Story by Johnathan Bartlett of Global about our sampling effort at Ogden Point Breakwater Oct. 15, 2014. Volunteers Stuart Morse and Dane Brown are interviewed about their motivations for becoming citizen scientists in support of the InFORM project.
Tag Archives: Environmental Monitoring
Coverage of Citizen Scientist Sampling in Victoria by CHEK News
Great to meet some our citizen scientist volunteers this evening at Ogden Pt to discuss the project and collect our first coastal ocean sample from the breakwater. Lots of great questions and discussion.
Powell River Peak Covers the InFORM Project
Link to the article here
Seawater testing project ramps up
Citizen scientists aid in tracking coastal radiation
by Chris Bolster | reporter@prpeak.com
Published: Wednesday, October 8, 2014 12:42 PM PDT
A seawater testing project on BC’s coast is ramping up to record the arrival of Japanese radiation leaked into the sea from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant disaster.
On March 11, 2011, the plant on the north east coast of Japan was hit by a tsunami triggered by a 9.0 magnitude earthquake. Three of the six nuclear reactors at the plant went into meltdown and a day later started to leak radioactive material into the Pacific Ocean. It is known as the largest nuclear incident since Chernobyl in 1986.
Dr. Jay Cullen is a chemical oceanographer at the University of Victoria who is leading the three-year project.
Starting this month, Cullen and his team will be coordinating about 600 citizen scientist volunteers in 14 coastal communities who will be collecting seawater samples monthly to send to the lab.
“The project itself is building on the success of more modest testing programs the Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) and Health Canada have been carrying out since the triple meltdown at Fukushima Daiichi in March 2011,” said Cullen.
DFO and Dr. John Smith have been making measurements in the north east Pacific and the Arctic oceans looking for radionuclides from Fukushima in seawater, he said.
Cesium-137, a signature isotope of Fukushima, was first detected about 1,500 kilometres offshore in 2012. In June 2013 it was detected off the west coast of Vancouver Island.
Cullen’s project will track the arrival of the plume of contaminated seawater being transported on North Pacific ocean currents.
“It’s to track its arrival and look for the maximum activities of these isotopes which will dictate what the risk is to the public,” Cullen said, adding that estimates suggest peak levels will reach BC during the next three years.
Scientist have measured low levels of radioactive material in seawater for decades.
“If you look at the activity of some of the isotopes which present the greatest health risks like Cesium-137 or Strontium-90 those levels peaked in the mid-1960s as a result of weapons testing,” said Cullen.
Currently there is only a slight trace of the chemicals from the disaster, he said.
“If you lived here in the 1970s or 80s the radioactivity of seawater and fish was likely greater than what we expect to be resulting from Fukushima,” he added.
Readers interested in the most recent scientific studies on the radiation-contaminated seawater or more information on the project, can visit Cullen’s blog or the study’s website.
Fukushima Radionuclides in Pacific Albacore Tuna Off the US Coast
Introduction
As part of an ongoing series documenting the impacts of the Fukushima disaster on the North Pacific and west coast, this post summarizes a recently published study by Delvan Neville and colleagues in the peer-reviewed journal Environmental Science and Technology. The paper reports measurements of Cesium-134 and Cesium-137 in 26 albacore tuna caught off the west coast of North America between 2008 and summer 2012. Because of its relatively short half-life (~2 years) 134-Cs is an unambiguous tracer of radionuclides released from the Fukushima Dai-ichi disaster which began in March 2011. Fish collected in 2011 and 2012 had higher 134-Cs and 137-Cs that was due to Fukushima sourced cesium in the Pacific. Fish collected in 2008-2009 had lower 137-Cs activities that largely reflected historic releases of the isotope from atmospheric nuclear weapons testing in the 20th century. The authors conclude that given the highest levels of Cs isotopes measured in albacore tuna, human consumption of the fish would not not represent a significant increase in annual radiation dose. The corresponding radiological health risk due to Fukushima derived radiocesium in these tuna is, therefore, very small. Continue reading Fukushima Radionuclides in Pacific Albacore Tuna Off the US Coast
Plutonium in the Pacific Ocean From Fukushima
Introduction
This post is part of an ongoing series that represents an effort to communicate peer-reviewed scientific studies of the impact of the Fukushima nuclear disaster on the North Pacific Ocean and residents of the west coast of North America. A frequently asked question of those involved in monitoring the health of the North Pacific is why more measurements of the long lived, alpha-emitting isotopes of plutonium (239-Pu half-life 24,100 years; 240-Pu 6,570 years) are not being made given the potential for these isotopes to pose radiological health risks. Measurements of air, soil and water indicate that Pu was released and broadcast into the environment as a result of the triple reactor meltdowns with estimates of the source on the order of 2.3×10^9 Bq of 239,240-Pu or 580 milligrams of the isotopes. Measurements of isotope composition and activity of Pu in seawater and sediments off the coast of Japan indicate that there was no detectable change resulting from the nuclear disaster (behind pay wall). Given that the Fukushima signal is not detectable in the ocean off Japan relative to legacy sources from atmospheric weapons testing in the 20th century there is likely little information in making the same measurements in the eastern Pacific off of North America.
