Fukushima Radiation Causes Growing National Concern: Time for New EPA Policy

Eric Zoppi
3279672
2 December 2013
On March 11th, 2011 the Tōhoku earthquake and the resulting tsunami wreaked havoc upon Japan. Unfortunately, this natural disaster resulted in the largest nuclear disaster since Chernobyl, as the tsunami crippled the Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant. Following this severe breach in security, numerous radioactive isotopes and radioactive particles were released into the environment, specifically the Pacific Ocean and the surrounding air/atmosphere, thus contaminating groundwater, soil and seawater, as well as effectively shutting down a myriad of Japanese fisheries. The ocean and air mainly came in contact with high levels of Iodine-131, Cesium-137, and Cesium-134, as well as lower levels of Tellurium, Uranium, and Strontium, which were concentrated closer to the surrounding area of the nuclear power plant. However, the impact that these radioactive materials will have upon the United States, in particular, has caused quite the national controversy.
Despite heavy national acceptance of the occurrence of the disaster, two popular and opposing hypotheses have formed as a result of the Media’s lack of focus on recent analyses of the impending effects of Fukushima Disaster upon the U.S.: (1) the radioactive material that leaked as a result of the TEPCO nuclear power plant failure will not have a drastic, threatening effect on the United States, specifically the West Coast, due to the supposedly limited leak of radioactive material and more importantly the short half-lives of the radioactive isotopes released and the accepted likelihood that the Pacific Ocean dilutes the leaked radioactive material; as opposed to (2) the radiation leaked as a result of the tsunami will become a national crisis, contaminating food, beaches, and the environment, and warrants a response from the U.S. government in order to protect its citizens. It is intriguing that, even in lieu of the major lack of national media coverage of the Fukushima Disaster story, there somehow exist two popular and opposing stances on the issue; thus, it would be compelling to further examine if this is possibly depicting the growing concern about the state of the environment within the U.S. lately.
The focus of this paper will be in support of the second hypothesis because of the availability of the significantly complex and diverse evidence that has added to the validity of the second theory’s proposed outcomes. Additionally, extensive, precautionary preparation by the U.S. EPA for radioactively contaminated beaches, food, and animals along the West Coast, which would eventually occur if the “better-safe-than-sorry” hypothesis turns out to be accurate, could pay off with monumental benefits like less contamination and the availability of alternative food sources. As opposed to the benefits resulting from the aforementioned approach, the “don’t-worry-about-it” approach has inaccurately argued that there will be nothing to worry about, which originally came in response to radical antinuclear articles stating the radiation has already begun poisoning all the food and the water, among other ridiculous claims such as the proclaimed inability for citizens to go to the beaches in 2014 due to severe radiation levels in the ocean and the animals/plants that live in that ecosystem (birds, fish, mammals, plants, etc).
The research objectives of this paper are to discuss and defend the second hypothesis, and through an in-depth examination of the arguments of the second theory, discern how the EPA shall deal with the possible future outcomes of the TEPCO Fukushima disaster upon the U.S., specifically those involving the environment, food, and animals. Following the earthquake and subsequent tsunami that severely crippled TEPCO’s Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant, the resulting damage to the power plant has resulted in 2.5 years of radioactive leakage, which still continues to this day. Among the leakage are several radioactive isotopes, including Cesium-134 and 137, which can have harmful and hazardous effects on animals, specifically aquatic life that comes into contact with the substance. Although it is rare for it to occur, if a human comes into contact with Cesium there are deadly results. With these drastic possibilities existing, it is difficult to find many negative outcomes stemming from the suggested revision of the EPA’s precautionary response to Fukushima. In order to address the frightening impact that the Fukushima disaster may have upon the United States, including its people, animals, food, and environment, before it is too late, it is quite obvious that there exists a dire national need for the EPA’s Fukushima Response Policy to be revised and reapproved by the U.S. EPA while there is still time to analyze monitors and prepare for the worst.
