way that the U.S. government allowed BP to oversee the “cleanup” of the Gulf oil spill even though BP’s criminal negligence caused the spill in the first place.
ABC Australia reports:

It’s taken about two-and-a-half years, but it seems the Japanese government is finally losing patience with the operator of the Fukushima nuclear plant. The reason: its haphazard approach to stabilising the complex. Last week it was unexplained steam rising from the shattered remains of the building housing the melted reactor number three. This week it’s TEPCO’s admission that radioactive water from the plant has probably been leaking into the Pacific for the last three months.

Indeed, Asahi notes:

The operator of the crippled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant sat on its hands for more than two years despite having pledged to seal a leaking hole in a turbine building ….

NHK writes:

[Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide] Suga told reporters after the Cabinet meeting on Tuesday that the government views this as a grave matter.

Tepco’s own advisors are also blasting the operator of the stricken nuclear plant.  AFP points out:

Foreign nuclear experts on Friday blasted the operator of Japan’s crippled Fukushima nuclear plant, with one saying its lack of transparency over toxic water leaks showed “you don’t know what you’re doing”… “appears that you are not keeping the people of Japan informed. These actions indicate that you don’t know what you are doing … you do not have a plan and that you are not doing all you can to protect the environment and the people.” [said Dale Klein, Former NRC Chairman and Tepco advisory committee member]

Nuclear expert – and former high-level nuclear industry executive – Arnie Gundersen says that Fukushima has“contaminated the biggest body of water on the planet”, and that the whole Pacific Ocean likely to have cesium levels 5-10 times higher than at peak of nuclear bomb tests.
How could this happen?   Doesn’t the ocean dilute radiation to the point it is rendered harmless?  No, actually:

• A previously-secret government report concluded in 1955 that the ocean may not adequately dilute radiation from nuclear accidents

• Scientists say that radiation on the West Coast of North America could end up being 10 timeshigher than in Japan

• The amount of radioactive fuel at Fukushima dwarfs the amount at Chernobyl

• Massive leaks have been continuing at Fukushima on a daily basis for years (and here)

Japan Times notes:

Fukushima … seems to lurch from one problem to the next ….

***

When the situation is so bad that Shunichi Tanaka, the NRA chairman, is stating in a press conference, with regard to water leaks, that “if you have any better ideas, we’d like to know,” it should be clear that Fukushima No. 1 still requires the upmost attention.

The chairman of the NRA also says (via the New York Times):

Considering the state of the plant, it’s difficult to find a solution today or tomorrow… That’s probably not satisfactory to many of you. But that’s the reality we face after an accident like this… We don’t truly know whether that will work….

Indeed, technology doesn’t currently even exist to stabilize and clean up Fukushima, and Tepco – with no financial incentive to actually fix things – has only been pretending to clean it up. And see this. - Zero Hedge.

State Of Emergency At Fukushima, Radioactive Water Likely Breached Barrier.

Radioactive groundwater at Japan's crippled Fukushima nuclear plant has likely risen above an underground barrier meant to contain it, presenting an "emergency" that the plant's operator is not sufficiently addressing, a regulatory watchdog official said on Monday. 

This contaminated groundwater is likely seeping into the sea, exceeding legal limits of radioactive discharge, and a workaround planned by Tokyo Electric Power Co will only forestall the growing problem temporarily, Shinji Kinjo, head of a Nuclear Regulatory Authority task force, told Reuters.

"Right now we have a state of emergency," Kinjo said, saying there is a "rather high possibility" that the radioactive wastewater has breached the barrier and is rising towards the ground's surface, Kinjo said.

A Tepco official said the utility was taking various measures to prevent contaminated water from leaking into the bay near the plant.

It was not immediately clear how much of a threat the possible increase in contaminated groundwater could cause. In the weeks following the 2011 disaster that destroyed the plant, the Japanese government allowed Tepco to dump tens of thousands of tonnes of contaminated water into the nearby Pacific Ocean in an emergency move.

The toxic water release was heavily criticised by neighbouring countries as well as local fishermen and the utility has since promised it would not dump irradiated water without the consent of local townships. -Reuters.

Huge Leak Of Tritium Feared, As Toxic Water Entering Sea For Years Tainting Ocean Life.

