Fukushima fallout threatens Southland after a year of Japanese meltdowns
[Abridged and updated Beta Watch with new data, interviews and information]
By Michael Collins
Millions of Southern Californians and tourists seek the region’s famous beaches to cool off in the sea breeze and frolic in the surf. Those iconic breezes, however, may be delivering something hotter than the white sands along the Pacific – buckyballs.
According to a new U.C. Davis study, uranium-filled nanospheres are created from the millions of tons of fresh and saltwater used to try to cool down the three molten cores of the stricken reactors. The tiny and tough buckeyballs are shaped like British Association Football soccer balls.
Water hitting the incredibly hot and radioactive primarily uranium-oxide fuel turns it into peroxide. In this goo buckeyballs are formed, loaded with uranium and able to move quickly through water without disintegrating.
High radiation readings in Santa Monica and Los Angeles during a recent 42-day period from late December and to late January strongly suggest that radiation is increasing in the region.
The radiation, detected by this reporter and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency separate from each other using difference procedures, does not appear to be natural in origin. The EPA’s radiation station is high atop an undisclosed building in Los Angeles while this reporter’s detection location is near the West LA border.
Both stations registered over 5.3 times normal though the methods of sampling and detection differed. The videotaped Santa Monica sampling and testing allowed for the detection of alpha and beta radiation while the sensitive EPA instrument detected beta only according the government website.
Scientific studies from the United Kingdom and Europe show that sea water infused with radiation of the sort spewing out of Fukushima can travel inland from the coast up to 300 kilometers. These mobile poisons include cesium-137 and plutonium-239 with a half-life of 24,400 years.
Even with government, University of California and this reporter’s tests showing high radiation in the air, water, food and dairy products in this state, the state and federal government cut off special testing for Fukushima radionuclides over half a year ago.
Southern California is still getting hit by Fukushima radiation at alarmingly high levels that will inevitably increase as the main bulk of polluted Pacific Ocean water reaches North America over the next two years.
Luckily, the area is south of where the jet stream has brought hot rains from across the Pacific and Fukushima over 5,000 miles away, upwind and up-current of the West Coast. Those rains have brought extraordinary amounts of radiation to places like St. Louis with multiple rain events detected and filmed showing incredibly hot rains.
Unluckily, North America is directly downwind of Japan where the government is having 560,000 tons of irradiated rubble incinerated with the ash dumped in Tokyo Bay. The ash that could escape would ALSO be radioactive adding to the witch’s brew of airborne toxins emanating from Japan which has suffered terribly from the meltdowns.
The burning began last October and continues through March 2014. Activists contend that people are getting an unwitting double dose with those along the coast looking at the prospect of a Pacific poisoned with highly mobile and extremely dangerous buckeyballs in the sea mist and breeze.
American media coverage of Fukushima’s continuing woes and contamination spreading across Japan and threatening Tokyo’s 30 million residents, while not robust has been adequate. Coverage of contamination in America and Southern California has been praciticaly non-existent.
With nuclear radiation monitoring equipment, this investigation has performed over 1,500 radiation tests in different media throughout four states and in jets miles above the nation.
Those readings, along with the EPA’s, combined with the UC Davis study of buckeyballs and European study of sea spray radiation spread, strongly indicate that Southern California is being exposed to significant amounts of radiation.
Other reports of likely-Fukushima fallout in the Southland exist.
The U.S. Geological Service (USGS) just reported February 21 that Los Angeles had more cesium-137 fallout than any other place in the nation during the opening days of the disaster from March 15 to April 5, 2011.
The amount of Cs-137 detected in precipitation at a monitoring station 20 miles east of downtown was 13 times the limit for the toxin in drinking water according to a report obtained by the EnviroReporter.com.
USGS released another astonishing study February 22 in from measurements, taken at its Bennington National Atmospheric Deposition Program in Vermont confirmed a grim cesium-137 scenario for Southern California.
“Deposition actually decreased as the air mass traveled east to west,” Greg Wetherbee, a chemist with USGS, told the Brattleboro Reformer newspaper before imparting an additional bombshell.
“In the United States, cesium-134 and cesium-137 wet dispersion values were higher than for Chernobyl fallout in part due to the U.S. being further downwind,” Wetherbee told the paper. “With Chernobyl, there was more opportunity for plume dispersion.”
This double whammy of cesium-137, with a half-life of 30 years isn’t even in a uranium-60 buckyball. But they are in the unfathomable spread of goo throughout the Pacific on the second strongest current in the world headed right for us.
In fact, these buckyballs may already be here according to this 11-month investigation, nanospheres turning the Endless Summer into the Endless Bummer.
JAPAN SYNDROME
The March 11, 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake was a magnitude 9.0 temblor on the Richter Scale and centered at an underwater depth of 20 miles about 43 miles east of the Oshika Peninsula of Tōhoku. It was the most powerful earthquake to have ever to impact Japan.
