A SURPRISING FUKU FOLLOWUP

Well, it’s all surprising to me, because this little article that I read last week verifies what I had written a couple posts ago about Fukushima (and “alarm bells”).    When I wrote that post,  I  didn’t have too much current information on the dangers for the world that still exist there.  However,  now I do,  from no less a source than Wired.com.

It’s hard to find info about what’s going on at the Fukushima Daichi nuclear power plant wreck,  harder still to find up-to-date photos.   But you need to know, it’s all true:

Japan just suffered a big typhoon which brought lots of flooding and about five dozen deaths.   (69 dead, latest count, and hundreds still missing.)

“The arrival of Super Typhoon Hagibis on Saturday brought swathes of Japan to a standstill, including the capital Tokyo, with record-breaking rainfall and violent winds triggering widespread flooding and landslides,  swollen rivers, homes, and streets.    20 major rivers overflowed banks.”

Very big tragedy.  I hope the Japanese people are beginning to recover.

The typhoon, however,  will have consequences for the ocean.

An older news report:

The tsunami-driven seawater that engulfed Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant has long since receded. But plant officials are still struggling to cope with another dangerous flood: the enormous amounts of radioactive water the crippled facility generates each day. More than 1 million tons of radiation-laced water is already being kept on-site in an ever-expanding forest of hundreds of hulking steel tanks—and so far, there’s no plan to deal with them.

And a report right after the typhoon:

Japan’s unprecedented rainfall last week resulted in hundreds of bags of  radioactive waste being lost… Concerns have been raised over the fact that some bags were washed out into the ocean  …

(I saw photos of the power plant after the typhoon, but cannot locate them on the Internet now.    They’re gone.)

So.    The human mind can still not figure out what to do with all the radiation coming out of Fukushima —  continuously,  day by day.     Slowly,  micro-extinction events are taking place in all the land touched b y the Pacific Ocean.

(“Calling all Young Minds in engineering departments” !!   We’ve got bigger problems to solve than gender pronouns in our universities.)

 

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ALARMIST WEEK

Wow.

I take a  few days off for  Football and to rest and recover — and when I come back, all I see are news items that raise all kinds of alarms.   Well, no football until Thursday, and I’m pretty okay, ( functioning at least) but instead of “random” thoughts from the Spruce Tunnel, as it says on the right-hand column, sonow  I’m going to have to be an alarm clock.

Against all advice I gave myself,  I did resume teaching class on Thursday and Friday.  This is not the topic of our classwork, but one thing I learned from my classes is that very, very few people know what’s going on in the world, including the things that will affect them.

Let’s see . .  .

Okay,  I found a clock.    I like red.    This is my notification that I’m being an alarmist.

(Appropriately so.)

 

I’m going to start with the links in the right-hand column (although some have been removed or are broken now.  I’ll fix that soon).      Fukushima.   You’ll remember hearing about the earthquake and subsequent tsunami which killed so many people and destroyed so much in Japan in 2011, March.

Among irreparable destruction on the coast of Japan,  was a cluster of very vulnerable nuclear power plants which continue to spew out radioactivity in amounts that the human race has not seen before.     Even a nuclear weapon goes Boom!  only once — and then ceases and you have only the clean-up top deal with.    These nuclear episodes have not stopped.    Only reporting on it has stopped.    “Out of sight, out of . . . .”

But it’s similar to a true China Syndrome over there.      We have not only periodic invisible high-energy explosions into the air,  but also the massive ongoing contamination of ground water and ocean water, partly due to the continuing melting of the reactor core — continuing to burn underground in a nuclear way);    but also there is the problem of what to do with all the highly contaminated waste water that keeps on accumulating.

At times the Japanese government announces that it just has to dump that water into the ocean because there is no more places to store it.  But that was not a stop-gap emergency procedure; it was an ineffective stop-gap procedure.     I suspect the dumping still goes on.

Some of you may have read this brief story on Yahoo news recently:

 

Company (TEPCO) Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant in Japan:

 

In the grounds of the ravaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant sits a million-tonne headache for the plant’s operators and Japan’s government: tank after tank of water contaminated with radioactive elements.

What to do with the enormous amount of water, which grows by around 150 tonnes a day, is a thorny question, with controversy surrounding a long-standing proposal to discharge it into the sea, after extensive decontamination.

The water comes from several different sources: some is used for cooling at the plant, which suffered a meltdown after it was hit by a tsunami triggered by a massive earthquake in March 2011.

