Fukushima Radiation in the Ocean

1000 times the radiation levels found over 400 miles off Japanese coast and they say that they are well below levels harmful to fish and people. For some reason I have a very hard time believing this one.

 

I am under the impression that any exposure to higher levels of radiation is not good. Just take a look at the incidences of premature births and deaths in areas, especially Washington state, since the Fukushima disaster.

 

Prolonged exposure of anything to higher levels of radiation will affect the organism, I don’t care what kind of organism it is!

 

Radiation detected 400 miles off Japanese coast

 

Associated PressBy BRIAN SKOLOFF and MALCOLM RITTER | Associated Press – 4 hrs ago

 

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — Radioactive contamination from the Fukushima power plant disaster has been detected as far as almost 400 miles off Japan in the Pacific Ocean, with water showing readings of up to 1,000 times more than prior levels, scientists reported Tuesday.

 

But those results for the substance cesium-137 are far below the levels that are generally considered harmful, either to marine animals or people who eat seafood, said Ken Buesseler of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts.

 

He spoke Tuesday in Salt Lake City at the annual Ocean Sciences Meeting, attended by more than 4,000 researchers this week.

 

The results are for water samples taken in June, about three months after the power plant disaster, Buesseler said. In addition to thousands of water samples, researchers also sampled fish and plankton and found cesium-137 levels well below the legal health limit.

 

“We’re not over the hump” yet in terms of radioactive contamination of the ocean because of continued leakage from the plant, Buesseler said in an interview before Tuesday’s talk. He was chief scientist for the cruise that collected the data.

 

The ship sampled water from about 20 miles to about 400 miles off the coast east of the Fukushima plant. Concentrations of cesium-137 throughout that range were 10 to 1,000 times normal, but they were about one-tenth the levels generally considered harmful, Buesseler said.

 

Cesium-137 wasn’t the only radioactive substance released from the plant, but it’s of particular concern because of its long persistence in the environment. Its half-life is 30 years.

 

The highest readings last June were not always from locations closest to the Fukushima plant, Buesseler said. That’s because swirling ocean currents formed concentrations of the material, he said.

 

Most of the cesium-137 detected during the voyage probably entered the ocean from water discharges, rather than atmospheric fallout, he added.

 

Hartmut Nies, of the International Atomic Energy Agency, said Buesseler’s findings were not surprising, given the vastness of the ocean and its ability to absorb and dilute materials.

 

“This is what we predicted,” Nies said after Buesseler presented his research.

 

Nies said the water’s cesium-137 concentration has been so diluted that just 20 miles offshore, “if it was not seawater, you could drink it without any problems.”

 

“This is good news,” he said, adding that scientists expect levels to continue to decrease over time.

 

“We still don’t have a full picture,” Nies said, “but we can expect the situation will not become worse.”

 

I still take Enerfood and an iodine supplement daily just to remain healthy. The enerfood has spirulina and chlorella in it, both proven to help detox from radiation.

New Madrid Fault set to go off??? Probably not…Maybe?

In all the frightening disaster scenarios out there an earthquake, a large one, along the New Madrid fault is perhaps one of the most serious. The last time there were major earthquakes along the fault, entire cities disappeared and rivers changed their course. There is no way to know exactly how many casualties there were as this was well over 120 years ago and longer.

 

If this blog has any truth in it the government might be expecting something. Then again it is the government and how reliable are they?

 

Read with discretion and make your own decisions by clicking here.

 

Personally, irregardless of this I have been preparing for any type event where I will need water, food and fuel for an extended period of time. It just costs so little in the whole scheme of things that it just makes sense, at least to me!

CA Schools Earthquake Safe?

If I were a parent with children in school in an earthquake prone area, I would most definitely make darn sure that the building was structurally sound and could withstand an earthquake!

 

I would also make sure my kids knew about earthquake safety…i.e. how to act in the event of an earthquake.

 

 

KTLA SPECIAL REPORT: Can Your Child’s School Withstand An Earthquake? (Part 2)

Watch Brandi Hitt’s Report

 

:01 p.m. PST, February 15, 2012

HOLLYWOOD (KTLA) — Several Southern California school campuses have been flagged with structural issues, but students continue to attend class daily.

