25 February 2014 (18:54 UTC-07 Tango 24 February 2014)/24 Rabi ‘ath-Thani 1435/06 Esfand 1392/26 Bing-Yin (1st month) 4712

“The only cesium-134 in the North Pacific is there from Fukushima.”-John Smith, Bedford Institute of Oceanography in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia

At the yearly American Geophysical Union’s Ocean Sciences Meeting in Hawaii, scientists revealed that cesium-134 and 137, from Fukushima Daiichi, has hit the coastline of British Columbia, Canada.  At this point the levels are still considered safe, but they definitely came from Japan.  The radiation is expected to make its way down the Pacific coast of North America, as far south as Baja California, and then back towards Hawaii.

A study done in 2012 by Kyoto University revealed that some people in Fukushima Prefecture are being exposed to 2.5 millisieverts per year (mSv/y) of radiation.  In Japan the safe level for people not working in the nuclear industry is 1 mSv/y.  Getting a CT scan exposes you to at least 2 mSv/y, if the operator doesn’t screw up and OD you.

Japan’s Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry is finally going to study the health of 2-thousand throwaway workers who were involved at the beginning of the Fukushima Daiichi disaster back in 2011.  The ministry is looking specifically for thyroid cancer.  To this point no official agency has done such a survey, in fact even the employers of throwaway nuclear power workers are not required to monitor their health, or how much radiation they’ve been exposed to (that’s why they’re called ‘throwaway’ workers).

The number of children in Fukushima Prefecture with thyroid cancer is at 33.  Most Japanese officials blow it off.  However Russian health officials, who monitored the situation after the 1986 Chernobyl disaster, pointed out that it took as long as five years before thyroid cancer showed up in the victims of that nuclear disaster.

The latest airborne radiation testing at the U.S. Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad, New Mexico, shows elevated radiation levels.  Officials with the DoE claim those levels are still below the amount of radiation you get from a properly done chest x-ray.