Sunday, October 27, 2013

Animal Anomalies: Is the Fukushima Daiichi Disaster a 'Tipping Point'?


I’ve been blogging on the unceasing rise in radiation levels reported by Tepco since July 2013.

July 2013 was the big event, which seemed to have precipitated the current downhill trajectory. Fission byproducts were detected from that event

PowerPoint of data examining reports of conditions at the plant and evidence of criticalities, which can be seen here http://www.academia.edu/4314657/Fukushima_Update_Aug_2013  or here https://www.dropbox.com/s/11xz1zjgwcsbpo0/Fukushima%20Update%20Aug%202013.pptx

Since then, the radiation levels in ground and ocean water samples have been rising, according to published Tepco reports.

The rads are purportedly spiking to unprecedented levels.

Highest radiation level detected in water found in drainage ditch at Fukushima nuclear plant. (2013, October 24) The Asahi Shimbun, 3 http://ajw.asahi.com/article/0311disaster/fukushima/AJ201310240061

Tokyo Electric Power Co. said it has found the highest radiation levels recorded since it began checking water in drainage ditches in August at its crippled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant. The utility announced Oct. 24 that it had detected radioactive strontium and other beta ray emitting substances measuring 140,000 becquerels per liter in water sampled in one of the facility’s drainage ditches. The legal standard for strontium emissions is 30 becquerels per liter. TEPCO officials said the high radiation level was detected in water collected on Oct. 23. The levels in water taken on Oct. 22 were 59,000 becquerels per liter.


I believe that nuclear criticalities, not simply contaminated water spills, are contributing to the spiking levels.

The crisis is this contamination is gradually destroying our atmosphere (via ongoing and voluminous steam emissions at the site) and, most of all, our Pacific Ocean. This situation has prevailed for over two years now.

Many observers are starting to sound the alarm. The current escalation of alarming, mainstream media reports is noteworthy given the very clear efforts by governments to manage public representations of the scale of the disaster.

Memo From Japan: With a Plant’s Tainted Water Still Flowing, No End to Environmental Fears By MARTIN FACKLER and HIROKO TABUCHI October 24, 2013, http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/25/world/asia/with-a-plants-tainted-water-still-flowing-no-end-to-environmental-fears.html?_r=1& The fact that radiation levels are still up to hundreds of times as high as they are in other areas of the sea floor raises the possibility that the spots are being blanketed in new contamination from the plant, he said…. “Obviously, there is some continuing source of cesium 137,” said Jota Kanda, an oceanographer at the Tokyo University of Marine Science and Technology. “We are not sure exactly what is happening, but we are seeing a bigger than expected effect on the environment.”

The world's oceans, atmosphere, and land were experiencing severe degradation before the disaster. How has the additional volume of radionuclides affected the ecosystem?

Unfortunately, I cannot offer specific projections of the environmental damage and human health impacts of this disaster. The ICRP dose model understates the range of diseases caused by radiation and the susceptibilities of women and children. Moreover, dose-models do not represent transgenerational effects, which are likely to be the most problematic because genetic damage accumulates across generations.

I’ve been watching for signs of animal anomalies since this disaster began after learning that bird life along the Central California Coast was significantly adversely affected by Chernobyl Fallout. Fallout spreads far and the ingestion of radioisotopes have far more significant adverse effects than our dose-models predict.

WEST COAST ANIMAL ANOMALIES

All of the headlines listed below were sourced from the main-stream media, with the exception of the headlines about cockroaches and hermit crabs, which were based on my personal observations, rather than news reports. Many headlines were provided by Enenews, which re-prints excerpts from mainstream press articles. I found other articles in the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, The Washington Post, etc. I've been collecting items for this list over two years now.

SARDINES (population collapse)


Sudden disappearance of sardines has serious economic and ecological effects on the B.C. coast By Larry Pynn, Vancouver Sun October 14, 2013 http://www.vancouversun.com/travel/Sudden+disappearance+sardines+serious+economic+ecological/9034961/story.html

A $32-million commercial fishery has inexplicably and completely collapsed this year on the B.C. coast. The sardine seine fleet has gone home after failing to catch a single fish. And the commercial disappearance of the small schooling fish is having repercussions all the way up the food chain to threatened humpback whales.


OAR FISH



ORCAS (high mortality rate and odd behavior)


Vancouver Sun, Oct. 24, 2013: There have been some puzzling changes in the behaviour of northern resident killer whales that live off the north-central coast of British Columbia and Alaska, says a marine mammal scientist from the Vancouver Aquarium. [...] “They weren’t vocalizing, and that was quite a striking change after years and years of being very familiar with how noisy they are and how easy to find acoustically,” [Dr. Lance] Barrett-Lennard said Thursday. [...] The team has also noticed an unusually high mortality rate among pod matriarchs, with seven or eight deaths among older females in the pod in the past two years. Normally, the team notices one or two deaths per year. The deaths are likely coincidental and not linked, he said [...]