Tokyo Electric Power Co. said Friday that an estimated 20 trillion to 40 trillion becquerels of tritium from the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant may have flowed into the Pacific Ocean since May 2011.

The utility reported the estimate Friday to the Nuclear Regulation Authority after recently admitting that toxic water from the emergency cooling system set up after the nuclear crisis began on March 11, 2011, is leaking into the sea.

Nevertheless, Tepco said the size of the release is roughly in the allowed range of 22 trillion becquerels a year but acknowledged it didn’t take place in a controlled manner. Tritium has a half-life of about 12 years.

Since it doesn’t know when the leak began, the utility has assumed the beginning was in May 2011, after it attempted to stop the toxic water from entering the ocean when it was discovered in April 2011.

The constant injection of water that is needed to keep the damaged reactors cool after the core meltdowns of March 2011 are generating a new radiation crisis at the plant that officials appear unable to solve without tainting the ocean and marine life. - Japan Times.

Exclusive: Japan nuclear body says radioactive water at Fukushima an 'emergency'

Via reuters.com, 5 August 2013 - Highly radioactive water seeping into the ocean from Japan's crippled Fukushima nuclear plant is creating an "emergency" that the operator is struggling to contain, an official from the country's nuclear watchdog said on Monday.

A view of the destroyed roof of the No.3 reactor building of Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO)'s tsunami-crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant is seen in Fukushima prefecture February 20, 2012.

This contaminated groundwater has breached an underground barrier, is rising toward the surface and is exceeding legal limits of radioactive discharge, Shinji Kinjo, head of a Nuclear Regulatory Authority (NRA) task force, told Reuters.

Countermeasures planned by Tokyo Electric Power Co are only a temporary solution, he said.

Tepco's "sense of crisis is weak," Kinjo said. "This is why you can't just leave it up to Tepco alone" to grapple with the ongoing disaster.

"Right now, we have an emergency," he said.

Tepco has been widely castigated for its failure to prepare for the massive 2011 tsunami and earthquake that devastated its Fukushima plant and lambasted for its inept response to the reactor meltdowns. It has also been accused of covering up shortcomings.

It was not immediately clear how much of a threat the contaminated groundwater could pose. In the early weeks of the disaster, the Japanese government allowed Tepco to dump tens of thousands of metric tons of contaminated water into the Pacific in an emergency move.

The toxic water release was however heavily criticized by neighboring countries as well as local fishermen and the utility has since promised it would not dump irradiated water without the consent of local townships.

"Until we know the exact density and volume of the water that's flowing out, I honestly can't speculate on the impact on the sea," said Mitsuo Uematsu from the Center for International Collaboration, Atmosphere and Ocean Research Institute at the University of Tokyo.

"We also should check what the levels are like in the sea water. If it's only inside the port and it's not flowing out into the sea, it may not spread as widely as some fear."

NO OTHER OUTLET FOR WATER

Tepco said it is taking various measures to prevent contaminated water from leaking into the bay near the plant. In an e-mailed statement to Reuters, a company spokesman said Tepco deeply apologized to residents in Fukushima prefecture, the surrounding region and the larger public for causing inconveniences, worries and trouble.

The utility pumps out some 400 metric tons a day of groundwater flowing from the hills above the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant into the basements of the destroyed buildings, which mixes with highly irradiated water that is used to cool the reactors in a stable state below 100 degrees Celsius.

Tepco is trying to prevent groundwater from reaching the plant by building a "bypass" but recent spikes of radioactive elements in sea water has prompted the utility to reverse months of denials and finally admit that tainted water is reaching the sea.

In a bid to prevent more leaks into the bay of the Pacific Ocean, plant workers created the underground barrier by injecting chemicals to harden the ground along the shoreline of the No. 1 reactor building. But that barrier is only effective in solidifying the ground at least 1.8 meters below the surface.

By breaching the barrier, the water can seep through the shallow areas of earth into the nearby sea. More seriously, it is rising toward the surface - a break of which would accelerate the outflow.

"If you build a wall, of course the water is going to accumulate there. And there is no other way for the water to go but up or sideways and eventually lead to the ocean," said Masashi Goto, a retired Toshiba Corp nuclear engineer who worked on several Tepco plants. "So now, the question is how long do we have?"