Groundwater that seeps into the plant daily, along with rainwater, add to the problem.

A thousand, towering tanks have now replaced many of the cherry trees that once dotted the plant’s ground.    Each can hold 1,200 tonnes, and most of them are already full.

That’s from the year 2019!

Well,  they don’t know what to do — and the earth and oceans and the wildlife are showing the effects.

I was at Whole Foods to get the seafood for my birthday dinner about ten days ago.  Nice,  fun, clean, fresh place to buy seafood.   The young person behind the counter informed me that starting the following week all their salmon would be “previously frozen,”  because the salmon are stopping their running.

So, okay.    Good technology creates flash frozen fish that preserves all  the goodness of fresh.

So , no problem to me.     But later  I read that, once again,  the salmon population in the Pacific Northwest  is way down this year,  and as the salmon runs have been diminishing naturally at the end of summer,  conservationists are finding more and more grizzly bears on the brink of starvation.   Salmon is what they eat.

Fewer salmon.  Salmon fillets that are cut in order to remove the visible cancerous tumors before consumers buy them.  Starving ocean creatures who are unable to find the usual abundance of food in the Pacific.  Starfish and other rocky surf   creatures  of  that are melting with disease.    Vast areas in the ocean that are void of life.

Years ago activists were warning us of all these  “possible”  dire consequences that appear now to be a lot less “possible” and increasingly likely.

So — the alarm clock is ringing, still ringing  about Fukushima.    Humans so far don’t have a solution for the continuing nuclear pollution that is occurring.

We’re humans.   I don’t know,  can’t we just put our heads together and find a way to destroy and eliminate and stop all this nuclear contamination?     I sometimes wonder if we are so self-destructive that we’ll never find a safe solution.

We can try, I wish.

Or maybe we can try to do away with all the cadmium which is coming off our solar panels,  contaminating the air, the earth, and the water.     Currently our ‘bright idea” is to use the cadmium-contaminated debris in landfills — upon which we build our apartment homes, our schools, our businesses, etc.

Or . .  .

Oh, oh.  Too many alarms in one place.

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WHEN “ATLANTIC” IS PACIFIC

 

Observations:   Vast empty lifeless areas in the Pacific Ocean.    Vast.  Lifeless.     Starving larger fish species.  Starving  seals and  baby seals dead of starvation.    Ocean food species disappearing.   Coastal species dying and disappearing.  Starfish limbs dissolving.  Salmon industry collapse.    Etc.

If we read only scattered  headlines  like these, here and there, over the space of eight or nine years,  our minds are not doing the addition.     It doesn’t add up to anything.

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Here’s another recent story:

It was followed quickly by the reports of hundreds of whales beaching themselves in the Pacific Northwest, and hundreds of seals found dead on a Pacific coast beach.

The photo shows Bill Laughing Bear, who lives near this newly dead whale in Alaska.  He normally tests dead salmon and halibut for radioactivity and says he has not found one which did not test positive for radioactivity.   That made him curious about this recent dead whale.   He said he found the whale to be “radioactive,”  although there were no specifics.   He thought that it would have tested higher near the stomach area than down by the tail fin, but he didn’t want to get wet that day, walking up to the stomach area, but he also said he wouldn’t be eating whale blubber anymore.  Hmm.

As I used a search engine to find and re-read the article for accuracy,   I found subsequent reports of “another,” and then  4, then 5,  and the latest 24 dead whales found recently on the beaches up there.

The stories  of radioactive dead sea creatures began shortly after the Fukushima event which “downloaded”   gabillions  of tons of highly radioactive water into the Pacific Ocean, and still ongoing today, and that is in addition to an uncounted amount of radiation spewing into the air  from the heavily damaged nuclear reactors..

The meltdown is still going on.     Sometimes we forget what a dangerous, hopeless, unsuccessful mess it was to try to ‘cool” the damaged reactors after the earthquake and tsunami.  

I saw (and posted occasionally)  the maps of the world showing how the radiation  dispersed, especially across the United States.  I know grasslands for cattle became radioactive in Colorado, for instance, and milk as far away as Vermont tested positive for radiation, so I was often curious about what the rain was delivering to us here  in the Far North.

I bought a “Geiger counter” –  The Inspector brand.

After I saw  that article about the dead gray whale and read that someone had gone out  with a Geiger counter and found it three to four times more radioactive  than expected, I decided to check out any possible radiation in our current days of “endless” rain this week.  After all,  my herbs and tomatoes are growing outside there on my back deck!