 

Helen Bernstein is one of dozens of schools that have been placed on a list no California school wants to be on, which is leading some to question whether the high school is structurally safe, if an earthquake strikes.

 

Martir Gomez has a daughter who is a student at Helen Bernstein and while he likes the school, he says he wishes he would have known about the problem three years ago when his daughter first enrolled.

 

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Classes have been in session since 2008 at the modern, five-story Hollywood campus which cost an estimated $177 million to build.

 

But, according to documents uncovered by California Watch — a reporting initiative launched by the independent, nonpartisan Center for Investigative Reporting — there are structural flaws and potential safety hazards that a state agency called the DSA (Division of the State Architect which provides design and construction oversight for K–12 schools, community colleges, and various other state-owned and leased facilities) has not approved.

 

“There’s bracing issues, bracing issues in the wall, there’s issues with some of their sheer wall brackets,” says Eric Lamoureux who works for the California Department of General Services.

 

Lamoureux says it’s DSA’s job to make sure schools being built meet standards to withstand earthquakes and Helen Bernstein has been given the dreaded Letter 4 status.

 

“The one you need to be most concerned about… is a Letter 4s. Those are projects we’ve determined there’s a structural issue,” Lamoureux said in an interview with KTLA.

 

Documents show that before the school opened its doors, more than 1300 changes made to contract documents had not gone through for approval and the contractor continued to build over those deviation items.

 

During construction, inspectors listed missing bolts and missing welds on support beams, missing anchors and lopsided walls.

 

One engineer noted that ceiling framing and braces were bending and weak and later added that “if any accident occurs in the future, who will be liable for that?”

 

“At the end of the day, the school district is responsible,” says Lamoureux.

 

KTLA tried several times to get an on camera interview with the LA Unified School District and the station was told that no one responsible for the construction of Helen Bernstein works at the district currently and it would be unfair to put a new employee’s face on camera to answer questions.

 

Over the phone, the district admitted there was friction on the job site each day between the contractor and inspectors.

 

LAUSD Chief Facilities Executive, Kelly Schmader, said “We’re looking at each deviation closely. There are some things that have not been fixed because we don’t believe they are deviations and we’ve had professionals in the industry confirm that Helen Bernstein is safe.”

 

KTLA contacted the contractor for Helen Bernstein, but the station was told no one was available for comment.

 

The DSA says it cannot specify which structural issues have been resolved and which ones still remain.

 

The district insists that students are not in danger, but Gomez says, “If I would have known that, I would have taken my kid out of this school and put her someplace else.”

 

Bernstein is one of dozens of California Schools that have not met earthquake standards. To see if your school is on the list, go to: CaliforniaWatch.Org

 

We also have posted about common things that you can do in the event of an earthquake and they are surprising.

Earthquake in S Texas

3rd earthquake in 2 years hit Beeville in S. Texas this morning. Unusual? Yes! Why, well no one knows exactly but some suspect the drilling activity close by. It is under investigation…

 

I am sure that the oil companies will squash any info that might support such a theory. Can you tell I am a bit skewed against the objectivity of the media these days?

 

 Third Sizeable Earthquake in Two Years

It happened without many people even knowing it but early Saturday morning an earthquake rumbled through the Beeville area.

According to the United States Geological Survey, the tremor happened at 6:48 AM, 38 miles northwest of Beeville. No damage was reported.

It came in as a 3.0 on the Richter Scale.

This is the third sizeable earthquake to rock the area in the past two years. A quake back in October had nearly the same epicenter. That one was a 4.6 magnitude earthquake and was felt by people as far away as Corpus Christi. Another trembler back in April of 2010 in Aqua Dulce came in as a 4.0.

 

So are three sizeable quakes in two years unusual? Could they be related to all the new oil drilling along the Eagle Ford Shale?