Contaminated water could rise to the ground's surface within three weeks, the Asahi Shimbun said on Saturday. Kinjo said the three-week timeline was not based on NRA's calculations but acknowledged that if the water reaches the surface, "it would flow extremely fast."

A Tepco official said on Monday the company plans to start pumping out a further 100 metric tons of groundwater a day around the end of the week.

The regulatory task force overseeing accident measures of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power station, which met Friday, "concluded that new measures are needed to stop the water from flowing into the sea that way," Kinjo said.

Tepco said on Friday that a cumulative 20 trillion to 40 trillion becquerels of radioactive tritium had probably leaked into the sea since the disaster. The company said this was within legal limits.

Tritium is far less harmful than cesium and strontium, which have also been released from the plant. Tepco is scheduled to test strontium levels next.

The admission on the long-term tritium leaks, as well as renewed criticism from the regulator, show the precarious state of the $11 billion cleanup and Tepco's challenge to fix a fundamental problem: How to prevent water, tainted with radioactive elements like cesium, from flowing into the ocean.

Fukushima radiation leaks rise sharply, officials baffled

Via opednews.com, 11 July 2013 - Fukushima Situation Normal, in The SNAFU Sense of "Normal"

Bad as the situation is at Fukushima, it's gotten worse.

Perhaps you've heard that radiation levels of the water leaving the Fukushima, Japan, nuclear power plane and flowing into the Pacific Ocean have risen by roughly 9,000 per cent. Turns out, that's probably putting a good face on it.

By official measurement, the water coming out of Fukushima is currently 90,000 times more radioactive than officially "safe" drinking water. 

These are the highest radiation levels measured at Fukusmima since March 2011, when an earthquake-triggered tsunami destroyed the plant's four nuclear reactors, three of which melted down.

As with all nuclear reporting, precise and reliable details are hard to come by, but the current picture as of July 10 seems to be something like this:

"   On July 5, radiation levels at Fukushima were what passes for "normal," which means elevated and dangerous, but stable, according to measurements by the owner, the Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO).

"   On July 8, radiation levels had jumped about 90 times higher, as typically reported.  TEPCO had no explanation for the increase.

"   On July 9, radiation levels were up again from the previous day, but at a slower rate, about 22 per cent.  TEPCO still had no explanation.

"   On July 10, Japan's Nuclear Regulation Authority (NRA) issued a statement saying that the NRA strongly suspects the radioactive water is coming from Fukushima's Reactor #1 and is going into the Pacific.

We Must Do Something About This Thing With No Impact

"We must find the cause of the contamination . . . and put the highest priority on implementing countermeasures," NRA Chairman Shunichi Tanaka told an NRA meeting, according to Japan Times.

As for TEPCO, the paper reported, "The utility has claimed it has detected "no significant impact' on the environment."

"in the SNAFU sense of "Normal'"

Neither the NRA nor TEPCO has determined why the level of radioactivity has been increasing. Both characterize the increase as a "spike," but so far this is a "spike" that has not yet started to come down.

Here's another perspective on the same situation:

"   10 becquerels per liter -- The officially "safe" level for radioactivity in drinking water, as set by the NRA.

A becquerel is a standard scientific measure of radioactivity, similar in some ways to a rad or a rem or a roentgen or a sievert or a curie, but not equivalent to any of them.  But you don't have to understand the nuances of nuclear physics to get a reasonable idea of what's going on in Fukushima.  Just keep the measure of that safe drinking water in mind, that liter of water, less than a quart, with 10 becquerels of radioactivity.

"  60 becquerels per liter -- For nuclear power plants, the safety limit for drinking water is 60 becquerels, as set by the NRA, with less concern for nuclear plant workers than ordinary civilians.

"   60-90 becquerels per liter -- For waste water at nuclear power plants, the NRA sets a maximum standard of 90 becquerels per liter for Cesium-137 and 60 becquerels per liter of Cesium-134.

At some of Fukushima's monitoring wells, radiation levels were in fractions of a becquerel on July 8 and 9. At the well (or wells) that are proving problematical, TEPCO has provided no baseline readings.

