Seaweed gathered in So. California tested positive for radiation and it’s all thanks to the meltdown at Fukushima, Japan.
Researchers at Cal State Long Beach are saying in a study that a wave of radioactivity traveled from Japan and made its way to the golden coast of California in the one year since the devastating earthquake and resulting tsunami.
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California researchers weren’t even testing for the deadly isotope iodine 131 released from Fukushima but they found it anyway along with cesium 137 suggesting levels in the seaweed were terribly high.
“Radioactivity is taken up by the kelp and anything that feeds on the kelp will be exposed to this also,” the study confirmed, “Even though we detected low levels, it still got into the environment.”
The levels are significantly higher than measurements found in British Columbia, Canada, and northern Washington state following the Chernobyl disaster in 1986, which sheds light on the amount of radiation actually released from Fukushima.
The study noted that because samples were only measured the surface of the seaweed, a fair conclusion would gauge ten times as much radioactive material in the ocean.