Our last HEPA filter measurements January 22 produced some astonishing results. Doing a spot test on the Honeywell barrel-style filter and a Kenmore Plasmawave machine, we found radiation ~351% of normal background. The machines had been running for 42 days. The combined aggregate dust came in even hotter at 538% of normal background radiation at Radiation Station Santa Monica.
The California Highway Patrol considers anything over three times background, 300% of background and above, a trigger level to a hazardous materials situation.
Now, 43 days later, we tested the same HEPA filters in the same environment and setup using the same protocols to assure the high level of accuracy and quality control we have maintained for a year performing over 1,500 radiation tests in response to the triple meltdowns at the destroyed Fukushima Daiichi nuclear reactor complex in Japan some 5,000 miles upwind and upcurrent of Southern California. This time, as you can see in the video, the dust was a lot hotter. A spot check was ~377% of the previous background. Then we vacuumed out the filters with a HEPA filter Eureka vacuum cleaner and tested the aggregate.
The March 6 test of the combined dust came in at a sizzling ~668% of background or ~6.7 times normal. Since the last testing period, the radiation detected has risen another ~130% indicating a continued upward trend. These readings, not impacted by radon progeny as noted in Beta Watch, are the most serious indication yet the Southern California may be experiencing a rise in radiation due to the triple meltdowns at Fukushima in Japan.
That radiation may be rising in Los Angeles comes as no surprise considering the enormous amount of radioactive ‘buckeyballs’ filled with 60 uranium uranyls apiece that continue to be produced at the stricken nuclear reactor site for almost a year. A just-released U.C. Davis report describing the phenomena is also examined in Beta Watch.
A sign that buckeyballs could be being detected at Radiation Station Santa Monica is a comparison with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s RadNet detection station high on a building somewhere in Los Angeles, its location a secret. While the RadNet graph for gross beta radiation count from November 8, 2011 to March 7, 2012 has plenty of beta activity, the relative rise seen here in Santa Monica, much closer to the coast and therefore Pacific waters strongly buckyballs as a potential source. In this scenario, our Santa Monica location would pick up more of these radioactive nanospheres in much greater proportion than would a detecting unit miles farther inland, according to several British and European studies.
One year after the Fukushima meltdowns began, these readings indicate that ocean-borne radiation may be making its way into waters off of Southern California months before the inevitable tide of radioactive goo that will wash upon So Cal shores later this year through 2014.
EnviroReporter.com now posits that this radiation ahead of the main swell through repeated aeration resultant of choppy Pacific water in storms, may be picked up and moved on the winds as sea spray and mist moving ahead of the current.
No other explanation is more compelling than this mechanism of increased mobility of these hearty buckyballs. “[B]eing thermodynamically stable and kinetically persistent in the absence of peroxide, they can potentially transport uranium over long distances,” the U.C. Davis report reads adding, with dire implications for all 44 nations of the Pacific Rim, “The fuel matrix at the Fukushima-Daiichi site is mainly UO2, whose behavior will largely dictate release of matrix-incorporated plutonium and various other radionuclides into water used as a coolant.”
Interesting stuff I will have to check back on this 🙂 Not to trash anyone but those who are now demonizing Nuclear Power after Fukushima would do well to educate themselves on the engineering and science behind Nuclear Power. You will never be taken seriously while randomly spouting Doom & Gloom that really isn’t applicable to the entire industry.
Unfortunately Solar isn’t ready for wide scale usage and Wind power is only supplemental at best. Nuclear Power isn’t going anywhere as its still the best bang for the buck and is very safe. That said building a reactor on or near a Fault Line could have serious consequences if not engineered correctly [unavoidable in Japan]
I am not very familiar with this device, but as a scientist, I’m keenly interested in your reporting. Could you explain the relative merit in using the Inspector (compared to other devices) since it appears to have seemingly poor accuracy (+- 15-20%)? Can this data be reported in peer-review literature or is this simply the best screening device available?
Finally, are you “masked” in some way to protect yourself when you take these (1500+) measurements?
There is nothing I get pleasure from more than visiting this blog site each and every life following work. Thanks for every one of the wonderful articles!!
Excellent video – from the continuing nuclear disaster.
Listen to a presentation by Arnie Gundersen at the Vancouver Conference “The Fukushima Nuclear Disaster – One Year Later”; plus Q and A with well-informed audience (presented by Physicians for Global Survival); plus two Japanese citizen activists from Fukushima – who set up measuring stations in Fukushima, and Tokyo, when the government wouldn’t.
Brothers and sisters for this site. Support the campaign to get the sophisticated detector!