SEALS (unusual mortality event)

Diseased Alaska seals tested for radiation have abnormal brain ...[ENENEWS] Dec 28, 2011 ... National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration declared the recent deaths of ringed seals in [...] Alaska an unusual mortality event; Since ... http://enenews.com/diseased-seals-abnormal-brain-growths-undersized-lymph- nodes-found-russia-canada-walruses-next-6-photos-map


POLAR BEARS & WALRUSES (unexplained illness and population collapse)

Apr 7, 2012 ... Dozens of seals have died from the disease, but no walrus deaths are ... Scientists don't know yet if the walrus and seals are suffering from the ...

Jan 2, 2012 ... Dr. Curtis Ebbesmeyer [...] says debris will continue to wash up on shores from Kodiak to Oregon for the next few years [...] Ebbesmeyer says ...
enenews.com/seals-walruses-now-unprecedented-number-of-sea-turtle-deaths -in-vancouver-island-says-oceanographer-audio

Mar 14, 2013 ... walruses and polar bears have turned up with similar ailments. [...] Some of the animals were found to also have bleeding and swelling in their ...
enenews.com/sickened-alaska-animals-getting-more-tests-for-fukushima- radionuclides-oozing-sores-bleeding-swollen-internal-organs-hair-loss

[excerpted] It began in July 2011. Indigenous hunters in Alaska’s Arctic noticed ice seals they rely on for food and other uses covered in oozing sores and losing hair. They were sick and some were dying. [...]
As of this month, despite the international group of scientists and researchers the declaration pulled together, no cause has been officially identified for the illness plaguing the ice seals.
[...] walruses and polar bears have turned up with similar ailments. [...]
Some of the animals were found to also have bleeding and swelling in their lungs, livers, lymph nodes and other internal organs. [...]

‘A Winter Without Walruses’ Wall Street Journal Friday October 4, 3013 http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304795804579101440469640728.html

State and federal marine experts, meanwhile, say the collapse of the walrus harvest is another example of how wild weather is altering life in native villages like these that still follow a subsistence lifestyle.


STARFISH (Mass die-off involving loss of physical integrity)

Vancouver Aquarium 'alarmed' at mass die-off of starfish on B.C. ocean floor By Dene Moore, The Canadian Press October 7, 2013 http://www.vancouversun.com/travel/Vancouver+Aquarium+alarmed+mass+starfish+ocean+floor/9006150/story.html
VANCOUVER - Last month, a diver alerted Vancouver Aquarium staff that he had found a number of dead and decaying sunflower sea stars in the cold Pacific waters of a popular dive spot just off the shore of West Vancouver. Within weeks, the tentacled orange sea stars had all but disappeared in Howe Sound and Vancouver Harbour, disintegrating where they sat on the ocean floor. And aquarium staff don't know just how far-reaching the "alarming" epidemic has been, and whether this and other sea star species will recover. "They're gone. It's amazing," said Donna Gibbs, a research diver and taxonomist on the aquarium's Howe Sound Research and Conservation group.


SEA LIONS (Adverse mortality event of 70%-80% of the pups in the spring of 2013)


OCEAN CHANGES



KING SALMON

Speculation on Hermit Crabs in San Diego: http://majiasblog.blogspot.com/2012/08/speculation.html



COCKROACHES


The Year the Monarch Didn't Appear. The New York Times (2012 60 million, which was  a dramatic collapse; 2013 less than three million so far means they may be on the verge of complete collapse), http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/24/sunday-review/the-year-the-monarch-didnt-appear.html?_r=2&

Bees and others: http://majiasblog.blogspot.com/2013/03/bee-colony-collapse-in-california.html



HUMANS

Almost third more US West Coast newborns may face thyroid problems after Fukushima nuclear disaster http://rt.com/usa/fukushima-us-children-thyroid-291/


‘Horrific’ allergy and asthma season in California Spring-Summer 2013. Rosenthal, E. (2013, October 12) The Soaring Cost of a Simple Breath (October 12, 2013) http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/13/us/the-soaring-cost-of-a-simple-breath.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_20131013&_r=0

OAKLAND, Calif. — The kitchen counter in the home of the Hayes family Is scattered with the inhalers, sprays and bottles of pills that have allowed Hannah, 13, and her sister, Abby, 10, to excel at dance and gymnastics despite a horrific pollen season that has set off asthma attacks, leaving the girls struggling to breathe

ANALYSIS

Majia here: There is a pattern. Large sea mammals are most afflicted. This is probably because they are eating animals that have bio-accumulated radionuclides, particularly radioiodine and radiocesium. The animal at the top of the food chain is always the most toxic in the end.