I thought maybe we have less radiation in our rain now than we did when I used to measure it a few years ago.

Nope.

Normal background radiation is 22 – 38.      This “114”  on Wednesday is “higher than normal background radiation,”  I’ll state that explicitly.

When the rain stopped,  the radiation count went way down, into the 50s,  but I was getting wet.  I’m sure it went down to where it should be eventually.    As usual, my eyes burned a little after I came in from the rain.

Nuclear power plants are NOT a safe alternative to the-called “fossil”  fuels.

Another Fukushima waiting to happen?    To us? 

So what about our fish that comes from the Pacific Ocean?     I made it a point  to buy  only “Atlantic” Salmon from my grocery store — only to find out that “Atlantic” means only a type of salmon, not its origin.     My butcher assured me that all the fish in his display counter came from the Pacific Ocean – nothing from the Atlantic!

Today I found out that most of our “wild-caught Atlantic” salmon comes from Chile, which is,   for some  reason of ocean currents,   safer from Japanese radiation.

But then you don’t want to eat “farm-raised” salmon either, even though American farm-raised standards have improved.  But doctors still give warnings to not each too much salmon per month.     One to three salmon meals, maximum.

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But salmon from our country,  our “Atlantic” salmon caught on the West Coast   —   tumors are common.

Poor things:

I won’t buy them anymore anyway.

 

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Sorry to have kept those old Fukushima links up so long in the right columns.   They are useless now.    They have petered out or moved to other locations.   I haven’t found any other central location for Fukushima news.    But the stories keep coming.

I’ll remove those links soon . . . .

SMALLER ISSUE THAT’S REALLY NOT

This really isn’t a small issue,  but it takes up only a small, tiny, minute part of our attention.

Unless you have a radiation detector, like I do.

It was a nice, rainy evening a few days ago,  the kind of rain that is good for lawns and gardens.   I don’t know what made me curious about that rain.   Maybe it had just been awhile since I last checked the radiation that “rains”  down on us during a downpour.

I have my detector set for Counts Per Minute.   20 – 30 Counts Per Minute is normal, everyday background radiation.    Someone wrote that 5 – 20 is normal.    My kitchen is usually around 15 – 18.       My outdoors is usually 20 – 35.

But when I heard all the “clicks”  coming from the meter, I knew something was different.    Again.   This rain was bringing down the Fukushima radiation from the high upper atmosphere right onto my back deck.

I repositioned the meter.

Then I decided it probably wasn’t a good idea to be standing out there, getting soaking wet by that . . . rain.

I’m going to re-do my sidebars here on this Page.    I’m thinking of getting rid of the Fukushima news links.  The government has removed some of the charts, too.   Who wants to read about this anyway?      Who wants to read of all the dead fish, whole schools of fish gone;    sick seals and polar bears;  the “desert” places in the Pacific Ocean;  the poor starfish who get that “virus”  because their immune systems are so weakened, and then they just melt apart;   the cancerous lesions on the delicious Pacific coast salmon?

Recent headlines described animals and birds along the Pacific coast that were acting “disoriented”  and “delirious.”    Right before they died.     Larger sea fish and mammals are showing signs of starvation.     Some species have NO babies this year.

Inland,   in the Western valleys,  in Colorado,  in other areas where dairy cattle feed on grass — the organic “grass-fed” cows —  the grass has measurable amounts of elevated radiation . . . .

“Small issue” — because it gets only small attention.    We won’t fully know the effects for a few more years yet.

But we can’t stop the process.   The cores  (coriums)  have melted into the earth, in a real-life China Syndrome, and no one knows how to stop it.    The only thing the governments can do is say “We don’t see any danger here.”   The Japanese leader who eats Fukushima food live on television is now dying of cancer.

The process will stop in about a half a million years.   But how many other nuclear power plants are there?    How many of them are built along coasts and along  fault lines?    100 % of them are leaking.  Leaking into the ground water.    The water tables nearby are contaminated with tritium.       Most of them leak into the air, some at regular intervals for venting purposes.

And we’re building more nuclear power plants in every country.

Such a “small” issue.

FRIDAY’S FINICKY FISH

 

You have to read the sign twice to get the joke —

I was doing some business in this little shopping area when I noticed this sign.     It’s Friday and I was planning to get fish,  but  I wasn’t planning to get fish from a farm.   “Farm fresh tomatoes,” okay;   “farm fresh corn on the cob,” okay.