The first hypothesis argues that the Fukushima disaster will have few effects, most of which will go unnoticed, and therefore does not pose a significant national threat to the United States. According to Forbes author Tim Worstall, there are very few effects from the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant disaster that will warrant people to frantically worry about. Worstall argues that most of the “released radioactive material will be diluted in the Pacific Ocean,” and that the radiation levels found thus far in fish, specifically the Pacific Blue Fin Tuna, suggest that there will not be nearly as big of an impact on aquatic life, as had been previously and “falsely assumed and propagated by radical antinuclear authors, whom jumped on the opportunity to spread fear” (Worstall, 2013). Furthermore, Deep Sea News’ Dr. Kim Martini argues that the radioactive nature of the isotopes released by Fukushima have “displayed short half-lives and limited concentration levels in the U.S. and Pacific Ocean” (Martini, 2013). Although Martini acknowledges that several of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear reactors were damaged during the March 11, 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami, and specifically the existence of “leaking radioactive cooling seawater, which was used in place of freshwater as a coolant for the radioactive rods ” as an emergency, last-ditch effort by TEPCO to at least partially delay the meltdown of the Fukushima reactors, she ultimately asserts that the low initial estimates proposed by TEPCO, combined with the initial EPA RadNet and monitoring results, suggest that the natural dilution of the radioactive Fukushima leakage while spreading throughout the Pacific Ocean, should “allow concentration levels of the radioactive particles, specifically Cesium-137, to fall within EPA standards” (Martini, 2013).
In direct opposition, the second hypothesis maintains that the radioactive contamination of the Pacific Ocean poses a grave threat that demands immediate revision of the EPA’s Fukushima Policy. In lieu of newfound evidence of radioactive contamination of dairy products, aquatic habitats, and beaches along the West Coast due to the leaked isotopes and other radioactive materials, such as lost fuel rods and debris from the nuclear reactors, originating from TEPCO’s Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant meltdown, it is clearly necessary for the outdated Fukushima Policy to be revised now. Rather than increasing their current efforts, the EPA chose to shut down several monitoring stations along the West Coast in addition to significantly increasing the previous limits on radiation exposure. Therefore the second hypothesis argues that the questionable decisions of the EPA warrant immediate revisions to be made in order to focus the national and public attention on the reckless risks that accompany nuclear reactor meltdowns of this magnitude, many of which have been ignored for far too long. One of the key scenarios used by the second hypothesis to defend its demand for a Fukushima Policy revisions briefly describes the many ways the Fukushima radiation can get into the air and water, which should warrant complex U.S. EPA preparations in case their initial estimates turn out to be incorrect. The scenario in a summarized form is as follows: (1) As the contaminated seawater surrounding Fukushima leaked and subsequently evaporated, smoke palls from the damaged reactors carried radioactive particles into the troposphere and stratosphere; (2) Then radioactive isotopes were widely dispersed throughout the air and water; (3) This resulted in a detrimental cycle in which the Pacific Ocean has been reabsorbing the isotopes from rainwater that carries radioactive particles into the ocean after falling through the contaminated Fukushima smoke and air, finally completing the cycle when the contaminated water evaporates and releases the particles back into the air above. According to Popular Resistance News reporters Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers, there are three major problems at Fukushima: (1) Three reactor cores are missing; (2) Radioactive water has been leaking from the plant in mass quantities for 2.5 years and counting; and (3) Eleven-thousand spent nuclear fuel rods, “perhaps the most dangerous things ever created by humans”, are stored at the plant and need to be removed, “1,533 of those are in a very precarious and dangerous position” (Flowers and Zeese, 2013). Additionally Zeese and Flowers reported that an estimated “300 tons (71,895 gallons/272,152 liters) of contaminated water is flowing into the ocean every day” (Flowers and Zeese, 2013). The first radioactive ocean plume released by the Fukushima nuclear power plant disaster will take three years to reach the shores of the United States, while the impact and timeframe of the radioactive air plumes remains relatively unknown. According to a new study from the University of New South Wales, the United States will experience the first radioactive water coming to its shores sometime in early 2014.
