Japan Dumps Thousands of Tons of Radioactive Water Into Pacific Ocean

what i want to know is this now considered worse than chernobyl not the potential to but actually .the next thing i want to know and i mean right down the middle not one extreme or the other is it time to break out iodide pills and bottled water in the us .because the questions that regular people have is things like if my kids walk in the rain to the bus stop or swim in thier inground pool next month on the east coast of the united states will they eventually get cancer .i am a little less than a laymen on this topic (somewhat well read ) and parents where ilive are asking me this stuff and every thing in me wants to say no because most of the research i've read says there has been worse exposures than this and we are all still here(that is a very general statement).but with conflicting info it's very hard and frankly i am tired of worrying about it.not that anyone has the answers and in some ways just venting . .and to all of japan my prayers.i posted almost the exact same post to arch druid but thought it was worth posting agian

"As officials mull other ways to cut off the leak at its source, workers will install a silt fence along a damaged sea wall surrounding the plant, Nishiyama said. The aim of this screening, usually used to halt erosion at construction sites, is to prohibit the spread of radioactive particles into the sea."

It seems to me this will not be enough. Concrete would be better or dredge up sand and then pump the water out and filter it. The filters need to at least be reverse osmosis which is a selective membrane.

"To be "selective," this membrane should not allow large molecules or ions through the pores (holes), but should allow smaller components of the solution (such as the solvent) to pass freely."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reverse_osmosis

Thank you Russia for helping.

"Workers also have injected a dye tracer into the water to allow them to track the dispersal of such particles, the spokesman added."

This is very good news indeed. it makes me believe that someone is on the job that truly cares. The normal response of the nuclear industry is to cover up everything. Radioactivity is a tracer in itself but an invisible one and the monitors do not seem to be enough. The dye should really help. Thank you to whoever initiated this. It's been on my mind for several days but I never posted it.

To Hell with all of Them!!! Just blowing smoke up people's asses... They know they are Doomed.... So let Them Die... It was their Bad Decision.... Don't kill my future and my grandchildren's for you idiotic ideas.... Let that island and it's sad inventors stay there and deal with the trauma of their creation!!!!

Yup.... I posted this last night. I did my best to avoid this news and even told friends how upset I was, and was trying to forget about this Terrible news.... So I went to hang out at Ziggy Stranges Music Lounge... Doing so took alot of the edge off, but I was posting music with tears running down my face... Because every song I posted made me think more of the current events in Japan. I was not escaping the news, I was actually amplifying it, I was getting more angry by the minute. For these "Scientists" to be talking about how worried we should NOT be, it took me back to last April. How the news media sat there and said there was a Busted Well and oil was leaking in the Gulf of Mexico. They never did step up to just how much was leaking and did their best to show there was nothing to worry about.... I think it was Wolf Blitzer that I was watching this weekend, he stated that over 260 Million Gallons of oil may have leaked into the Gulf.

I get very frustrated with our news media. When I said "To Hell with all of Them!!!" I was speaking of the "Scientists" not about the people of Japan. My wish would be that they find a way to a mainland, sooner than Later. I am posting this to say:

"I Apologize to all of you especially the 5 that gave the Thumbs Down on this comment." I meant to demean None of you.

I will use better judgment with all future comments.

"Peace"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xmI6rF9xvTw&feature=related

I really wish they would be more cautious with the Japanese public.

Attempts to fill the 20-centimeter (8-inch) crack outside the No. 2 reactor's turbine building -- on Saturday by pouring in concrete, then Sunday by using a chemical compound mixed with sawdust and newspaper -- were not successful.
Hmmmm....Sawdust and newspaper....wonder if crazy glue might be better.

Hmmmmm Radioactive fish in ocean water...wonder if any will swim near US ?

F*ck our lives...

Well I am sure glad that this was all under control and that there was no meltdown or anything like that.
Now that it can just be flushed into the ocean it won't be Japans problem anymore. That sure takes care of it .

2,754,491 gallons of water

But as with the BP oil debacle, you know they're gonna under-estimate

This is an awesome website by Wade Frazier all about free energy and how it's possible to have it right now. Enough of this nuclear bullshit. http://www.ahealedplanet.net/home.htm

This planet is going to KICK OUR ASS NOW!!!

Maybe this water can help destroy the Great Pacific Garbage patch.... oh wait.

The dumping of so much radioactive water into the ocean conjures fears of mutated sea life and contamination of the human food chain, but one expert said the radiation will be quickly diluted, minimizing risk.

