Massive fish kill outside Tokyo in Chiba — “The sight is somewhat apocalyptic”

[Generic Other]

There are tons and tons of dead sardines washing up on the shore [at the fishing port of Ohara in Isumi City of Chiba Prefecture]

[...]

According to the news, the dead fish started washing up around noon of June 3rd, and as of early afternoon on June 4th, the situation still remained pretty much out of control.

http://enenews.com/massive-fish-kill-outside-tokyo-in-chiba-the-sight-is-somewhat-apocalyptic-almost-looks-like-a-carpet-of-sardines-photos

[meanit]

1. Must've been something they ate.

Couldn't be anything to do with all that Fukushima radiation....

[HiPointDem]

2. odd that the kill would show up 200 miles from fukushima.

[meanit]

5. odd that Fukushima fishing boats would wash up on the California coast too.

[HiPointDem]

7. water dilutes contaminants. it doesn't dilute boats. and you might note the red tinge at the

shoreline.

[meanit]

8. Well, I'm certainly not an expert on the subject,

but thousands of dead fish washing up in Japan while Fukushima still spews radiation just isn't too reassuring to me.

[Octafish]

11. Not radioactivity, apparently.

http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2012/06/why-the-ocean-may-not-adequately-dilute-the-radiation-from-fukushima.html

[HiPointDem]

13. water dilutes radioactivity.

[Octafish]

17. You know, that's what the expert said on CNN a year ago.

http://articles.cnn.com/2011-04-07/opinion/safina.radiation.water.leak.japan_1_cesium-water-leak-radiation?_s=PM:OPINION

Funny, he doesn't seem to be on the air anymore.

Almost forgot. Every tuna measured for radiation off California showed exposure. The fish were on the other side of the Pacific last year. The ones which passed through the worst stuff have yet to migrate. Who knows what their readings will be?

http://thechart.blogs.cnn.com/2012/05/28/low-levels-of-fukushima-cesium-found-in-west-coast-tuna/

One thing else: You may count on CNN to tell the truth. I don't.

[HiPointDem]

20. It's a scientific fact. and your link does not contradict it. also the fish kill is not reported

anywhere but at the alarmist enews and winger conspiracy sites via "anonymous tip".

well, ok then.

[Octafish]

24. Nice smear, the 'winger conspiracy sites.' You know your stuff.

Fukushima should be of concern to people who eat seafood or not, as well as those who count on the Pacific dilluting the radioactivity or not.

Here are a few things I have found alarming:

Trivializing Fukushima

The Fukushima Crisis Demonstrates how Lowly the Global Elites Hold the Common People

''We never meant to conceal the information, but it never occurred to us to make it public.''

PS: Congrats on 2,200 posts in 90 days. The GOOGLE helped me find a couple on Fukushima. For example:

Yeah, it sure is.

Interesting stuff.

[HiPointDem]

26. fact, not smear. the report appears only on sites like "beyond top secret" & "what really happened".

not in msm.

[Octafish]

28. What fact?

You haven't posted a single link?

Here's the latest on the subject, courtesy of a DUer who knows how to use links:

A Radioactive Nightmare

His source, BTW, is Alexandra Navrotsky, Ph.D., director of nanomaterials research at U.C. Davis. She helps explain why the Pacific isn't dilluting the radiation as much as expected.

[HiPointDem]

30. water dilutes radioactivity. as your link acknowleges: "as much as expected". saying that

dilution may not be "as much as expected" in no way contradicts the fact that water dilutes radioactivity.

moreover, the only information from dr. navrotsky in that article is this quote where she says that water dilutes radioactivity:

A given isotope has the same radioactivity (half-life) regardless of what chemical state it is in,” Alexandra Navrotsky, Ph.D., director of nanomaterials research at U.C. Davis, told the VCReporter. “So the radioactivity for a constant number of U atoms depends on the proportion of different isotopes in the sample.”

[Octafish]

33. That's half-life. Her point is sea water reacts with radioactive nucleides in unpredicted ways.

You took the quote out of context. In that example, Dr. Navrotsky is talking about the half-life of Cesium 137. She also described the point, which is the discovery of new process that work to keep radioactive substances intact as they travel around the Pacific Ocean. Here's the press release from UC Davis:


How sea water could corrode nuclear fuel

January 26, 2012

Japan used seawater to cool nuclear fuel at the stricken Fukushima-Daiichi nuclear plant after the tsunami in March 2011 -- and that was probably the best action to take at the time, says Professor Alexandra Navrotsky of the University of California, Davis.