Although the World Health Organization (WHO) currently agrees with the EPA that the Fukushima meltdown will have a limited effect on human health, stating that radioactive “concentrations are expected to be below WHO safety levels”, the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation (UNSCEAR) is in the process of “completing a report to assess the radiation doses and associated effects on human health and the environment” (Flowers and Zeese, 2013). The report is expected to be the most comprehensive scientific analysis of the Fukushima disaster and its impacts available today, in which the UNSCEAR specifically examines how much contamination was released and dispersed over land, water, and air in order to have a clearer understanding of its possible future impacts on the Earth. Science Magazine reported that “fish near Fukushima have been found to have high levels of the radioactive isotope, Cesium-134” and that the “detectable radiation levels found in these fish are not decreasing,” which indicates that radiation-polluted water continues to leak into the Pacific Ocean (Buesseler, 2012). Reports indicate that at least “42 fish species from the area around the plant are considered unsafe,” and in response to the ongoing Fukushima leaks, “South Korea has banned Japanese fish from entering the country” (Buesseler, 2012). Since the half-life, or time it takes for half of an element to decay, “of Cesium-134 is 2.0652 years,” whereas “Cesium-137 has a half-life of 30.17 years;” additionally, Cesium does not sink to the ocean floor, so fish swim through it and can consequently become contaminated. The most recent news on the water problem at Fukushima adds to the concerns: “On October 11, 2013, TEPCO disclosed that the radioactivity level spiked 6,500 times at a Fukushima well, offering their explanation that the results provided evidence that “radioactive substances like strontium have reached the groundwater, while the high levels of tritium, which transfers much easier in water than strontium, had already been detected” (Buesseler, 2012).
Although the EPA, WHO, and FDA currently agree that the Pacific Ocean will most likely dilute the Fukushima radiation, a “previously secret 1955 U.S. government report concluded that the ocean may not adequately dilute radiation from nuclear accidents, and there could be “pockets” and “streams” of highly-concentrated radiation” (Global Research of CA, 2013). Additionally, the Physicians for Social Responsibility has supported an intriguing finding, especially for people living on the U.S. West Coast, that will reportedly be included in the UNSCEAR report: “only about 5% of the directly discharged radiation was deposited within a radius of 80 km from the TEPCO Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station” while roughly 95% was distributed directly into the Pacific Ocean. According to the Global Research report, “3-D simulations have been carried out for the Pacific basin, showing that within 5–6 years, the emissions would reach the North American coastline,” carrying with them unknown consequences for food safety and the general health of the U.S. (Global Research of CA, 2013). Rather recently, scientists from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory along with several scientists from the GEOMAR Research Center for Marine Geosciences discovered evidence that suggests “radiation on the West Coast of North America could end up being 10 times higher than in Japan” (Global Research of CA, 2013). An additional study published by a team of top Chinese scientists in the Science China: Earth Sciences journal showed that “the radioactive [Fukushima] plume crosses the [Pacific] Ocean in a nearly straight line toward North America, and that it appears to stay together with little dispersion” (Global Research of CA, 2013). On March 30, 2011, the Japan Central News Agency reported “the monitored radioactive [Fukushima] pollutions were 4000 times higher than the standard level,” thus the debate whether or not these nuclear pollutants will be transported to the Pacific-neighboring countries through oceanic circulations will become a major world-wide concern in the near future, something the EPA needs to seriously begin preparing for (Global Research of CA, 2013).
One of the largest databases for news reports regarding Fukushima radiation levels and possible effects of this radiation, the Bellona International has provided plenty of monumental evidence in support of the hypothesis defended in this paper. According to Charles Griggs, a new paper that was published in the November 1st edition of the journal Science of the Total Environment argues its research “clearly demonstrates how little dissipation of radionuclides occurred between March 12 and 16 due to the nature of the rapid global air circulation system” (Digges, 2012). Using “simulations of potential dispersion of the radiation cloud,” the paper stated that the simulations showed that “air masses were eastwardly displaced from Fukushima after the meltdown,” which would put it on a direct course to the U.S. West Coast (Digges, 2012). Interestingly, contracted choppers were sent to measure radiation along the West Coast by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, which still has yet to release any data about its findings. The Department of Homeland Security has strictly maintained its position that “radiation reaching the US West Coast after the Fukushima disaster was insignificant;” similarly the FDA announced “it was going to stop testing fish in the Pacific Ocean for radiation” one month after the Fukushima meltdown (Digges, 2012).
According to the well-respected Seattle oceanographer Curtis Ebbesmeyer, about “20 million tons of debris has begun to make landfall in the US Pacific Northwest,” which has him concerned whether the debris will bring toxic or radioactive contamination from the Fukushima site in Japan to U.S. shores (Digges, 2012). When asked about the current preparedness of the United States, Ebbesmeyer stated, “We are not prepared for this. Nobody is prepared. Nobody has even thought through the dimensions” (Digges, 2012). He further divulged his hope for further preparation by the EPA, adding, “This is unprecedented in scientific history. There’s never been a devastation on one continent that has moved off to the other continent and actually recorded” (Digges, 2012). Washouts of radiation from Fukushima into the Pacific Ocean have been well documented since March 14, 2011, when the “aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan and other US Navy ships, located off the coast of the Fukushima prefecture, were repositioned after the detection of a low-level radiation plume from the devastated plant” (Digges, 2012). Numerous reports had also cited that Japanese policies of burning radioactive waste from Fukushima are leading to a noticeable spike in radiation in rainwater along the U.S. West Coast.
