Radiation From Fukushima Nuclear Disaster Detected on US Shores: Should You Worry?
Danger Posed To Humans And The Environment
Although the detection of cesium-134 on U.S. shores may sound troubling, researchers said that the detected levels do not actually pose danger to humans and the environment.
Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution senior scientist Ken Buesseler said that the detected levels are very low and should not harm people who swim in the ocean or eat fish from the West Coast.
“To put it in context, if you were to swim every day for six hours a day in those waters for a year, that additional radiation from the addressed cesium from Japan … is 1,000 times smaller than one dental X-ray,” Buesseler said.
The seawater samples that were taken from Oregon, which were taken in January and February earlier this year, each had 0.3 becquerels per cubic meter of cesium-134.