Scientists detected radiation off the coast of California that came from Japan's Fukushima nuclear power plant. The radiation level is too low that it doesn't pose any health risk to those exposed to the waters.
Volunteer oceanographers from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts collected water samples from the coast with a distance of 160 kilometers west of Eureka, California. The analysis showed traces of the radioactive element isotope cesium -134 and -137, which could last up to 30 years.
Researchers presumed it originated from the Fukushima's Dai-Ichi plant that released high levels of radioactivity when three of its six nuclear reactors exploded during the tsunami in 2011. The radioactive elements contaminated the waters and flowed into the sea; scientists believe it might last for decades.
Woods Hole said that the radiation detected in the California waters is still far from posing a health risk to human and marine life, based on international standards and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. In fact, the water is still safe to drink, Businessweek reported.
Ken Buesseler, a nuclear chemist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, told SFGate that their findings supported an earlier report of Canadian scientists who stated the radiation has reached the waters of British Columbia.
Buesseler warned that people could be at risk soon - the government has not assigned a department to monitor the waters for radiation. His team is not receiving funding from any agencies, and all scientists who participated in the water analysis are volunteers, just like him. The group is monitoring waters from San Diego and Hawaii.
"Crowd-sourced funding continues to be an important way to engage the public and reveal what is going on near the coast. But ocean scientists need to do more work offshore to understand how ocean currents will be transporting cesium on shore," he said to The Independent.
