That is my question when I read estimates of Cesium-137 in dying sea lions and other animals:
Enenews: Alarm as record numbers of seals & sea lions ‘starving to death’ along California coast — “It’s just spiked… calls started coming nonstop” — “So many unhealthy… washing ashore” — “Extremely complex issue… multitude of factors in play” — “Definitely a mystery, we’re hoping it’s not the new norm”
Expert officials are always (metaphorically) scratching their heads, saying that the reported Cesium-137 level is not high enough to cause acute radiation syndrome symptoms in the dying sea mammals.
I understand its possible that accumulated cesium levels from the hot rain that came down in the spring of 2011 and from the ocean plume are not high enough to cause symptoms of acute radiation exposure.
However, what the 'experts' aren't talking about are the other radionuclides that accompanied Cesium across the globe.
Cisco, a long-time poster at Enenews, recently made this point in a comment. Cisco asked me to post at my blog about this issue. I will but I'll let you read Cisco's comment yourself because s/he is pretty clear:
CISCO May 3, 2014 Enenews forum http://enenews.com/marine-mystery-whats-behind-a-toxic-outbreak-threatening-marine-life-in-california-worst-they-have-ever-seen-birds-falling-out-of-sky-sea-lions-convulsing-sea-otters-really-affected/comment-page-1#comment-514588
It's important to know when tests are conducted for a specific radionuclide, i.e. Iodine, Cesium, Strontium, et al, the isotope of choice is generally the test which is the lower cost to employ.
Testing for Plutonium and/or Americium requires collection, equipment, and assaying of much higher magnitudes of precision and exponentially higher costs. It should be understood when Cesium 134 and 137 are reported, these radionuclides are not only the markers for Fukushima; but, they are just two of hundreds of other radionuclides that are present with the Cesium being tested and reported. Those other radionuclides travel in juxtaposition with the Cesium and are equally if not more threatening, like Plutonium, Uranium-235, Americium, Strontium, et al.
What needs to be communicated is…surrounding/accompanying that Cesium is a radioactive amalgamation of equally dangerous radionuclides whose damaging radioactivity is hundreds/thousands of times worse than just the Cesium counts. When we see CPM counts at the Nuclear Emergency Tracking Center (netc.com) and others, two things should come to mind…
1. The radionuclide being tested for and reported is a marker for the other hundreds of radioactive isotopes in suspension with it.
2. All those other isotopes are deposited on objects, soil and water, and they accumulate somewhere near where they were detected. Do the math, and it's…a no brainer where this monumental clusterfu#k is going. Majia here: Cisco is correct that testing for Plutonium, Uranium, and Americium is more expensive and specialized equipment is necessary. We don't even have the equipment at my campus to test for these radionuclides.
So, no reports are made publicly of transuranic elements that are likely to be present with the cesium (or elements such as Strontium or Iodine either). The general public concludes no other radioactive elements were measured in the samples and the reported levels pose "little to no risk."
However, as explained very clearly by Dr. Glenn T. Seaborg in 1966, fission produces MANY transuranium elements, including fifteen isotopes of plutonium. ['A Look at 25 Years of STS' Science News, 89(12), 181-183, 191]. Wikipedia defines transuranic elements:
The transuranium elements (also known as transuranic elements) are the chemical elements with atomic numbers greater than 92 (the atomic number of uranium). All of these elements are unstable and decay radioactively into other elements. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transuranium_element
So, behind every measurement of cesium is very likely an entire zoo of highly radioactive and chemically toxic elements, such as the myriad isotopes of Plutonium and Americium. Please see the bottom of this post for a complete list of transuranium elements provided courtesy of Wikipedia (list doesn't include the range of isotopes).
Moreover, it’s instructive to note that even the most stringent regulatory standards are often based on risk coefficient tables that presume risk can be predicted on the basis of exposure to a single radioactive isotope. For example:
For both internal and external exposure, a risk coefficient for a given radionuclide is based on the assumption that this is the only radionuclide present in the environmental medium. That is, doses due to decay chain members produced in the environment prior to the intake of, or external exposure to, the radionuclides are not considered.[i] This model of dose-effects taken from the U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) assumes a vacuum where exposure is limited to a single radioisotope. The model’s predictions for dose-effects do not incorporate cumulative and synergistic effects.
So, official cesium measurements can be described as 'safe' because the risk is measured as a single one-time assault with NO effort to incorporate the presence and impact of OTHER RADIONUCLIDES.
Thus, the public is persuaded that North American sea lion's adverse mortality event is completely unrelated to Fukushima ocean contamination.
Unfortunately, real world chemical and radiation effects for flora and fauna are impacted by bioaccumulation and exposure interactions. Bioaccumulation is ‘the biological sequestering of a substance at a higher concentration than that at which it occurs in the surrounding environment or medium.’[ii] Biomagnification is defined as ‘the sequence of processes in an ecosystem by which higher concentrations of a particular chemical, such as the pesticide DDT, are reached in organisms higher up the food chain, generally through a series of prey-predator relationships.’
Biomagnification results from bioaccumulation and biotransfer whereby ‘tissue concentrations of chemicals in organisms at one trophic level exceed tissue concentrations in organisms at the next lower trophic level in a food chain.’[iii]
Takashi Hirose provides an example of the implications of biomagnification processes in his book, Fukushima Meltdown, using actual radioactivity concentration data from the Columbia River: Assuming a river water concentration of radiation from the Hanford nuclear plant of one, the egg yolk of a water bird living by the river would be 1,000,000 times more concentrated.[iv] Humans that consume meat, milk, and eggs are at the top of the food chain and therefore will accumulate significant levels of contamination over the course of their lifetime. The impact of bio-contamination is also affected synergistically by the presence of other radioisotopes and chemicals. It can be difficult to predict exposure interactions given the complex synergies of bio-accumulation processes.
Genetic damage and epigenetic changes to gene expression can be transmitted across generations. Each person inherits the totality of genetic damage and epigenetic changes to their parents’ germ-line, or reproductive cells. Consequently, even the most precautionary risk assessments from agencies such as the ICRP may understate real world risks from exposure by failing to account for cumulative and synergistic effects.
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Environmental Protection Agency (1999) Cancer Risk Coefficients for Environmental Exposure to Radionuclides: Federal Guidance Report No.13, http://www.epa. gov/radiation/docs/federal/402-r-99-001.pdf, date accessed 25 November 2012.
[ii] U.S. Geological Survey (2011) Bioaccumulation, http://toxics.usgs.gov/definitions/bioaccumulation.html, date accessed 2 August 2012.
[iii] U.S. Geological Survey (2011) Biomagnification, http://toxics.usgs.gov/definitions/bioaccumulation.html, date accessed 2 August 2012.
[iv] T. Hirose (2011) Fukushima Meltdown (Osaka, Japan: Asahi Shinsho Books), p. 73.
On Kelp Contamination off Long Beach, CA 2011
S. Manley and C. Lowe (6 March 2012) ‘Canopy-Forming Kelps as California’s Coastal Dosimeter: 131I from Damaged Japanese Reactor Measured in Macrocystis Pyrifera’, Environmental Science & Technology,http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/es203598r?journalCode=esthag.
‘Study Finds Radioactive Fallout in California Kelp Beds’ (5 April 2012), Everything Long Beach, http://www.everythinglongbeach.com/study-finds-radioactive-fallout-in-california-kelp-beds/, date accessed 6 April 2012.
