Strontium-90 results missing from DEC report

To the editor,

TEPCO tests for radioactive strontium-90 levels in seafood showed 0.33 to 0.65 bq/kg. Strontium-90 U.S. EPA limit for drinking water is 8 pCi/liter (or 0.296 bq/kg). So, all these strontium-90 levels found in seafood by TEPCO exceed U.S. EPA drinking water standards (reported at: http://www.fukuleaks.org/web/?p=11902 ). However, “DEC said, tests show no appreciable iodine-131, cesium-137 & 134, and they said that they have decided to stop having Alaskan fish tested for radioactivity,” reported in ADN article by Chris Klint, “Alaska seafood again tests free of Fukushima radiation,” (11/30/15). But, strontium-90 test results were not reported in this article. Did DEC really forget to have this test done, or have they decided to keep those results hidden from us? The Asahi Shimbun reported on 9/25/13 that samples taken closer to the Fukushima power plant “were still showing high readings, and that the government can only guess at the extent of strontium contamination.” In the article Jota Kanda, a professor at Tokyo University of Marine Science and Technology said, “We have to increase the number of inspections for strontium levels.”

Iodine-131 has a half-life of only about 8 days, and Cesium-137 has a biological half-life of only 110 days, because half of it gets excreted after 110 days, but strontium-90 (another radionuclide from Fukushima disaster) is far more dangerous with half-life of 28.8 years, and, instead of being excreted, it accumulates and takes the place of calcium in bones, where that it causes bone cancer and leukemia, especially in children.

Salmon juveniles that left Alaskan rivers just after the Fukushima-Daiichi nuclear disaster will not return for a few more years, so this is not the time to stop testing Alaskan seafood for radioactivity! I strongly recommend that we demand that our federal and state agencies like DEC test bone samples for strontium-90 and that they continue all testing until all our fish have returned, and that we start testing whales, seals, seabirds, and native Alaskans, because they are all higher in the food chain and, therefore, would store and concentrate radionuclides to a much higher level than fish.

Daniel N. Russell

Willow