But, seriously,  ever since I read Clive Cussler’s “White Death”  I haven’t willingly purchased “farm-raised”  fish.

It’s tough to feel good about the fish that’s for sale nowadays.    I’ve learned too much about fish farming to feel comfortable with that source.     Microscopic particles rain down on us from the chemtrails, which add metals like aluminum, barium, and cadmium to our fish flesh.    Wild-caught fish from the Pacific Ocean have tumors and lesions —  so sad to see — reportedly from the radiation that is flowing out  at staggering rates from the broken-open reactors at Fukushima.   Here in the Far North decades-long industrial runoff has contaminated our rivers and lakes which makes our fish unsafe to eat in any great quantity.

They tell us not to eat fish more than once a week.   Oh, well.     That’s Friday, then.

If I’m not going to eat the farmed fish, at least I can get a little laugh at the sign.     I have visions of Squanto teaching the Pilgrims to plant a fish inside their little mounds of seeds.    But then Squanto’s own fish harvest came from a cleaner ocean.

I guess our world needs a good cleansing.    Until then, I’ll be a finicky fish eater.

 

BEAUTY SO UNFORGIVING

I suppose there is no point, really, to this blog posting.    It just presents what is becoming an annual summer quandary, and it all begins with physics:

Physics is so beautiful!    Even if it doesn’t result in beautiful machines to create anti-matter as at CERN, in the above picture,  just the equations are so beautifully eloquent in their precision and balance.    When we open up the atom and attempt to harness the power of the electrons flying outward at incomprehensible speeds,  we can build beautiful machines like this submarine and its multicolored “control” panel.     Unfortunately,  something went wrong,  and all that beautiful power became rather unforgiving,  nearly cooking to death several dozen sailors.    Oh, that was three years ago.  We’re just reading about it now.

I’m thinking dark thoughts amidst all this “beauty.”    I saw an interview with a scientist at CERN who was explaining that the small amount of anti-matter that is generated in their labs was perfectly safe.  He smiled and  said,  “I wouldn’t be sitting here calmly talking to you if I thought there was any danger.”     Everyone smiles.     But  they have bigger plans for anti-matter generation now,  and a great many of their scientists are questioning the wisdom of it.

And then certainly Professor Albert Einstein had some beautiful, eloquent thoughts and certainly he and others created some “beautiful” equations…   but when he heard what was being planned,  he wrote to the authorities and published letters begging them to stop creating what his equations had made possible.     But the atom bomb went forth,  and so did the nuclear power plants.   As Einstein is quoted as saying:  “That’s a h*** of a way to boil water.”

Suicidal, I would say.

So that brings me to my summer quandary and the unforgiving nature of the atomic world.     Ice walls, cement shrouds, and kitty litter has not proven effective in protecting us from the destructive forces that have been unleashed.       (Kitty litter, you might ask?   Just do a search for WIPP, kitty litter, and resulting explosions….  ongoing.   The authorities asked a task force to find out how they can stop this ongoing disaster.    Their not-so-reassuring response is they can maybe  get this process to stop if they find a way to cover it up, but covering it up will take a minimum of four years…if they can find an effective way to do it. )

Meanwhile,  weather happens.   Jet streams flow on.    Rain is delivered.   Contaminated rain is delivered onto my back deck.

 

Just about three times “normal”  near my deck railings.

So I wondered about the nearby tomato plants.   I do so love the taste of real tomatoes.

I stayed out there a long time,  in the drizzle,  hoping to find a more, well, hopeful range of readings.

Nope.    90 – 130  Counts Per minute.    I checked the Internet charts for our area.    The readings there were the same.

Beauty – and hope –  yet so unforgiving.

 

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Poor Kodiak bears.   Poor 12-year-olds in northern Japan.    Poor babies.    Poor starfish.    Poor anchovies.   Poor tuna.   Poor salmon.    Poor whales.      Poor sea lions.  Poor polar bears.   Those poor butterflies. . . .

RAINY DAY – DOWNWIND

Our snow is disappearing.     This little critter  on my back deck is probably getting tired of snow too.

It’s raining on our snow today.   It’s a soft, gentle rain, like a fine mist.    But maybe not so gentle.  I wanted to check to make sure, so I took my Inspector out to the table on  my deck.

