Cesium levels in fish off Fukushima not dropping October 26, 2012 http://ajw.asahi.com/article/0311disaster/fukushima/AJ201210260047
[Exccerpted] Radioactive cesium levels in most kinds of fish caught off the coast of Fukushima haven't declined in the year following Japan's nuclear disaster, a signal that the seafloor or leakage from the damaged reactors must be continuing to contaminate the waters -- possibly threatening fisheries for decades, a researcher says.
..."The (radioactivity) numbers aren't going down. Oceans usually cause the concentrations to decrease if the spigot is turned off," Buesseler told The Associated Press in an interview. "There has to be somewhere they're picking up the cesium."
"Option one is the seafloor is the source of the continued contamination. The other source could be the reactors themselves," he said.
Hideo Yamazaki, a marine biologist at Kinki University, agrees with Buesseler's theory that the cesium is leaking from the Fukushima nuclear plant and that it will contaminate seafood for more than a decade.
He said he believes the plant will continue to leak until cracks and other damage to the three reactors that melted down are repaired. It's unclear when that work will be completed, or even how, because radiation levels in the reactors are too high for humans or even robots.
"The current levels of contamination in the fish and seafood from the Fukushima coast will continue for a while, perhaps more than 10 years, judging from the progress in the cleanup process," Yamazaki said in an email....
For a discussion of the implications of these releases for human and ecosystem health on land see here
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