Radio Ecoshock 1 hour CD quality
http://www.ecoshock.net/eshock12/ES_120314_Show.mp3
Faster downloading Lo-Fi
http://www.ecoshock.net/eshock12/ES_120314_Show_LoFi.mp3
@Robert M Stiles: Thank you for the reading. I am right next to Pismo, (Grover) and have wondered about the readings around here this last year. I am hoping to get an Inspector and start youtubing results and posting here if possible. These readings are very important. I use my woman’s intuition, but having a reading sure is reassuring! I also want to start measuring foods around here. In the meantime, please let us know if Pismo area has further high readings if you would…
Hello Michael et al: I almost beat your hepafilter video. On Jan 16 I measured 207 then 214 peaks from a fine mist at Pismo Beach 5 miles from Diablo Canyon. Dont know the source but nothing was mentioned in the MSM. The next day the reading was a benign 50+. It appears the worst of a rain event is in the early stages. It makes sense the rain washes down any clouds of radiation in the atmosphere below the moisture clouds.
The EPA aren’t doing anything in CA, maybe because they all moved the hell out? lol
Three more Fukushima-related whoppers with another by Sunday:
The Endless Bummer: https://www.enviroreporter.com/2012/03/the-endless-bummer/
Sunny Southern California has been the bulls eye for Fukushima meltdowns fallout and radiation contamination with more Cesium-137 impacting L.A. more than anywhere else in the U.S. after the disaster began March 11, 2011. Now with levels of radiation hammering the West Coast with levels that dwarf Chernobyl’s 1986 meltdown, the danger of Uranium-filled “buckyballs” threatens to irradiate the West Coast turning the seashore a silent unseen cesspool of radioactive goo. This abridged and updated version of Beta Watch, with new data, information and interviews was so shocking that even EnviroReporter’s favorite print editors were dumbstruck by The Endless Bummer. An EnviroReporter.com exclusive.
Rad News Digest: https://www.enviroreporter.com/2012/03/rad-news-digest/
Supplementing BakRad’s superb news feed on every EnviroReporter.com page comes Rad News Digest which goes back to Day 1 of the Fukushima triple meltdowns and keeps us current going into Year 2 of this unprecedented disaster.
Isotopic Identifier Fund: https://www.enviroreporter.com/isotopic-identifer-fund/
Now we want to kick it up several notches and purchase a Ludlum 711 with all the necessary equipment and software. We are asking for your help so we can further expand our reporting of the extent of increasing Fukushima contamination. The isotopic identifer is able to detect specific isotopes, nuclide identification, spectrum analysis, dose rate calculation (rem/hr or Sv/h), and total dose, all in a unit that measures these radionuclides immediately, storing the data for transfer to our computer and then to Radiation Station Santa Monica. There will be no need for costly and time-consuming third party analysis of the various media we have and will continue to test.
Labs are too expensive to test numerous samples for radiation, costing $500 to $700 easily for a small suite of radionuclides per sample. That adds up very quickly. To be at the mercy of labs with varying quality assurance and quality control is not viable for a project like this. We have to be the lab. We have to be able to perform an unlimited number of detections and isotopic identification and quantification. We have to be able to do this anywhere, anytime and show the results in a clear and incontrovertible way. We have to prove everything and then report it. And we have to do it now as the American and Canadian governments will not.
Mar 11th is near, a 1 year milepost and without doubt we’ve passed many miles of comments here. So MANY passionate comments! Thanks AGAIN and AGAIN for all of you who reach out to share; and to Man Hands, Lady Fingers & Co. for their well-honed diligent practices and impassioned reporting; and for this website and those who contribute to its mechanics.
Simple or arduous, may our choices keep strong the pillars of inspiration, truth, compassion and our health.
At some point there will come a ‘turning point’. Perhaps this day, this rad reading, this article, is the one? I hope so.
@MargeryBrown This was so well stated and so heart felt, I really don’t know what to say. I think we all wrestle with this question every day. “…and how could I possibly spoil their joy by sharing this information with them? And, how could I not?”
‘Horribly Scary’ is just one descriptor to use when I think of 3 years, 5 years and 10 years from now. What will we be seeing then? The truth is, it won’t matter whose ‘estimates’ of morbidity rates was more accurate. 🙁
@roundabout I agree with your observation about people dropping dead over the last three months and those that are ill becoming sicker. No doubt in my mind.
When will the day come? …that ‘turning point’ in time, where some kind of “ALERT” is actually issued or even talked about?