The additions and suggestions that will be highlighted in this supposed amendment to the EPA’s Fukushima Policy will outline national, state, and local level changes that can be made to ensure that the United States government and its citizens are prepared to deal with the dangers associated with the Fukushima meltdown. Additionally, taking possible precautionary actions that may limit the radiation levels and end the point-source leakage that continues to release radioactive material into the Pacific Ocean should be heavily considered. Regardless of the initial evidence that suggested there wouldn’t be a noticeable impact of Fukushima radiation on the U.S., or an impact that would be minimal as the first hypothesis argues, the serious national risks associated with choosing to not use every reasonable/available resource in an attempt to mitigate the impact of the Fukushima meltdown are hard to estimate or predict due to the unknown nature of nuclear reactor failures, possibly a little foreshadowing of why the U.S. needs to start developing less hazardous sources of energy. The majority of this proposed amendment will focus on (1) the worrisome lack of media coverage of the Fukushima Disaster, (2) the failure of the EPA to implement further precautionary policies following the release of evidence showing the detectable increase in radiation levels amongst aquatic life and food sources, (3) the pathways which Fukushima pollutants may take, and (4) the necessity for TEPCO to release its records of the specific amounts and make-up of the radioactive materials that leaked during to the meltdown. Additionally the EPA will be encouraged to discuss options for TEPCO and the Japanese government to take responsibility for the environmental disaster by developing methods to best cleanup and dilute the contaminated Pacific Ocean and air plumes that continue to come over from Japan.
In order to initially formulate the recommendation for the revision of the EPA’s Fukushima Policy, there would need to be an initial group of political leaders and public officials, in California for example, that would need to support this recommended amendment. After enough support, local governments would bring in contractors to develop an Environmental Impact Statement for the California Commission on Environmental Quality (CCEQ), whom would subsequently approve and send the plan to the EPA for further approval and a public comment period. Once through this stage, the EPA will work with the state to decide which state and federal agencies will be involved in enforcement and implementation of the newly revised Fukushima policy. The agencies that would most likely be involved would be the CCEQ, California Department of Agriculture, California Department of Health, local California governments, the U.S. Coast Guard, the EPA, and the U.S. Department of Justice, among other smaller agencies. These agencies will be required to maintain accurate, up-to-date records of water and air monitors and evaluations of the aquatic life and food source radiation levels. Additionally it is both the State’s and the EPA’s responsibility to ensure that the new policies are correctly implemented, the State’s at the interstate and local levels and the EPA’s at the national and international levels. Using feedback from all of these regulatory agencies, the amended Fukushima Policy will work to terminate further leakage and to establish necessary precautions to keep the public informed. There is a crucial need for the media to end it’s apparent black out of Fukushima updates, since the support and focus of the media is integral in building public support for new policies.
Clearly the study area/environmental issue addressed above is the Fukushima meltdown’s possible catastrophic impact on the United States. The formal revisions to the current EPA Fukushima Policy will focus more on the ocean and air radiation levels, as well as demand that TEPCO release many important details that they have kept secret thus far to the EPA, and initiate protocols that would establish reserves of food and other life-essential products for the West Coast in case the radioactive particles from Fukushima do not dissipate as anticipated by the EPA, WHO, and TEPCO initial findings. Although the Fukushima incident wasn’t declared a “nuclear emergency in the United States, once the EPA learned that at least some of the Fukushima reactors were releasing airborne radioactivity, it “immediately implemented response procedures to use its network of fixed and deployable ambient air radiation monitors for assessing the domestic impact of these releases,” which is known as RadNet (Boyd et al., 2012). The EPA currently uses RadNet systems to detect, identify, and inform the public about radioactive material in the United States, resulting from TEPCO’s Fukushima meltdown, by monitoring ambient air, drinking water, precipitation, and pasteurized milk for radionuclides. Following its established procedures, the U.S. EPA elected to “increase the frequency of RadNet milk and drinking water sample collection,” as well as chose to replace the preexisting air-monitoring system with “strategically placed deployable monitoring stations” (Boyd et al., 2012). Unfortunately these increases were short-lived, as the EPA chose to decrease its monitoring and raise its radiation limits for food, such as fish and dairy products, rather than dealing with the issue upfront (Gianni, 2011).
