"Radioactivity in the Ocean: Diluted, But Far from Harmless"

Elizabeth Grossman's article on environment360 looks to previous ocean dumping of radioactivity -- as by the Soviets in the Kara and Barents Seas, and by the British in the Irish Sea -- for insights to help understand the potential impacts of Fukushima Daiichi's unprecedented oceanic discharges of radioactivity. Grossman reports. She points out that radioactivity, although diluted in the vast ocean, will re-concentrate up the food chain. "A 1999 study found that seals and porpoises in the Irish Sea concentrated radioactive cesium by a factor of 300 relative to its concentration in seawater, and a factor of 3 to 4 compared to the fish they ate," she reports. That radioactive contamination flowed from the U.K.'s Sellafield reprocessing plant. Just this morning, Obama administration Energy Secretary Steven Chu advocated a resumption of U.S. reprocessing for the first time since 1972. Which body of water he intends to turn into a nuclear sacrifice zone, however, he didn't mention.