Radiation from Fukushima is turning up on the B.C. coast

VANCOUVER – Three years after a nuclear meltdown in Japan, radiation from Fukushima is turning up on the British Columbia coastline. A Canadian-led team intercepted the nuclear plume but they are clear it does not present a threat to people living on the coast.

The team started monitoring ocean water about three months after the disaster. “In 2011 we saw no Fukushima activity, in 2012 we began to see a little bit on the far western part, and in 2013, June 2013, we saw the arrival of the Fukushima radioactivity signal along the entire Line P, up on to the Continental Shelf of British Columbia,” said John Smith, oceanographer at Fisheries and Oceans Canada.

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And they expect to see more over the next few years.

“We expect to see the maximum on the signal in 2015, 2016 and this is based on ocean circulation models,” added Smith.

The radioactivity levels are extremely low however, and can only be measured by very sensitive nuclear instruments. “These levels are marginally above radioactivity from nuclear weapons fallout, and present absolutely no risk to the environment or to human health,” said Smith.

The team were not sure what to expect when they started their research, but now they have ocean circulation models to help them understand just how much radiation will arrive and from where.

“The amount of radioactivity being delivered to the east and north Pacific, from Fukushima, will increase levels to about the fallout levels in the ocean that prevailed in the 1980s,” said Smith.

“In another five to ten years those levels will decrease.”

“These levels are extremely low, they present no threat to human health, no threat to the environment.”