Land animals have also been impacted, but the effects are generally less visible, at least presently. Atmospheric releases have been ongoing and plant life is no doubt accumulating cesium and other radionuclides. The process of bio-magnification is occurring on land, as it is in the sea, albeit more slowly.

The ocean has been more contaminated by Fukushima than the atmosphere. However, earth is a relatively closed system and much of what ends up in the ocean will circulate beyond the water through evaporation and consumption of ocean life.

I’m worried. The earth's bio-sphere was in precipitous decline before Fukushima. Could Fukushima be a global tipping point?

The scale of the effects hinted at by these headlines is worrying. I’m sick with the realization that we’ve ruined ‘the garden.’ It is inconceivable to me that money would be elevated above the integrity of our ecosystem and our genetic matrix.



The ecosystem was in trouble before fukushima
BBC: World's oceans in 'shocking' decline20 June 2011
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-13796479
Nature: Has the Earth’s Sixth Mass Extinction Already Arrived?Table 1: The ‘Big Five’ mass extinction events From Barnowsky et al., Nature 471, 51–57 (03 March 2011) doi:10.1038/nature09678 http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v471/n7336/fig_tab/nature09678_T1.html
Will Fukushima cause a global tipping point?

Meanwhile, Japan drafts new state secret law, gagging whistleblowers:

Fuk-‘hush’-ima: Japan’s new state secrets law gags whistleblowers, raises press freedom fears October 25, 2013 http://rt.com/news/japan-state-secrets-law-712/
Many issues of national importance to Japan, probably including the state of the Fukushima power plant, may be designated state secrets under a new draft law. Once signed, it could see whistleblowers jailed for up to 10 years.
Japan has relatively lenient penalties for exposing state secrets compared to many other nations, but that may change with the introduction of the new law. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's government has agreed on draft legislation on the issue on Friday and expects the parliament to vote on it during the current session, which ends on December 6.

Transparency, accountability, and collaboration are truly needed on an unprecedented global scale to halt and remediate this ongoing nuclear Armageddon.


RESOURCES 
Introduction to Majia's Blog and Index of Posts Here http://majiasblog.blogspot.com/2013/06/break-from-bloging.html

RECENT ALTERNATIVE ANALYSES 

Hatric Penny’s Plumegate (a detailed analysis of the NRC transcripts from March 2011)
http://hatrickpenryunbound.com/?p=3928


Friday, October 18, 2013 Apocalypse hier. Apocalypse yesterday. AIPRI http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&u=http://aipri.blogspot.de/2013/10/apocalypse-hier.html&act=url


Dr. Holger Strohm – Plutonium From Fukushima Will Kill Millions – Via Recycling Through Many Future Generations
http://agreenroad.blogspot.com/2013/08/dr-holger-strohm-fukushima-up-to-12000.htm
l
28 Signs That The West Coast Is Being Absolutely Fried With Nuclear Radiation From Fukushima by Michael Synder, http://www.globalresearch.ca/28-signs-that-the-west-coast-is-being-absolutely-fried-with-nuclear-radiation-from-fukushima/5355280

RECENT INTERVIEWS  




PowerPoint of data examining reports of conditions at the plant and evidence of criticalities, which can be seen here
 http://www.academia.edu/4314657/Fukushima_Update_Aug_2013  or here https://www.dropbox.com/s/11xz1zjgwcsbpo0/Fukushima%20Update%20Aug%202013.pptx

Friday, October 25, 2013

ALERT: Large Earthquake in North East Japan and Strange Webcam Imagery



 

Russia Today (RT) reports today that a 7.3 Earthquake shook the Fukushima region today, 7.3 magnitude quake registered off central Japanese coast

An earthquake of 7.3 magnitude has hit 231 miles (371 kilometers) east of Japan’s Honshu Island, according to the US Geological Survey, with tremors felt in Tokyo. Meteorologists warn that a 1-meter-high tsunami could follow.
The tsunami was due to hit at 17.42 GMT in the Fukushima region, the Japanese Weather Agency predicted. The agency issued a "yellow" warning meaning the tsunami is not expected to exceed a height of 1 meter. 
Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) has ordered the evacuation of workers from near the sea wall at Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant following the earthquake, local NHK reports. 

Now the webcam looks very odd. The big light near unit 2 is pulsing and its shape is odd