Members of the public are concerned about the presence of the alpha-emitting isotopes of Pu and have been asking why measuring for these elements in seawater and marine biota is not a priority of the InFORM network. The purpose of this diary is to explain why such measurements are less likely to provide information about the plume and its impacts.
A recently published paper by Bu and colleagues in the peer-reviewed Journal of Chromotography A reports the development of a new method to determine Pu isotopes in small (20 – 60 liters) samples of seawater and measurements made of these isotopes off the coast of Japan from July 2011 to January 2013 until the present. Locations where samples were collected are shown in the figure below:
For all the seawater samples analyzed by Bu and colleagues, the 239-,240-Pu activities and 240-Pu/239-Pu atom ratios where found to be 0.00043 to 0.0056 Bq m^-3 and from 0.227 to 0.284, respectively. The results are summarized in Table 4 of the paper and are shown below:
Before the Fukushima accident in March 2011, Pu isotopes were being monitored off the coast of Japan to assess the radiological impact of the nuclear plants on the marine environment. The 239-,240-Pu activities before the meltdowns were below 0.0083 Bq m^−3 and 0.022 Bq m^−3 respectively, with 240-Pu/239-Pu atom ratios between 0.173 and 0.322. These ratios represent the influence of the Pacific Proving Ground nuclear weapon test site, which was characterized by a high 240-Pu/239-Pu atom ratio (0.30–0.36). Results after the Fukushima disaster were typically in the background data range, suggesting no detectable Pu contamination from the accident in the marine environment ~30 km offshore of the Fukushima Dai-ichi reactor complex. This conclusion is consistent with findings from previous studies of Pu isotopes in marine sediments in the western North Pacific after the Fukushima accident.
Given the absence of isotopic and concentration anomalies thus far in the western Pacific resulting from the Fukushima meltdowns there is not very much information to be gained about the evolution of the contaminated seawater plume in time and space. Similarly, the impact of the Fukushima disaster on the health of marine ecosystem with respect to Pu isotopes will be difficult to quantify relative to weapons testing background levels that persist in the environment.
On the Methodology Used to Make the Measurements (If You are Interested, IYI)
The approach used by Bu and colleagues to measure Pu isotopes at such low concentrations and activities involves applying sector field high resolution inductively coupled mass spectrometry. The instrument is able to separate chemical species by their respective mass to charge ratios using a strong electromagnetic field downstream of the plasma ionization source. Great pains were taken maximize the instruments sensitivity to measure the isotopes of interest 238-U, 239-Pu, 240-Pu, and 242-Pu. To remove the seawater matrix (cations and anions that would reduce instrument sensitivity) and elements with mass to charge ratios that would interfere with Pu detection like 238-U the seawater samples were purified using ion selective resins held in columns by passing them through successive loading and elution steps. This process is summarized in the following flow diagram from the paper:
The preconcentration and sensitivity of SF-ICP-MS allows for the very low detection limits required to quantify Pu in relatively small (20 – 60 L) volumes of seawater.
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