The shaker sent waves up to 133 feet high slamming into Japan destroying or damaging over 125,000 buildings in the island nation. The Japanese National Police Agency said that at least 19,166 people were killed or remain missing with over 6,000 injured.
This hit close to home for Glendale resident and entrepreneur Dale Ramicone who is married to a woman born in Japan. Ramicone knows the country well. He watched the earthquake and subsequent tsunami helplessly streaming live on his computer.
“Initially, my focus was on the tsunami and the tragic loss of life on the east coast of Japan,” Ramicone told EnviroReporter.com. “Several days later, the nuclear disaster began to unfold, and I emailed my niece who lives near Tokyo, urging her to evacuate to the west. She and her husband decided to stay where they were.”
Tokyo, a mere 141 miles southwest of Fukushima, has numerous high radiation detections recorded by the government and citizens who post their frightening films on YouTube.
In the last week, radiation was detected at the super-hot level 6.5 microsieverts per hour at Japan’s busiest train station near the Imperial Palace. The blogger Fukushima Diary showed photos of these detections which are 10 times higher than Chernobyl evacuation levels.
“Now, we hear that many Japanese officials were contemplating evacuating all of Tokyo, while at the time, they were telling everyone not to panic and stay put,” laments Ramicone.
While the Japanese government may not know what to do, the owners of the stricken plant, TEPCO, have been wily enough to solve one problem: liability. The company declared last year that once the radiation leaves it Fukushima property, it is no longer their property or problem.
Not only is this the most important subject to be talking about..it dwarfs Everything else. The incubation period for Cancer is about 5-30 years, so it WILL hit the fan and it’s going to be very, very ugly. Birth deformities, Cancer for everyone, heart problems. Most people don’t know that Radiation causes heart problems. What I don’t understand, is our government’s lack of involvement. Does he think he is a cyborg or something, that he and his family won’t be affected by the Radiation? Is it just that he is That ill informed? It’s mind boggling.
Thank you very much, Mr. Collins. The nightmare just doesn’t seem to have an ending.
I work in radiology and am aware of a world-wide isotope shortage which is used in nuclear medicine for imaging. Do you find that odd?
Good luck everyone.
I find your article quite informative…and am really interested in the reasoning behind “our” governments decisions to stop testing for radiation up our coast lines. Especially when radioactive materials are washing ashore in Alaska? Have shared this with friends and am quite adgitated as to our governments neglect to “protect the citizens”. Is this the “corporations” hushing things for their own greed?
@Bo: To do that we would need the proper equipment, equipment the government has but has not been using to detect Fukushima radiation.
Have you taken samples at the beach and tested them for buckyballs?
Thanks for this article!
I submitted it as a “Quicklink” article at “OpEd News”. We can vote it up there and link with the social networks.
It is important information.
http://www.opednews.com/Quicklink/The-Endless-Bummer-in-Sci_Tech-120327-190.html
@jack: It’s easy to email any of the links to this article and anything on the site. Just highlight the web page’s address when you’re on the page, copy and paste it into an email or on to your blog or website. It’s that simple.
I would like to email this article to friends and can’t figure out how to do that. Also, I tried to put the info into a word doc to email and the site wouldn’t let me. Sharing helps to get the word out and get people to your site. Consider adding the option to email others like CNN allows.
Thank you for the excellent and necessary info! This is certainly the most important issue of the day. I saw a clip from Asahi TV “morning bird” news from March 8, 2012 in which a Kyoto University Professor of Nuclear Reactor Science said that even a small earthquake could crack the #4 fuel pool, allowing the water to leak out and the rods to meltdown & go critical causing “the end of Tokyo”. I saw that clip first on enenews and tokyobrowntabby’s yt channel. It’s quite astonishing to see network TV tell the truth for once!
Thank you Mr. Collins for practicing real investigative journalism in a world so sorely in need. God bless!
steven dahl
los angeles
Just wanted to thank you for a wonderful website. Glad your content is protected, I am seeing a lot of material taken and posted on FB without any credit to the author. Please keep up the good work!!
Michael,
This is your most amazing article yet and your detailed research and knowledge of the subject is absolutely astounding!
I cannot imagine that there is any other article or piece of research available,that can even begin to approach what you have written here, and I can only hope that some solution to the widespread distribution of this article can be found. It certainly is desperately needed as a warning,
as we are all potential victims of the radioactive contamination arriving from Fukushima.(Apparently we already have a fair amount of our own).
It is literally dumbfounding to realize that our government should be, but is not leading the way in providing the kind of environmental testing that you have been doing, along with communicating the results to the public…which they are also not doing. They apparently just don’t get it. We should all be grateful and overjoyed that you do!
Dear Michael & Denise,
I apologize for offending you, for you have, and I am sorry. It was not an ad hominem attack consciously, for I am very appreciative and enthused as well as horrified.