I live in Korea now. A few months ago my wife lost our unborn child. Apparently, the fetus was developing in some strange manner such that the gynecologist in question was convinced that if the child survived it was going to be severely deformed. Under the circumstances, everyone seemed to agree that the best option was to terminate the pregnancy at that point. Of course will never know, but I couldn’t help but suspect that Fukushima radiation was the culprit.
Our gov. is no different than what is going on in Japan. The drivel wears on. All I know is that more people have “just dropped dead” in the last three months, than I have ever seen. “Heart attacks” in otherwise healthy individuals, lung cancers skyrocketing out of nowhere etc… My question is when do we really start to breathe through gas masks? What would it take for us to “get over” the social stigma? Some of you reading this might think it is over the top. Even I think wearing masks is pretty extraordinary. But look at the readings. When will we face the mitigation measures? What will it take?
This is serious stuff that needs to be reported to the public.
Where is the media on this? They seem to be busy with reporting the elephant sticking its trunk in the ladies panties!
I’m sorry but I need to rant angrily for a moment…
The way I see it, none of this would be an issue right now were it not for the greed of the ones who are focused on PROFIT over life. I mean, just WHY in the hell are you going to build a nuclear reactor on an earthquake fault zone anyway? Does that make ANY sense to anyone? The sole reason we use nuclear energy is because the people involved in its proliferation are making a KILLING in profits; there’s simply too much money they’ve invested in nuclear power for them to consider any safer, SANER alternatives. They don’t give a damn about human life (or any life for that matter). And of course our government is doing its usual feckless dance, doing the only two things it knows how to do well: be useless and kill people. One year later, the people of Japan worst affected by the tsunami are still living in temporary housing, having no idea what they’re going to do now because their government can’t seem to get its thumb out of its own bum long enough to do anything useful. The Japanese Red Cross so much as said the same thing.
What all of this leads me to is that the people, WE THE PEOPLE, as a community of shared interests – of life over profit-, need to take matters into our own hands. The mostly brainless politicians parading on tv all day, belong in the damn circus because that’s all they are to me, circus acts; they’re too busy lying through their teeth and jumping through flaming hoops to help us and they’re not going to make ANYTHING better. NONE OF THEM will. WE have to take charge of what’s going on in our own country and in our own lives, and not rely on these idiots in Washington to hear our voices or help us to accomplish something that we’re more than capable of doing for ourselves if we’re really serious about it. All that being said, I want to thank Mr. Collins for being an example of what we all must do as a community by coming together to get what needs to get done. If you’re waiting for Capitol Hill to do something, or even to tell you the freakin’ TRUTH about ANYTHING, you’re wasting your precious time.
Look up Dr. Helen Caldicott. She’s given sobering, informative, and eye opening talks on the realities we all face after Fukushima.
Again, I feel moved to say, Michael,that I am just so incredibly grateful that we all have you constantly doing your testing, observing and environmental reporting, because, otherwise, just who else would there be to clue us all in? And,oh yes, this article is the first mention of the EPA doing anything, almost since day one of the Fukushima nuclear meltdowns, but who knows if this bunch will even decide if this just might be a problem,and stick around?
This is horribly scary stuff, and we will all need to do some thinking about how we can handle this devastatingly cancerous information, in order to best protect ourselves and our children. Actually, “scary” doesn’t even remotely begin to describe this overwhelming state of radioactive affairs. This air that we must breathe!
For me, the most descriptive word is “sad”, since my oldest Grandson and his wife in San Diego,and my Grandaughter and her husband in SW Colorado are both currently pregnant with my future great-grandchildren. Both couples are due to give birth at the end of August, and how could I possibly spoil their joy by sharing this information with them? And, how could I not?
It is really just so terribly depressing and sad, that a cloud of cancer causing air will probably throw a potentially tragic cloud over the parents and children, even though they are otherwise so very lucky and fortunate to be born in the USA. Where will there now be left in this world, a place out in the sunshine, that will still be safe for my loved ones? For everyone’s loved ones?
Radioactive poisoning, sickness, cancers, weakening and death must be an acceptable and a small price to pay for the glory of nuclear power. That is why USI installed so many in the continental United States and why alternative energy was allowed to be suppressed. Increases in radioactivity in the air, water and food I guess is to be expected and therefore unremarkable. We are, I presume expected to endure the new radioactive world without reporting from industry or government. Would they do anything timely to correct poisoning of the population if there were leakages? Hmm,I wonder.
Thank you for continuing to monitor Fukushima ionizing radionucleides hitting Santa Monica. Sadly, this portends a pandemic of cancer cases.