Geologists are looking at that possibility. Mark Besonen, a geologist at TAMUCC says “there is scientific evidence that suggests injecting fluids under pressure deep into the earth can promote seimistiy or earthquakes… if these start happening more frequently than in the past we can say it’s abnormal.”

Scientists say the only way to prove the recent oil boom is responsible for the earthquakes would be if additional quakes occur.

This is the case in point that one never knows when or how bad an ‘event’ might be.  I would think that it is a reasonable action to get a bit prepared in case of an event that could disrupt your life.  It is a small price to pay to have some stored food, water and other supplies.

 

Aftershocks from Virginia Quake in August Continue

I had no idea that the aftershocks from the 5.8 magnitude quake that hit Virginia last August were still going on. The article below gives us a brief explanation as to why…

 

When will the Virginia earthquake aftershocks end?

On Tuesday, a 3.1 magnitude aftershock centered 40 miles northwest of Richmond rattled central Virginia. The tremor could be felt as close by as the District’s west and southwest suburbs. Since the 5.8 magnitude earthquake of August 23, there have been 43 aftershocks of at least magnitude 2.0 in central Va. according to the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), begging the question: when will they end?

 

I posed this question to Morgan Page, an aftershock expert at USGS. Here was her response (note: “M” stands for magnitude):

 

It will be a few years before activity returns to the low levels observed before the earthquake, and that is provided a large aftershock does not occur. (For very large earthquakes that have many more aftershocks, aftershock sequences have been known to continue for a century!)

 

A rule of thumb is: if you have X number of aftershocks the first day, then you can expect about X/2 aftershocks the second day, and X/3 aftershocks the third day, and so on. Currently the rate of aftershocks is less than 1 per day (there were 5 aftershocks above M2 in January, so that’s about 1 every 6 days). That rate will continue to drop as time passes.

 

So at what point is a tremor considered a new or independent earthquake, rather than an aftershock? Page responded as follows (note : “M” stands for magnitude) :

 

…with any particular earthquake we cannot tell. But given that the number of independent “background” (that is, non-aftershock) earthquakes expected is about 1 M2+ earthquake per year in this area [central Virginia], that’s about how many per year are “independent”. The remainder are aftershocks. We can’t tell which earthquakes are the independent ones, but it’s a pretty small proportion at this point!

 

David Applegate, Associate Director for Natural Hazards at USGS, added the following:

 

We keep referring to aftershocks as long as there are more quakes happening in the vicinity than the background rate before the mainshock occurred. The rate of aftershocks decay with time (a statistical pattern known as Omori’s law), but the magnitude does not decay, so even though there will be fewer with time, it doesn’t mean that they will all be much smaller.

 

Particularly in stable continental crust, this elevated rate of earthquakes can go on for months, years, even decades. There are seismologists who argue that much of the elevated seismicity in the Central U.S. are still aftershocks of the series of magnitude-7+ earthquakes that struck two centuries ago

 

Related: USGS definition of aftershock

 

By Jason Samenow | 03:54 PM ET, 02/01/2012

 

Just gives me another reason to prepare my family for those unforeseen incidences that could really impact your quality of living!

CA Nuke Plant shut down due to leak

The title about says it all for me…Nuclear power is all about keeping the monster in the cage, as we know from Fukushima, because once out it is impossible to tame the beast!

By David Wright

Feb 1, 2012 6:20pm

 San Onofre Nuclear Plant Closed After Radiation Leak

 

A small quantity of radioactive gas leaked inside one of the buildings at San Onofre nuclear power plant north of San Diego, according to a spokesman for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

 

The spokesman said the radiation levels were “barely measurable,” but the plant was shut down as a precaution.

 

“At no point were the public or our workers in any danger,” Southern California Edison spokesman Gil Alexander told ABC News.

 

 

 

Officials say the radiation leak likely occurred in the steam generator tubes of San Onofre’s reactor #3. The steam system, which is supposed to be shielded from exposure to radiation, was replaced in December 2010. Alexander said plant officials will be conducting an investigation into why the new steam tubes leaked.

 

Gary Headrick is part of the environmental group San Clemente Green and lives just eight miles away from San Onofre.