But Navrotsky and others have since discovered a new way in which seawater can corrode nuclear fuel, [font color="green"]forming uranium compounds that could potentially travel long distances, either in solution or as very small particles[/font color]. The research team published its work Jan. 23 in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

“This is a phenomenon that has not been considered before,” said Alexandra Navrotsky, distinguished professor of ceramic, earth and environmental materials chemistry. “We don’t know how much this will increase the rate of corrosion, but it is something that will have to be considered in future.”

Japan used seawater to avoid a much more serious accident at the Fukushima-Daiichi plant, and Navrotsky said, to her knowledge, there is no evidence of long-distance uranium contamination from the plant.

[font color="green"]Uranium in nuclear fuel rods is in a chemical form that is “pretty insoluble” in water[/font color], Navrotsky said, unless the uranium is oxidized to uranium-VI — a process that can be facilitated when radiation converts water into peroxide, a powerful oxidizing agent.

Peter Burns, professor of civil engineering and geological sciences at the University of Notre Dame and a co-author of the new paper, had previously made spherical uranium peroxide clusters, rather like carbon “buckyballs,” that can dissolve or exist as solids.

In the new paper, the researchers show that in the presence of alkali metal ions such as sodium — for example, in seawater — these clusters are stable enough to persist in solution or as small particles even when the oxidizing agent is removed.

In other words, these clusters could form on the surface of a fuel rod exposed to seawater and then be transported away, surviving in the environment for months or years before reverting to more common forms of uranium, without peroxide, and settling to the bottom of the ocean. There is no data yet on how fast these uranium peroxide clusters will break down in the environment, Navrotsky said.

Navrotsky and Burns worked with the following co-authors: postdoctoral researcher Christopher Armstrong and project scientist Tatiana Shvareva, UC Davis; May Nyman, Sandia National Laboratory, Albuquerque, N.M.; and Ginger Sigmon, University of Notre Dame. The U.S. Department of Energy supported the project.

About UC Davis

For more than 100 years, UC Davis has engaged in teaching, research and public service that matter to California and transform the world. Located close to the state capital, UC Davis has more than 32,000 students, more than 2,500 faculty and more than 21,000 staff, an annual research budget that exceeds $684 million, a comprehensive health system and 13 specialized research centers. The university offers interdisciplinary graduate study and more than 100 undergraduate majors in four colleges — Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, Biological Sciences, Engineering, and Letters and Science. It also houses six professional schools — Education, Law, Management, Medicine, Veterinary Medicine and the Betty Irene Moore School of Nursing.

SOURCE: http://www.news.ucdavis.edu/search/news_detail.lasso?id=10131

[HiPointDem]

34. nothing you've highlighted contradicts anything i said, and the link you posted here is not

the same link you posted earlier.

"could" is not "does" or "is"

water dilutes radioactivity, & there's no reason to assume the fish kill in chiba had anything to do with fukushima.

[countryjake]

22. Octafish, did you see this?

Radioactive bluefin tuna crossed the Pacific to US

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1014130080


the article from last week:

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2012/05/28/national/a120114D60.DTL&tsp=1

[Octafish]

23. Thank you for the heads-up, countryjake!

From the SF Gate article:

"We were frankly kind of startled," said Nicholas Fisher, one of the researchers reporting the findings online Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The levels of radioactive cesium were 10 times higher than the amount measured in tuna off the California coast in previous years. But even so, that's still far below safe-to-eat limits set by the U.S. and Japanese governments.

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2012/05/28/national/a120114D60.DTL#ixzz1x7H6kkbL

Helen Caldicott discusses how there is no "safe" level for radiation exposure:

http://www.infiniteunknown.net/2011/12/13/dr-helen-caldicott-after-fukushima-enough-is-enough-new-york-times/

Here's a good resource on Cesium from the EPA:

http://www.epa.gov/rpdweb00/radionuclides/cesium.html

A bit more from the DOE on Plutonium:

http://sync.democraticunderground.com/1002145466

Shocking to see how quickly the story faded from the front page and the television screen. Thank you for knowing what's at stake.

[countryjake]

31. And thanks to you for continuing to try & inform on this issue...

there's simply too much at stake for the nuclear power advocates (and the MIC) to allow any of us to dwell on or even contemplate the actual ramifications of the Fukushima disaster. Even here on the West Coast, we get brief stories (such as the one I linked you to) in our local news reports, but then it is dropped the next day.

As someone who lives in an area where many survive on the catch they get from our waters (my own freezer is still stocked with the salmon we smoked last year) these radioactivity alarms from the Tsunami and even the "dead zones" of depleted oxygen (which have become steadily worse off the coasts of both OR and WA since 2002) are of deep concern to me and many of the people I know up here.

I believe that not only are the citizens of Japan being duped about the "safety" of their current environment, but that our own government is highly complicit in this "move along, nothing to see here" attitude. Too much at stake for them.

