Thousands evacuate as Fukishima nuclear emergency is declared

[Peter Lemkin]

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The Pacific Ocean Does Not Belong to Japan: It Belongs to All of Us

By Sheila Parks [/TD]
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All of the world's oceansare connected to one another; there is only one world ocean. A fifth-gradestudent looking at a world map can easily see this. So when we talk about thePacific Ocean being contaminated by Fukushimawith radiated water, we are saying that all this radiation is flowing into ourone world ocean on a daily basis, with no end in sight. Whether we say 300 tonsof radiated water have been flowing into the Pacific Ocean every day since Fukushima, March 11, 2011,or whether we say 83,000 gallons/day of radiated water -- an incomprehensibleamount of poisoned water is flowing into our one ocean.

Some may argue that Japan has aterritorial right to the waters off its shores. The definition of territorialwaters is as follows http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Territorial_waters "Territorial waters, or a territorialsea, as defined by the 1982 United NationsConvention on the Law of the Sea, [SUP][1][/SUP]is a belt of coastal waters extending at most 12 nautical miles (22.2 km;13.8 mi) from the baseline (usually the mean low-water mark) of a coastalstate. The territorial sea is regarded as the sovereign territory of thestate"
Since the radiation in theocean from Fukushima flows way beyond theterritorial waters of Japan,why are the nations of the world allowing Japan and TEPCO to have totalcontrol over what happens? We must allhave a say about Fukushimaand radiated water flowing into our one ocean. Can the people of the world finda way to take control away from Japanand TEPCO legally now and have an independent international team ofexperts give their brains, hearts, and souls to the job?


Some participants of the weekly vigil at the Japanese Consulate in Boston by Photo courtesy Sheila Parks

On December 1, 2013 ArnieGundersen (http://fairewinds.org/) said, "DaleKlein [the former chair of the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), and thecurrent chair of the Nuclear Reform Monitoring Committee -- an advisory board toTEPCO] is now suggesting that we're just going to take [Fukushima's radioactive water] and pump itinto the Pacific. And I don't think that's a very good idea. It's cheap andit's fast, it's the expedient way of doing it, but really there's somethingcalled the Londondumping convention. And back in 1972, Greenpeace was very active in preventingradiation from being dumped into the ocean and to my way of thinking, thiswould violate the London Dumping Convention if they did it." See the interview and transcript with Gundersen,and this particular question to him and his response at 4:10 minutes. http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?opti...ival=11085.
Here is the London Conventionaka Marine Dumping law and also note the 1996 protocol http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Conv...her_Matter. On ABC News on November20, 2013, Klein said, "At the end of the day, when the water isdischarged, it will be released in a way that it's diluted." http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-11-20/fu...-o/5104584. A few questions for Klein: What do you mean specifically by "diluted"?The ocean cannot dilute radiation. Please give us hard, cold evidence that whatyou call dilution is possible. Many scientists state that this is not true.
With the disintegration of the Fukushima nuclear power plant, many kinds of wildlife arestrangely dying and disappearing from the Pacific Ocean, in places as far awayas Hawaii, Canadaand southern California.For example star fish, sea lions and Pacific herring are having nightmarishproblems: http://enenews.com/alarming-epidemic-
mass-die-off-of-starfish-on-canadas-pacific-coast-theyve-disintegrated-now-theres-just-goo-left-appeared-to-melt-arms-just-detach-single-arms-clingi;
http://enenews.com/tv-historic-number-of...-on-oceano;
http://enenews.com/biologist-pacific-her...mer-of-201
TheOcean is Broken , October 18,2013, is a narrative by and about a sailor, Ivan Macfadyen, crossing the oceanfrom Melbourne, Australiato Osaka, Japanand from Osaka to San Francisco.
"" The next leg of the long voyagewas from Osaka to San Francisco and for most of that trip the desolation wastinged with nauseous horror and a degree of fear"After we left Japan, it feltas if the ocean itself was dead"We hardly saw any living things. We saw onewhale, sort of rolling helplessly on the surface with what looked like a bigtumour on its head. It was pretty sickening"I've done a lot of miles on theocean in my life and I'm used to seeing turtles, dolphins, sharks and bigflurries of feeding birds. But this time, for 3000 nautical miles there wasnothing alive to be seen" In place of the missing life was garbage inastounding volumes"" http://www.theherald.com.au/story/184843...is-broken/.
John LaForge, co-director of Nukewatch, a nuclear watchdog andenvironmental justice group in Wisconsin , tells us, "Japan has decided that fishcontaminated with fewer than 100 Becquerels per kilogram (Bq/kg) of cesium-137is good enough to eat. Some local officials have set a stricter bar of 50Bq/kg.
"In the U.S. the permissible level ofcesium in food is 1,200 Bq/kg. Canadaallows 1,000 Bq/kg. The difference is startling. The huge discrepancy allowsimportation by the U.S. and Canada of what Japan considers highly contaminatedfish, vegetables and meat. Rice, fish, beef and other Japanese exports poisonedby nuclear power's single worst nightmare is doubtless being consumed in the United States." http://www.counterpunch.org/2013/10/23/f...on-gusher/ It is unfathomable that the US and Canada have set the bar for permissible cesiumin food to be lower than Japan.However, there is never any permissible level for any country to allow cesiumin our food.
This curse of radiation from Fukushima in our ocean willbe with us for time untold. I urge that you,your children, grandchildren and great grandchildren not eat anything from theocean.
Sheila Parks, Ed.D., of Watertown,is the Convenor of the weekly vigil at the Japanese Consulate in Boston, On Behalf ofPlanet Earth. See our FB page, On Behalf of Planet Earth and please join usThursday mornings 8:15AM-9:15AM at 600 Atlantic Avenue, corner of Summer Street, at SouthStation.