The purpose of this post is to summarize a recently published, peer reviewed, scientific study that investigated levels of Fukushima derived contamination in fish caught in the North Pacific and sold at market in Hawai’i. This post is part of an ongoing series dedicated to bringing quality scientifically derived information to readers so that they can form an evidence based opinion regarding the environmental impact of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant meltdowns. The paper by Azouz and Dulai (both at the University of Hawai’i at Manoa) summarizes levels of human made 134-Cesium (134Cs half life ~2 years) and 137-Cesium (137Cs half life ~30 years) and naturally occurring 40-Potassium (40K half life 1.25 billion years) in 13 different fish purchased in Hawai’i in 2015. The findings of the study were that:
3 of the 13 fish had detectable levels (above the 95% confidence interval) of 134Cs which can be linked to the Fukushima disaster Highest levels of radiocesium were found in ‘ahi tuna with 134Cs and 137Cs of 0.10 ± 0.04 Bq kg-1 and 0.62 ± 0.05 Bq kg-1 respectively Most of the fish carried no fingerprint of the Fukushima disaster Levels of radiocesium were well below intervention levels of 1,200 Bq kg-1 set by the United States Food and Drug Administration Doses to fish consumers from human made radioisotopes were ~100 fold lower than the dose experienced because of naturally occurring 40K in the fish Neither the effective dose from the natural nor the human made radioisotopes represent a significant health risk to consumers of the fish given scientifically established dose-response relationshipsThese results agree with the results of the Integrated Fukushima Ocean Radionuclide Monitoring Project (InFORM) I head up at the University of Victoria which has been making similar measurements on North Pacific fish returning to rivers in North America.