Major science meeting on Fukushima’s link to wildlife problems on West Coast

Major science meeting on Fukushima’s link to wildlife problems on West Coast — Looking closely at extent of radiation coming into affected areas, and how to best assess impact — Human health experts ‘reevaluating’ radiation limits in seafood… FDA levels ‘not terribly protective’ (VIDEO) (ENENews, Aug 27, 2014):

Interview with Kristen Milligan (transcript excerpts), Oregon State University marine ecologist, by WheepingWillow, June 13, 2014 (emphasis added):

  • 3:00 in — In fact there’s a workshop happening — I think it’s in either Boston or Washington DC, they’re just finishing up this week — which is looking at, it’s an international group of scientists looking actually at the radiation in the environment from Fukushima and looking at how to best assess impacts on wildlife in the Pacific… So they’re currently hard at work trying to make a very good and robust risk assessment of that, and it’s very complicated.
  • 5:00 in — There’s all these different stresses happening, and certainly Fukushima is one of them. Right now the scientists are looking closely at the question of to what extent the radiation is coming into the areas where along the West Coast, where we’re seeing these current ecological problems in the wildlife, and trying to balance that with all the other known things out there.
  • 6:00 in — The plume is really starting to be predicted to come in, reaching things around this time, and that’s part of why [inaudible] scientists are working together in a workshop just this past week about this — to figure out how to best measure and also look at levels, and how that relates to the problems we are seeing with wildlife.
  • 11:30 in — [Radiation levels in the tuna are] 3 times what they had been. It’s still well below the — whatever the, if you believe in FDA levels or not — which I actually used to work in water quality issues working on dioxin  and DDT — and I think the FDA levels are not terribly protective. But there are other levels that are set by the EPA that are much lower than the FDA’s. The radiation levels in the fish are 3 times above what they had been, but they’re still lower than either one of those. That’s actually another thing that the workshop — that’s just been happening — is reevaluating, not just US scientists, but also human health experts from around the world.

If someone is familiar with the workshop being discussed, please post a comment or write in using the form for news tips at the bottom of the right column. On June 16-17 in Washington DC the Department of State hosted the ‘Our Ocean’ Conference that “brought together individuals, experts, practitioners, advocates, lawmakers, and the international ocean and foreign policy communities to gather lessons learned, share the best science, offer unique perspectives, and demonstrate effective actions.”

Full interview with Milligan available here

1 thought on “Major science meeting on Fukushima’s link to wildlife problems on West Coast”

  1. WOW! 3 and a half years into the disaster, and they are having a MEETING? All of us who ever served in a corporate environment know how much is accomplished in meetings………..
    What horseshit.

    Reply

Leave a Reply to Marilyn Gjerdrum Cancel reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.