In my experience, not being able to copy and paste is very rare, and since I had recently copied and sent to everyone in my mailbox your ‘Bata’ article; and then to suddenly to confounded and then stunned that such vital information was forbidden, when it is the most salient on the internet! And certainly the most censored!
I wondered if you had been hacked, and went back and checked and discovered that I could not copy ‘Beta’ again.
The purpose for ‘The Freedom of the Press’ was to keep the government from stopping journalist writing and publishers publishing, what they disliked, true or false.
The deeped bases is not free enterprise, it was the not prevent the People’s Right to Know, as well as assembly, petition/demand better government. At the time, the common understanding was ‘Governments get their just powers from the governed.’
That of course is from the Declaration of Independence that was a Declaration of War against British colonialism; by violence too. And they were right, and so would be the American people to have a Revolution based on the denial of critical information they conspired to repress the truth of the effect the unleashed millions of pounds of radioactive materials into the biosphere would happen if nothing was done, and a scenario for “chosen people” to be in their private fallout oasis in far away places, stocked with years of provisions for survival, and we are not even warned!!!
Your article is the warning, all of this information is The People’s Right Know. It is mass murder, criminal negligence, and a Crime Against Humanity; for all those in the public office on any level, or in the private sector, to not “wake the town and tell the people”
That is exactly what I wanted to do with your ‘The Endless Bummer’ and not being able to, was most certainly a great-big bummer! I do not accept that the Obama Administration, the congress, and the media. The issue is the ultimate emergency in world history.
So, from my perspective, someone, effectively hollered, ‘”Stop The Press'” – and copyright argument is ironic, in that I feel, ‘We, the people’ have the Right to Copy and Send! And that is fair use.
But please be the journalist you are. Being short of money is something most of us understand, and activist don’t expect to be paid for their actions, except within the larger public good; and we are facing omnicide, total death worldwide!
Nice job Mr. Collins. I want to down load this for reference but it won’t go.
Hi Michael,
I have been very concerned about this topic and with my first child on the way living in southern California it scares me. Can you include the links to the EPA data, videos of your own readings, and the UC Davis report you mentioned so I can learn more? A la footnotes or references from a school paper?
Michael, bravo! This is probably the most bittersweet thing you’ve scribed. I wish I knew how to get people to pay attention. Hopefully this will break the surface and causes some ripples. Failing that maybe a Mr. Radioactive Buckyball character??
@Bill Mitchell: I am glad you like the article but to call copy-protecting of our site “press censorship” is outrageous. We are not an activist group – we are journalists who brought you the information in the first place. We are not obligated to allow people to take our work and post it on their website in its entirety violating our copyright (though we are happy with “fair use” which means a paragraph or description followed by a link to our site.) Unfortunately we have found people putting the entire article up on their sites as if it was their own and therefore must vigorously defend our copyright. Please note Bill that we make less than minimum wage doing what we are doing so if people want to read/see/watch/listen to what we are doing, we ask that they come over to our site, just like you have, for free.
Besides, it’s pretty simple to mail a link to the article by copying the URL (https://www.enviroreporter.com/2012/03/the-endless-bummer/). You can also print The Endless Bummer out and give copies to your friends at the coffee shop too – we have no problem with that and, in fact, encourage it.
As for taking a collection for a Geiger-counter, that is a laudable idea and we hope you will share your results with us. But please be careful with loose accusations especially when directed at the very reporter who brought the information to you in the first place.
I wonder what Jim Stone thinks.
Excellent reporting Michael Collins!
Rhada, you want to think it’s Karma – that’s your free right to do so just as it’s Ken t’s free right to sound off like a butt-crack when he disagrees.
Your expose’ are of the most urgent importance to everyone in the world. The internet is the tribune that requires the message to be copied and pasted to e-mail for immediate dissemination by everyone who read it; but they can not copy, paste, and send to all.
I managed to do so with your ‘Bata’ article, but can not do so with ‘The Endless Bummer’ and that must be corrected ASAP!
I am taking a collection toward buying a Geiger-counter and will raise community consciousness with it I assure you. I have been putting the printed copy of Beta before friends and coffee shop casual acquaintances.
Without that hard copy, I doubt any of them would have read anything you produced. Your current release is a dead-letter online without it being copy and paste friendly.
Please for the sake of humanity, life itself, correct this electronic press censorship that prohibits the People’s Right to Know!
Bill Mitchell
Sonoma county, CA
Radha, stop with the karma rhetoric. Those choosing nuclear strikes are almost fully independent of those suffering from fukushima fallout, with the worst if that hitting Japan. Karma does not work through the physical like this anyways.
The more important aspect of this reporting, relative to karma, is that despite being aware of these issues, many who could now spread the word, possibly decrease suffering, are choosing to do nothing.
Thanks for the reporting, keep it up.
We’ve been getting truck loads of fallout in the Southern Hemisphere. From what we’ve seen, we’re amazed anyone is still alive up North.
just karma for our bombing them in 45