Fukushima radioactivity noted in Canada

WOODS HOLE, Mass., April 7 (UPI) -- The first radiation in North America from the 2011 Fukushima, Japan, power plant meltdown was detected on the Canadian shoreline, a report released Tuesday said.

Trace amounts of radioactive isotopes of cesium-134 and cesium-137, well below the threshold for human safety, were found in samples collected on Vancouver Island, on the Pacific Ocean at Canada's British Columbia, the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution reported.

The Cape Cod, Mass. institute has been monitoring North American radiation levels for the past 15 months at 60 sites on the West Coast and Hawaii. Researcher Ken Buessler said the amounts of cesium-134 and cesium-137, which could only have come from the Fukushima incident, were miniscule but detectable. Only 1.4 and 5.8 becquerels per cubic meter of water, respectively, were found; Canadian law allows up to 10,000 becquerels per cubic meter of cesium-137.

"Today's report is not alarming at all. It's kind of to be expected. We knew four years later it would be reaching our shoreline, and we had seen it offshore, and these numbers are quite small," said Buessler. "Even if they were twice as high and I was to swim there (the monitoring site) every day for an entire year, the dose I would be exposed to is a thousand times less than a single dental X-ray. Radioactivity can be dangerous, and we should be carefully monitoring the oceans after what is certainly the largest accidental release of radioactive contaminants to the oceans in history."

A tsunami triggered nuclear meltdowns at three Fukushima nuclear plants in 2011, causing radioactive material to leak into the Pacific Ocean.