"What a total Crock of Shit!!!!" I am sorry folks but I am furiously pissed off with this news!!!!" If the water was of little damage and would "Dilute" than why the Hell could they have not tubed the water to a local lake or reservoir???? They always wanted to say what a great idea and just how fluent and safe these reactors were.... "REALLY????" Built right off the ocean shore? Are you kidding me??? How safe could that be to begin with!!!??? It would seem that they would have built it on higher ground with run off ponds if needed... Man I tell ya' I need to go listen to some music, I have not been this angry in a long time....

Please excuse my rant....

So they decided to poison the Planet to save their Island??? Am I getting this right???

There goes the water and life in the Pacific Ocean... I'm sorry, but this world will end soon..

So horrible. They're killing the water as well. I don't even know what to say anymore. . We don't deserve this planet.

Who knows... maybe it will end up in the Pacific Gyer with all the plastic... MAD WORLD!

This is awful !

That is like throwing wood from a burning house onto the house next door! I really hope I live to see the end of the carcinogenic human race. We are all fools,

are they trying to create godzilla?

..............wth.

CONTINUED...

PART TWO...

As officials mull other ways to cut off the leak at its source, workers will install a silt fence along a damaged sea wall surrounding the plant, Nishiyama said. The aim of this screening, usually used to halt erosion at construction sites, is to prohibit the spread of radioactive particles into the sea.

Workers also have injected a dye tracer into the water to allow them to track the dispersal of such particles, the spokesman added.

Addressing the issue quickly is critical because officials believe it is a source of alarmingly high radiation levels in seawater near the plant, as well as in nearby groundwater.

Complicating the situation is the fact that, in some cases, authorities don't even know how much radiation is getting out.

After some high-profile errors, little new information on water, ground and air radiation has been released since Thursday. One reason is that the dosimeters being used don't go above 1,000 millisieverts per hour, said Junichi Matsumoto, an executive with Tokyo Electric.

Authorities know the water in the cracked concrete shaft is emitting at least that much radiation -- which equates, at a minimum, to more than 330 times the dose an average resident of an industrialized country naturally receives in a year.

Plugging the external leak is job one, in order to prevent the outflow of radiation into the Pacific. But it may not be the most difficult, or important, task ahead.

Authorities still have to figure out how the tainted water got into the concrete shaft in the first place. The water had to come from somewhere, potentially traveling across melted-down nuclear fuel in the reactor's core before somehow reaching the outside.

"We were assuming and hoping (that water) would stay in the containment vessel as vapor after being cooled," Nishiyama, the nuclear safety official, said Sunday. "However, it may have flowed into the building, and then the trench."

Determining why and how that happened -- and what to do about it -- may be "exceptionally challenging," said physicist James Acton, with the Washington-based Carnegie Endowment think tank. Officials may have to inspect a complex array of pipes inside the dangerous radioactive environment inside the containment buildings.

The state of the Nos. 5 and 6 units is another new problem. Water in their turbine buildings' basements threatens the power supply for the system used to cool nuclear material in these units' spent fuel pools, Edano said. This makes it imperative to pump out that water, which will end up into the sea like that from around the Nos. 3 and 4 units.

"Though those reactors are stable at the moment, the growing water level in the turbine houses may disturb their stability," he said.

The effort to keep the Nos. 1, 2 and 3 reactor cores and spent fuel pools cool took a step forward Sunday, when the electricity source powering those three units' cooling systems was switched from a temporary diesel generator to a more permanent, external power supply, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency's website.

Authorities hope this step, as well as preventing damage to the Nos. 5 and 6 units' power supply, will help to minimize the prospect of any more radiation that might contaminate tap water or food.

Farmers have pushed for lower standards on radiation in food, calling them unnecessarily stringent. On Monday, Edano said these limits would not change, even as he outlined a process in which sales restrictions on certain crops, in certain areas, would be lifted if they test safe three times in a row.

In the long run, utility and government officials want to make sure the nuclear fuel, and the potentially cancerous materials it can release, never poses a threat again.

One option being considered, a Tokyo Electric spokesman said Monday, is to wrap some or all of the reactors' containment buildings in massive amounts of sheeting. But for now, the aim is to make sure that the nuclear fuel rods do not overheat -- and release more radiation into the air, water and ground.

"Finally, we (need to) establish a long-term policy to cool the reactors," said Nishiyama, while acknowledging that much work needs to be done in the meantime.

CNN's Matt Smith, Tsukushi Ikeda, Yoko Wakatsuki, Junko Ogura, Midori Nakata, Susan Olson and Martin Savidge contributed to this report