I didn’t expect this…..   I mean, I was in a gentle, mellow mood;  normal background radiation is 20 – 30 Counts Per Minute, as I’ve shown here before,  but my table was reading 124.  Kind of an abrupt  end to my mood.

Maybe there’s “something wrong” with my table – so I went out to the railing where the birds eat:

Worse.

Where the squirrels eat. . .

Further down the deck railing:

It’s not a “misreading” or an “aberration.”    It’s consistently high, just outside my back door.

I came in –  I know you’re supposed to take off your shoes when you come in, take off your outer clothes.  But I didn’t.  I wiped my wet shoes on this little green carpet:

56.    56 on my slightly damp indoor rug.

But not away from the door –

My kitchen floor was normal.

I assume the rest of my house is normal too, but I didn’t test anywhere else.

My eyes were slightly burning.  They feel  “thick,”  like maybe they’d be a little red.  I had looked up into the sky when I was outside, as if to ask, “Where is this rain coming from?”     I got a faceful.

As soon as things dry up, the Counts come down rather rapidly.   But the Counts don’t count every kind of radiation that comes down in the rain.      I wonder what we’re getting from that second release of radiation from Carlsbad?      Two big plumes in about a week and a half, released into the atmosphere.

Normal background radiation is about 20 -40 counts.   Life doesn’t seem normal anymore.

 

 

A KIND OF ANNIVERSARY

“When we were still powerless,  and when the time was right. . . .”

An anniversary is usually a yearly remembrance of an event,  a birth or death or marriage or some thing that happened.    It’s March 11th, today,  and  it’s an anniversary, not of an event but of the onset of an ongoing occurrence, an occurrence  that is ongoing – and even worsening.

This is the date of the cracking apart and flooding of Tepco’s grouping of nuclear power plants in Fukushima, Japan, that happened three years ago, 3-11-11, due to an earthquake and a tsunami.             When we say “earthquake and tsunami,”  we focus on two natural disasters that happened,  and now they’re over.

However, the resulting catastrophe is not “over.”   I keep a link to some of the news from Fukushima over in the right-hand column.    I’ll check there soon and add to the list, or delete some things,   because these aren’t links to “old news stories”    They are links to ongoing events, new news stories.

Some phrases from today’s lists of articles:   “It is not under control at all.”     “No one knows what to do to fix this.”       “The cores from three reactors have melted down, out through their containers.”     “This is China Syndrome.”    “Radiation is spewing out into the air and flowing into the ocean at an alarming rate.”   “The black specks found all over Tokyo contain plutonium.”

There is plenty of information “out there”  about the health effects too, and not just for those who live in Japan;   for humans in America.   For seals along our Pacific coast.   For polar bears.  For salmon and other fish who are being photographed with whitish tumors all over their bodies, and into their muscles, their meat.    Starfish, seemingly in pain, in agony, and dying.    And whales….the poor whales who are photographed with huge tumors on their necks and heads and mouths….who are struggling to breathe.     Our dairy cattle who are feeding on pastures contaminated with radioactive particles.

Just.  Read.   Inform yourself.

I wish all this radiation coming from Fukushima was the only radiation we have to consider.    Think of the poor people  in southern New Mexico, now, who were contaminated last week with plutonium and americium, to name just two of the radioactive particles pouring out of the caverns.    Another ongoing event.    Cave-in where the nuclear waste was being stored, right?

I didn’t want to show any “anniversary”  pictures of all these things.   Too disturbing.   But I do have a map of my country…..  It kind of speaks for itself,  but it should shout out at us that it’s NOT ONLY HAPPENING IN NEW MEXICO!!!!

The Red spots are locations of reported Level 5 events –  radiation that endangers human beings.   Our nuclear power plants are aging, cracking, leaking.     Most are older now than they were licensed for.

I really don’t know what to say on this kind of Ongoing Anniversary.

Perhaps I’ll just finish that very first line I put above the Lenten purple of this posting:    “When we were still powerless,  and when the time was right, Christ died for the ungodly”    (Romans 5:6)   We are sure in an ungodly mess.

“While we were still powerless…”   While we were still helpless….”

I. ON EDGE – LOOKING OUT OVER THE EDGE

Aaaaaargh!   I know it’s Sunday…a day of peace and rest and time spent with our Creator.   Then why am I so On Edge?

  I have my reasons.      And I’m sure the Ambassador would say again:  “The cause is sufficient.”