[dixiegrrrrl]

19. M6.3 quake hits off Chiba, M4.2 near Fukushima Daiichi an hour later

yesterday..
wonder if that had anything to do with it?

[TheWraith]

6. Uh, this sort of thing happens pretty regularly.

I remember seeing one happen firsthand in Lake Ontario years back. You get some kind of disease spreading through the fish population, and in no time you've got a lot of dead fish. There's also the Red Tide phenomenon mentioned downthread.

These are actual, scientifically based conditions, as opposed to the imaginary effects of Fukushima.

[meanit]

9. Imaginary effects of Fukushima?

OK....

[brentspeak]

10. "the imaginary effects of Fukushima"

Just when it didn't seem possible to one-up yourself for sheer unintentional hilarity, you've managed to do the impossible.

[Generic Other]

12. More imaginary effects?

http://enenews.com/fukushima-resident-numayu-now-has-own-blog-detailing-health-problems-photos

Sickened Minamisoma woman’s blog shut down — Recently featured on major news network

[malaise]

3. That's a lot of dead fish

Damn!

[PufPuf23]

4. Looks like a Red Tide algae bloom

I believe the Japanese nuke disaster is understated and more than enough reason to put a stop to current nuclear energy and may be a contributing fact but it does look like a red tide event from photo.

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

Red tide is a common name for a phenomenon also known as an algal bloom (large concentrations of aquatic microorganisms), an event in which estuarine, marine, or fresh water algae accumulate rapidly in the water column and results in discoloration of the surface water. It is usually found in coastal areas.[1]

These algae, known as phytoplankton, are single-celled protists, plant-like organisms that can form dense, visible patches near the water's surface. Certain species of phytoplankton, dinoflagellates, contain photosynthetic pigments that vary in color from green to brown to red.

When the algae are present in high concentrations, the water appears to be discolored or murky, varying in color from purple to almost pink, normally being red or green. Not all algal blooms are dense enough to cause water discoloration, and not all discolored waters associated with algal blooms are red. Additionally, red tides are not typically associated with tidal movement of water, hence the preference among scientists to use the term algal bloom.

Some red tides are associated with the production of natural toxins, depletion of dissolved oxygen or other harmful effects, and are generally described as harmful algal blooms. The most conspicuous effects of these kind of red tides are the associated wildlife mortalities of marine and coastal species of fish, birds, marine mammals, and other organisms.

etc.

[Generic Other]

14. Do you know if these are ever associated with release of methane gas from underwater fissures?

Or whether earthquakes ever trigger red tide blooms? Chiba had an earthquake lately. The fish kills also occurred in the Gulf after BP. I am just curious if anyone has ever done any research in this area.

[PufPuf23]

15. Often killing red tides are associated with low oxygen in the water.

Never have thought nor read anything regards to methane gas release.

That is an interesting question.

[spinbaby]

16. That will do wonders for Disneyland

The Tokyo Disneyland is right there on the bay in Chiba.

[Shankapotomus]

18. couldn't have picked a better country to wash up on

they are sure not to go to waste if they are still edible. (＾▽＾

[Generic Other]

37. Ewwwwww

I don't think even the Japanese will be dining on these fish.

[spanone]

21. i'll have a thousand of these to go please....

[BlueIris]

25. Yikes.

Chilling.

[petronius]

27. There was one of these in Southern CA last year - I'll bet it smelled (smelt?) amazing

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2011/03/redondo-beach-authorities-report-large-fish-kill-at-king-harbor.html

Looking at the water in the photo from Japan, it certainly looks like a pretty severe red tide is the immediate cause.

Off topic, I think I'll have sardines for lunch...

[Generic Other]

36. Does red tide actually turn the water red?

The reports from Japan are suggesting fish blood not red tide.

Your pics are pretty horrible looking BTW. Yikes.

[Uncle Joe]

29. Kicked and recommended.

Thanks for the thread, Generic Other.

[countryjake]

32. K&R!

[Generic Other]

35. NBC reporting the surf is bloody not red tide

Rotting Sardines Block Japanese Port
NBC Chicago
Reena Roy
June 7, 2012

[...]

A bloody surf has turned a Japanese port city into a dumping ground for rotting fish.

Tons of sardines began washing up onto Chiba Shore in Isumi City on June 3 and continued into this week, according to Japan Today.

The Ohara fishing port was reportedly covered with the dead fish, the ocean stained with their blood

[...]

The reason for the phenomenon has not been confirmed.

http://enenews.com/nbc-a-bloody-surf-has-turned-a-japanese-port-city-gizmodo-ocean-stained-with-blood-of-200-tons-of-sardines-the-scariest-thing-is-that-no-one-is-sure-why-this-is-happening-photos