"  9,000 becquerels per liter -- On July 8, according to TEPCO, the company measured radioactive Cesium-134 at 9,000 becquerels per liter.  Since TEPCO characterized this as 90 times higher than on July 5, the implication is that the earlier reading (about 100) was less than twice as toxic as the allowable limit and only 10 times more toxic than drinking water for civilians.

"   11,000 becquerels per liter -- TEPCO's measurement of Cesium-134 on July 9.   

"    18,000 becquerels per liter -- TEPCO measurement of  Cesium-137 on July 8.

"    22,000 becquerels per liter -- TEPCO's measurement of Cesium-137 on July 9.

"    900,000 becquerels per liter -- TEPCO's measurement of the total radioactivity in the water leaking from Reactor #1.  This radiation load includes both Cesium isotopes, as well as Tritium, Strontium and other beta emitters.  There are more that 60 radioactive substances that have been identified at the Fukushima site.

A becquerel is a measure of the radioactivity a substance is emitting, a measure of the potential danger. There is no real danger from radiation unless you get too close to it -- or it gets too close to you, especially from inhalation or ingestion.   

Nobody Knows If It Will Get Worse, Get Better, or Just Stay Bad

The water flow through the Fukushima accident site is substantial and constant, both from groundwater and from water pumped into the reactors and fuel pools to prevent further meltdowns.

In an effort to prevent the water from reaching the ocean, TEPCO is building what amounts to a huge, underground dike -- "a deeply sunken coastal containment wall."  The NRA is calling on TEPCO to finish the project before its scheduled 2015 completion date.

Meanwhile, radiation levels remain high and no one knows for sure how to bring them down, or even if they can be brought down by any means other than waiting however long it takes.

ALERT: Emergency Declared At Oyster Creek Nuke Plant

This could get ugly in a hurry.  Oyster Creek is the same design, but even older than Fukushima, and acccording to Reuters, just 6 more inches of water will completely submerge the cooling pump.

Nation's oldest nuclear plant on alert

(Reuters) - Exelon Corp declared an "alert" at its New Jersey Oyster Creek nuclear power plant due to a record storm surge, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission said, warning that a further water rise could force the country's oldest working plant to use emergency water supplies to cool spent uranium fuel rods.

The alert came after water levels at the plant rose by more than 6.5 feet, potentially affecting the pumps that circulate water through the plant, an NRC spokesman said late on Monday.  A further rise to 7 feet could submerge the service water pump motor that is used to cool the water in the spent fuel pool.

From National Geographic:

In the wake of Fukushima, the U.S. nuclear industry has pledged to bring additional backup equipment such as generators, pumps, hoses, and batteries to keep plants operating in case of loss of power or water, but that deployment is still under way.  Some critics have raised concerns about the safety of spent fuel at Oyster Creek and other nuclear plants, noting that the cooling pools where it is stored are not required to have backup power.  Spent fuel rods are still radioactive and continue to generate significant heat for decades.  Without cooling, the pools would boil away, leaving the fuel vulnerable to damage and to causing a radioactive release.  Exelon says it has "numerous, redundant backup cooling systems."

However, as discussed below by nuclear expert Arnie Gundersen, there is NO backup diesel generator for the spent fuel pool at Oyster Creek.

---

Don't skip this.  Arne Gunderson discusses Oyster Creek:

http://www.democracynow.org/2012/10/29/nuclear_plants_from_virginia_to_vermont

Interview runs 5 minutes.  Gunderson on Democracy Now yesterday:

"There is NO backup generator for the spent fuel pool at Oyster Creek."

"The biggest problem, as I see it right now, is the Oyster Creek plant.  Oyster Creek is the same design, but even older than Fukushima Daiichi unit 1.  It’s in a refueling outage.  That means that all the nuclear fuel is not in the nuclear reactor, but it’s over in the spent fuel pool.  And in that condition, there’s no backup power for the spent fuel pools.  So, if Oyster Creek were to lose its offsite power — and, frankly, that’s really likely — there would be no way cool that nuclear fuel that’s in the fuel pool until they get the power reestablished.  The most important lesson we can take out of the Fukushima Daiichi incident, especially with Hurricane Sandy, is that we can’t expect to cool these fueling pools."