 

“If we don’t make them shut it down, it’s going to be too late,” Headrick said.

 

San Onofre is one of dozens of U.S. reactors facing new scrutiny after Japan’s nuclear crisis. It is located right on the coast, and in the heart of America’s earthquake country.

 

It also is right next door to Camp Pendleton, a Marine Corps base where 38,000 military families live, and another 32,000 people work each day, all of whom would be in immediate danger if there’s ever a meltdown.

 

ABC News visited San Onofre the day the Fukushima Daiichi plant in Japan melted down. At the time, plant officials were eager to reassure the public that the same thing could not happen on the California coast.

 

“This plant is safe,” California Edison’s Chief Nuclear Officer Pete Dietrich told ABC News.

 

After Japan, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission updated its seismic model and in a report issued yesterday found that 96 reactors in the central and southern U.S. are in regions at a higher risk for quakes than previously thought.

 

The report included parts of the country that are not traditionally seen as geologically active, places like Chattanooga, Tenn., Savannah, Ga., Jackson, Miss., Manchester, N.H., and Houston, Texas.

 

Major metropolitan areas are uncomfortably close to nuclear plants, with as many as 120 million Americans living within 50 miles of a nuclear reactor, according to the Union of Concerned Scientists.

 

Indian Point, outside of New York City, has 20 million people living within a 50-mile radius. And Dresden is just 50 miles from the heavily-populated suburbs of Chicago.

 

Nuclear regulators plan to give plant operators four years to reevaluate seismic risks, but some of the plants may be too expensive to make earthquake safe.

 

However, in the case of San Onofre, it’s unlikely the leak had anything to do with seismic safety and was probably just faulty equipment. Officials have been taking extra care to reassure the public that there’s no danger, since after Japan, the idea of radiation leaking from a nuclear plant tends to set people on edge.

 

I would be moving if i were anywhere close to this plant

Judge clears Transocean of some damages in Deepwater Horizon spill

(CNN) — A federal judge in New Orleans ruled Thursday that Transocean is not liable for Deepwater Horizon compensatory damages sought by third parties in the worst oil spill in U.S. history.

There are more than 120,000 plaintiffs in the lawsuit, scheduled to go to trial on February 27 in New Orleans. Third parties comprise the vast majority of plaintiffs.

Transocean owned the Deepwater Horizon rig that exploded on April 20, 2010, killing 11 people.

Transocean is still potentially liable for punitive damages or civil penalties under the Clean Water Act.

Full Article

Fukushima, Japanese style Cover up

I don’t know if you will find the below article as disturbing as I but regardless the truth continues to come out and I suspect we will be seeing more on this cover up.

 

That these guys to not distribute information, real and truthful, to their citizens to avoid widespread panic is just absurd! I am sure there are and will continue to be needless deaths as a result of overexposure to radiation in the days, months and years to come due to their callous disregard for the people.

 

I am wondering when this breaking truth about how our government behaved and continues to behave about Fukushima and what that will eventually lead to for the people here in the U.S.

 

 

Japan kept silent on worst nuclear crisis scenario

By MARI YAMAGUCHI and YURI KAGEYAMA | Associated Press – Wed, Jan 25, 201

 

TOKYO (AP) — The Japanese government’s worst-case scenario at the height of the nuclear crisis last year warned that tens of millions of people, including Tokyo residents, might need to leave their homes, according to a report obtained by The Associated Press. But fearing widespread panic, officials kept the report secret.

The recent emergence of the 15-page internal document may add to complaints in Japan that the government withheld too much information about the world’s worst nuclear accident since Chernobyl.

It also casts doubt about whether the government was sufficiently prepared to cope with what could have been an evacuation of unprecedented scale.

The report was submitted to then-Prime Minister Naoto Kan and his top advisers on March 25, two weeks after the earthquake and tsunami devastated the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant, causing three reactors to melt down and generating hydrogen explosions that blew away protective structures.

Workers ultimately were able to bring the reactors under control, but at the time, it was unclear whether emergency measures would succeed. Kan commissioned the report, compiled by the Japan Atomic Energy Commission, to examine what options the government had if those efforts failed.

