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Originally posted by SIGNYM:

San Francisco Bay Area milk sample has highest amount of Cesium-137 since last June — Almost double EPA’s maximum contaminant level

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The following are results for milk samples obtained from a Bay Area organic dairy where the farmers are encouraged to feed their cows local grass. We have detected I-131, Cs-134, and Cs-137 and are tracking their levels.
Potassium in Milk:
Milk Sample K-40 Activity (Bq/L) potassium content(g/L)
Sample M8 49 1.58
USDA standard(2%) 48 1.55
USDA standard(fat free) 50 1.62

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www.nuc.berkeley.edu/UCBAirSampling/MilkSampling

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Cameras inserted into Reactor No 2 show almost no water in the containment vessel. Because the level of water is no higher than the suppression torus which encircles the containment vessel, the inescapable conclusion is that water is leaking out of the containment vessel into the torus and from there into the reactor building basement or into the ground. Radiation levels are so high that even radiation-hardened robots of current design can't survive long enough to do things like cut up and extract fuel for storage. The reason WHY they're focusing on Reactor No 2 is because it;s in the BEST shape. Too bad Reactor No 2 is a complete clusterf*ck because that means the other rectors are even worse.

Concern is being refocused on the Spent Fuel Pool (SFP) for Reactor No 4. As you may recall, Unit No 4 was being refueled at the time of the earthquake, so there was a whole fresh load of fuel in the SFP staged there, as well as a couple of generations of old fuel. The building was seriously damaged by the NO 3 explosion. It is now leaning at about 15 degrees away from unit No 3. Large parts of No 4 building have been removed to reduce weight, and jacks have been placed under the SFP. However, according to geologists there is a 98% chance of a M7 (or higher) earthquake occurring in the next 5 years under Fukushima. IF an earthquake occurs the SPF will either fall over or collapse, water will drain away, the fuel rods will heat up under less than an hour, the zirconium cladding will burn and we will have a nice open-air 135 TON uranium-fire, which will prevent access to... and cooling of... all of the OTHER on-site spent fuel storage systems.

www.washingtonsblog.com/2012/04/a-visual-tour-of-the-fuel-pools-of-fuk
ushima.html

If that happens, what we saw March 2011 will be child's play in terms of radiation release.

Given the potential world-wide consequences, it seems to me that every nuclear-capable nation in the WORLD should be on-site, loaning or building equipment to off-load the nuclear fuel, wall up the reactor buildings, bury them, and dig a "diaper" under the site. Why everyone involved... the IAEA, NRC, the Japanese government and every nation downwind of Fukushima (which is the USA and Canada first, but eventually the whole northern hemisphere) .... keeps on with the fiction that this is a "local" disaster that can be adequately handled by local resources is beyond me.

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Originally posted by pizmobeach:
Is there anything we can do? I'll go through the usual: call our reps, etc.

I assume that radiation moves more quickly than the flotsam and jetsam than Niki is referring too. If the radiation is in the milk then that seems to suggest contamination of plants going back many months - yes? Could we also assume it's gone beyond the west coast already and will just be a steady stream until the reactors are entombed?

And I will say thx though it makes me feel helpless.

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Originally posted by RionaEire:
Yikes! The Japanese government is screwing us all over by not trying harder.

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1) Britain is very strict with their meat and diary products, I would even say unnecessarily strict, since places in Sweden and Germany got hit a lot worse by Chernobyl and they've gone back to allowing consumption of local livestock and produce. I also know that there was a small measurable increase in down syndrome rate in Germany and Sweden attributable to Chernobyl, which were back down to normal levels by 1989.

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In 1957, atmospheric nuclear explosions in Nevada, which were part of Operation Plumbbob were later determined to have released enough radiation to have caused from 11,000 to 212,000 excess cases of thyroid cancer amongst U.S. citizens who were exposed to fallout from the explosions, leading to between 1,100 and 21,000 deaths.

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The scope of damage to the plants and to the surrounding area was far beyond what I expected and the scope of the challenges to the utility owner, the government of Japan, and to the people of the region are daunting. ... The precarious status of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear units and the risk presented by the enormous inventory of radioactive materials and spent fuel in the event of further earthquake threats should be of concern to all and a focus of greater international support and assistance.

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the spent fuel crisis has spread worldwide to every nation operating nuclear reactors.

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More than a year after the triple meltdown at the Fukushima Daiichi power plant, the Japanese government, Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco) and the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) present similar assurances of the site's current state: challenges remain but everything is under control. The worst is over.

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Move south of equator if Unit 4 fuel pool goes dry, that’s probably the lesson there — Like cesium from all 800 nuclear bombs ever dropped on Earth, except all at once

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We’re getting studies out of the Cascades, all the way down into Southern California, where we’re seeing cesium in pine needles, cesium in the ground up in Oregon and up in Vancouver. Not a lot. I guess my biggest concern is bioaccumulation, it works it’s way up the food chain.

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We Japanese civil organizations express our deepest concern that our government does not inform its citizens about the extent of risk of the Fukushima Daiichi Unit 4 spent nuclear fuel pool. Given the fact that collapse of this pool could potentially lead to catastrophic consequences with worldwide implications, what the Japanese government should be doing as a responsible member of the international community is to avoid any further disaster by mobilizing all the wisdom and the means available in order to stabilize this spent nuclear fuel. It is clearly evident that Fukushima Daiichi Unit 4 spent nuclear fuel pool is no longer a Japanese issue but an international issue with potentially serious consequences. Therefore, it is imperative for the Japanese government and the international community to work together on this crisis before it becomes too late

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