Long Beach Post, Feb. 6, 2014: Cal State Long Beach (CSULB) researchers have paired with fellow researchers at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory to launch “Kelp Watch 2014,” a research/campaign project set out to see the extent to which the Fukushima nuclear power plant disaster has affected California’s vast kelp forest. […] CSULB biology professor Steve Manley initiated the project with the Berkley Lab’s head of applied nuclear physics Kai Vetter […] it is expected that radioactive isotopes will arrive in California as early as April of this year and linger for years. “I think we would all be better off if this material did not exist and wasn’t coming over, but at this point, there is nothing we can do about it,” [Manley] said.
CBS San Francisco, Feb. 6, 2014 — UC Berkeley Nuclear Engineering Professor Kai Vetter, co-founder of kelp monitoring program (at 3:00 in): There are two goals with [Kelp Watch]. One, to better understand scientifically about the transport mechanism in our world — the world without borders, as we have seen in these events — the transport of these materials, throughout the northern hemisphere at least […] And of course, to address some of the concerns by the public, and by the way, by me… by ourselves about the amount of radiation we expect to see here, we also are concerned, I have family here, my wife is very concerned, we have children, they are concerned, as the public is concerned about the amount of radiation we will see here. So to ensure there are not really any health risks, that they don’t pose any health risks to us.