Authorities evacuated 59,000 residents within 20 kilometers (12 miles) of the Fukushima plant, with thousands more were evacuated from other towns later. The report said there was a chance far larger evacuations could be needed.

The report looked at several ways the crisis could escalate — explosions inside the reactors, complete meltdowns, and the structural failure of cooling pools used for spent nuclear fuel.

It said that each contingency was possible at the time it was written, and could force all workers to flee the vicinity, meaning the situation at the plant would unfold on its own, unmitigated.

Using matter-of-fact language, diagrams and charts, the report said that if meltdowns spiral out of control, radiation levels could soar.

In that case, it said evacuation orders should be issued for residents within and possibly beyond a 170-kilometer (105 mile) radius of the plant and “voluntary” evacuations should be offered for everyone living within 250 kilometers (155 miles) and even beyond that range.

That’s an area that would have included Tokyo and its suburbs, with a population of 35 million people, and other major cities such as Sendai, with a million people, and Fukushima city with 290,000 people.

The report further warned that contaminated areas might not be safe for “several decades.”

“We cannot rule out further developments that may lead to an unpredictable situation at Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant, where there has been an accident, and this report outlines a summary of that unpredictable situation,” says the document, written by Shunsuke Kondo, head of the commission, which oversees nuclear policy.

After Kan received the report, he and other Japanese officials publicly insisted that there was no need to prepare for wider-scale evacuations.

Rumors of the document grew this month after media reports outlined its findings and an outside panel was created to investigate possible coverups. Kyodo News agency described the contents of the document in detail on Saturday.

The government continues to refuse to make the document public. The AP obtained it Wednesday through a government source, who insisted on anonymity because the document was still categorized as internal.

Goshi Hosono, the Cabinet minister in charge of the nuclear crisis, implicitly acknowledged the document’s existence earlier this month, but said the government had felt no need to make it public.

“It was a scenario based on hypothesis, and even in the event of such a development, we were told that residents would have enough time to evacuate,” Hosono said.

“We were concerned about the possibility of causing excessive and unnecessary worry if we went ahead and made it public,” he said. “That’s why we decided not to disclose it.”

A Japanese government nuclear policy official, Masato Nakamura, said Wednesday that he stood behind Hosono’s decisions on the document.

“It was all his decisions,” he said. “We do not disclose all administrative documents.”

Japanese authorities and regulators have been repeatedly criticized for how they have handled information amid the unfolding nuclear crisis. Officials initially denied that the reactors had melted down, and have been accused of playing down the health risks of exposure to radiation.

In another example, a radiation warning system known as SPEEDI had identified high-risk areas where thousands of people were continuing to live while the reactors were in critical condition. Officials did not use that data to order evacuations; they have since said it was not accurate enough.

The outside panel investigating the government response to the nuclear crisis has been critical, calling for more transparency in relaying information to the public.

“Risk communication during the disaster cannot be said to have been proper at all,” it said in its interim report last month.

___

Follow Mari Yamaguchi on Twitter at http://twitter.com/mariyamaguchi and Yuri Kageyama at http://twitter.com/yurikageyama

 

If someone asks me why I don’t trust any government this article is probably as good as any to support my view…how about you?

‘Doomsday Clock’ might be reset

A group of scientists are meeting in Washington DC to answer an age-old question: when will the world come to an end?

The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists has been monitoring events since after the Second World War to predict the likelihood of Armageddon.

Now, the University of Chicago’s so-called “Doomsday Clock”, a symbolic time piece that tells us how close humanity is to global catastrophe, might be reset pending this week’s meeting.

Keep your eyes on the sky! Solar flares are building to a potential crescendo.NASA ISSUES NEW WARNING TELLING US TO PREPARE FOR A ONCE IN A LIFETIME SOLAR STORM

NASA is warning about a once in a lifetime solar event. Keep on top of this issue by periodically looking at this site

A serious solar storm could knock out all electronics and put us back to the stone age.