Even though the EPA has already instituted some preliminary policies, such as RadNet and its monitoring stations, in order to keep an eye on the radiation levels on the West Coast in particular, the EPA’s current Fukushima Policy is undeniably outdated and emphatically requires revision through the proposed amendment. In the immediate aftermath of the Fukushima accident, the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) “refused to answer questions or to explain the exact location and number of monitors, or the levels of radiation, if any, being recorded at existing monitors in California” (Digges, 2012). On March 21, 2011, the “EPA pulled 8 of 18 air monitors in California, Oregon and Washington” that tracked radiation from Japan’s nuclear reactors out of service for so-called “quality reviews,” and by April 2011 the EPA had temporarily raised limits for radiation exposure by “rewriting its Protective Action Guides (PAGs) to radically increase the allowable levels of iodine-131 by 3,000 times, a 1,000-fold hike for exposure to strontium-90, and a 25,000-fold increase in exposure limits to radioactive Nikel-63” (Digges, 2012).
Due to the aforementioned evidence describing the possible impact of the Fukushima radiation, including new evidence of “detectable levels of radioactive Cesium (134 & 137) in milk from California,” and more importantly, the recent discovery of 1,533 spent fuel rods, which TEPCO reports are “packed tightly in a pool four floors above Reactor 4 at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant” (Gianni, 2011; Flowers and Zeese, 2013). Before the earthquake and tsunami hit, the spent fuel rods had been “removed for routine maintenance of the reactor;” however, as a result of the meltdown, the “spent fuel rods are currently stored 100 feet in the air inside damaged racks,” which is simply a pathetic “band-aid” attempt by TEPCO, since the racks “weigh a total of 400 tons” and contain radiation levels that are “equivalent to 14,000 times the amount released by the Hiroshima atomic bomb” (Flowers and Zeese, 2013; Boyd et al., 2012). The major problems at Fukushima are all unprecedented, each unique in their own way and each with the potential to inflict major destruction upon humans and the environment. Although there are no clear-cut solutions, the U.S. EPA must consider approving the critical steps set forth in the proposed amendment in order to get the Fukushima clean-up and de-commissioning on track, all while minimizing any major apparent risks.

Tables, Maps, & Diagrams

All Images (Global Research of CA, 2013)

All Images (Global Research of CA, 2013)
References
Boyd, Michael A., Mosser, Jennifer E., Tupin, Edward A., and Jessica S. Wieder. 2012. U.S. EPA Response to the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant Accident. Health Physics Journal. Buesseler, Ken O. 2012. Fishing for Answers off Fukushima. Science Magazine. Available [On-line]: http://www.sciencemag.org/content/338/6106/480.full Digges, Charles. 2012. Impact to US West Coast from Fukushima disaster likely larger than anticipated, several reports indicate. Bellona International. Available [On-line]: http://www.bellona.org/articles/articles_2012/fukushima-westcoast-radiation Flowers, Margaret and Kevin Zeese. 2013. Everything You Need to Know About the Fukushima Crisis. Popular Resistance. Available [On-line]: http://www.popularresistance.org/everything-you-need-to-know-about-the-fukushima- crisis/
Gianni, Kevin. 2011. Fukushima Nuclear Fallout Still Showing Up in California Dairy Products. Renegade Health. Available [On-line]: http://renegadehealth.com/blog/2011/09/30/fukushima-nuclear-fallout-still-showing-up- oyd, et al.Zeese, 2013ut Still Showing Up in California Dairy Products. Heder. 2012. new policies.and saster
N.A. 2013. “Fukushima Is Here”: Nuclear Radiation On the West Coast, from California to Alaska. Global Research of California. Available [On-line]: http://www.globalresearch.ca/fukushima-is-here-nuclear-radiation-on-the-west-coast- from-california-to-alaska/5355851
Worstall, Tim. 2013. Fukushima Radiation In Pacific Tuna Is Equal To One Twentieth Of A Banana. Forbes Magazine. Available [On-line]: http://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2013/11/16/fukushima-radiation-in-pacific-tuna- is-equal-to-one-twentieth-of-a-banana/