Originally published October 27, 2012 at 10:08 PM | Page modified October 28, 2012 at 11:02 AM
Trace Fukushima radiation found in Northwest albacore tuna
By Craig Welch
Seattle Times environment reporter
[snip]
So far, the trace amounts that OSU scientists found in tuna are far less than anything that would pose a risk to humans; a fish eater would have to consume several thousand pounds of the most radioactive albacore they discovered just to increase by 1 percent the amount of radiation they're exposed to from everyday sources.
"The amounts they found were incredibly small," said Donn Moyer, spokesman for the Washington state Department of Health, which also tested the same samples and came up with the same results. "There's nothing really remarkable about the amounts."
But because cesium decays so quickly, the discovery makes clear that fish caught in Northwest waters picked up the radiation while feeding on smaller fish in or around Japan.
"We're talking about barely, barely detectable levels," said Jason Phillips, who led the work while a graduate student at OSU's College of Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Sciences. "But because the radiation has to be derived from Fukushima, they had to pick it up within its vicinity or in the drift."...