Update: 12-15-2011. With well over a half million visitors ‘per-hour’ to this website now, you most likely have heard about NASA warning the public, “to get ready for a once in a life time solar event”. But since we first published this update back in early 2010, a lot more information has since unfolded. Soon we will add some additional NASA footage here that is very troubling, that gives cause to exactly why NASA is so concerned.

Additionally we have been inundated by email asking us about other pending issues expected in 2012-2013. IE: Meteorite storm, sudden pole shift, Nibiru (aka planet-x), extreme weather, earthquakes, volcanic activity and the oceans of the world sweeping across the continuants of the world resulting from a sudden pole shift.

All we can say is that there is so much conflicting data out there, that it’s hard to know what to believe. But no doubt that 2011 smashed all modern world records when it comes to the most natural disasters in a single year, breaking some three thousand records. That alone says something. Should this trend escalate greatly 2012, mankind will have to start taking the 2011, 2012 warning signs very seriously.

Though we publish a Solar Storm Survival Guide, we have delayed it’s release in updating it to better cover other possible world calamities. There is no need to panic. Simply prepare yourself as best as you can, and hopefully nothing serious will happen. But in case something does, you will have a head start in being prepared. We must keep in mind that should any one or more of these events actually happen, each and everyone of us will have no choice but to fend for our own food and water as well as protection from the elements and would be predators for months, possibly for years to come. If you are way up in your years, most likely you really don’t care at this point, that is, unless you have family you might be concerned about.

As we originally stated…

In light of recent news, the following information is paramount. On July 14, 2010 we learned that our sun is passing through an interstellar energy cloud which excites/energizes the sun. NASA, along with The National Academy of Science and other world renowned scientist are so concerned about this up and coming solar maximum in late 2012, that way back in March 10, 2006 NASA issued a solar storm warning (in writing) for 2012. What NASA omitted in their 2006 solar storm warning is what prompted NASA in the first place to issue a 2012 solar storm warning four years in advance? Then in 2010, NASA again warns the general population of a pending solar storm, telling the population to get ready for a once in a lifetime solar storm. Despite that news agencies and websites like this one are beginning to cover this developing story, no high government official has yet to stick his or her neck out to make an official announcement about the catastrophic implications as to allow the global population to begin preparing.

The following scientific data revealed by Alexei Dmitriev further supports NASA’s original 2012 solar storm warning issued back in March of 2006.

Astrophysicist Alexei Dmitriev says that both Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 satellites reveal that our sun, as well as our entire solar system, is now moving into an interstellar energy cloud. Opher, a NASA Heliophysics Guest Investigator from George Mason University says this interstellar energy cloud is turbulent. Dmitriev explains that this cloud of energy is exciting the atmospheres of our planets and especially our sun. As this interstellar energy cloud continues to excite/charge the sun, it causes the sun to become more active, resulting in greater output from the sun. IE: Bigger and more frequent solar storms and CME’s resulting in the Carrington effect. This interstellar cloud of electrical energy is also absorbed by the Earth, and scientist have found that it results in more earth quakes, all while dramatically effecting our weather here on earth. When asked how long will it take our sun to pass through this interstellar energy cloud, Dr. Dmitriev replied, “I don’t know. But If I had to guess, I would say somewhere between two thousand to three thousand years.” This interstellar cloud is a wispy band of charged particles through which our solar system is slowly moving through.

When Dr. Dmitriev was asked what are the implications of all this for earth he replied, “Global catastrophe! Not in tens of years from now, but in ones of years” …in that this global catastrophe is basically right around the corner setting the stage for NASA’s latest solar storm warning 2012-2013.

Dr. Dmitriev is talking about the Carrington Effect which can knock out electrical power and all modern forms of communications world wide for months on end, even years. When that happens, global anarchy and mass looting will soon begin as the food chain will become paralyzed/crippled in modern countries, while water shortages will quickly become a threat to our very survival because electricity is what runs the pumps that gets the water to our homes and offices. If you are not prepared prepared to be self efficient for one to two years, then you and your family will be at risk of dehydration and starvation during a time when drinking water, food and toilet paper will be more valuable then money itself.

 

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