 

First,   Son is  M.I.A –  as in missing.    Again.      After spending several days across the country beyond the reach of  cell phones, he is now overdue….(by a Mom’s schedule.)

He does not do Return Homes  very well.

I checked his final Arriving airport –  all planes are “on time” except the ones from his Layover city.   Those four are canceled.   I go to the site of his Layover city.   There are only three flights canceled:   the three from his Departure city.   On two long lists,  only seven flights in this country are Canceled –  Son’s !!

I’m on edge.

Which reminds me of other things that put me On Edge:

It’s going to be all downhill for a while.   These are big things which I will experience,  but I can’t affect the course of the “experience.”

Here are a few:

World Finances:     The men who are managing Hubbie’s Trust tell me to expect a 5% “correction”  soon.  Other places tell me 5% – 20%.  That is a serious downturn for all of us to experience.

It just might expose for us the worldwide financial collapse that many see is already happening….  We are ill-prepared for shortages and rises in prices. . . .

Upcoming Media Events of Possible Unpleasant Outcome: 

1.  The Olympics at Sochi;

2.   The Superbowl in New Jersey;  and

3.   The State of the Union speech ordeal, outlining how great socialist principles would be for this country.   (Socialism 101:   The government has a plan for you.)

My ancestors from Finland passed down to us the realities of socialism.

The Overall World Dominance of Socialism  (known to some as The Errors of Russia)     Do you see the dominance?    There is a call for a socialist revolution – in America!     Here, at this link, for instance.

The new socialist high school  “social studies”  textbook being used in several places now is getting quoted by people who ought to know better, and by young people who don’t.     See Howard  Zinn,  here, for instance.

There is a Marxist-trained person elected to sit in the “Chief-Seat” in the Vatican – and oft quoted.    (His order and their New Theology was once condemned by the very Vatican that he now heads.)   Enough said.

There is a Marxist-trained person placed in the “Chief-Seat”  in my country.    (The media proclaims he is not a Marxist, but then freely proclaims the Marxists who were his most crucial mentors,)   Enough said.

There are plagues and pestilences building up,  just waiting to go global,  just at a time when medical care in this country is being curtailed.

There are “earth worries” of increasing earthquakes, severe weather outbreaks,  newly discovered asteroid threats, food shortages, and the ongoing noticeable poisoning of the planet by the Fukushima accident.

I’ve sometimes read that when the End Times are upon us,   and when this world system is brought to an end, under judgment,  the circumstances will be very terrible.   And just at this time, when Good seems to be defeated, a special kind of saint will be created…that is,  men and women with special graces for the strength needed to give help and light to  as many as possible.    These will be saints stronger than have ever been needed before.   Saints able to stand up for the true Christ who saves.

The view from the edge:

So, since I can look over the Edge at all kinds of world events that seem to be reaching some disastrous climax, and after  becoming aware that I as an individual cannot affect the course of these events, nor their outcomes,  then I can at least hope for and work for and ask for the special graces that God is so willing to give – to those who ask.

(I still want Son here, to talk to him about this.)   Talking about these things freely and openly takes the “edge” off.

WEEKEND – UNHAPPY ALL

There was a reason to be unhappy this weekend too.    It wasn’t the rain;  it wasn’t the hail.   It’s what came down in the rain and the hail — and we all have a reason to be unhappy. . .

During the football game, Son noticed it was raining hard.   So I jumped up and said,  “Hey!  We can measure that!”    I ran to get my Inspector General,  ran outside onto the deck, and Son and I watched as the Counts Per Minute increased dramatically.   He held the detector,  I took the pictures.

30.

That’s about what you want to see.

We never saw 30.

The device is measuring beta radiation in Counts Per Minute.   Normal background radiation around here is 20 – 30.    On a sunny day, my deck near the plants is around 32, a little more, a little less.

 184,  going up to  192.  The danger alarm had long since sounded out its warning.

We were out in the rain and the hail.

209 CPM.     I’ve never seen a rainstorm that made the Counts go up this high.   The beta radiation being measured is probably Cesium-131….perhaps some other isotopes of Cesium too.    This rainstorm carried radiation from Fukushima to us and is probably high because of the their recent cyclones (hurricanes)   which caused massive amounts of radioactive water and dirt to be taken up into the atmosphere  and then carried over here by the jet stream.

It’s not only Cesium from the jet stream raining down on  us.   Strontium is entering our bones.   Various isotopes of radioactive Iodine is coming down on us.   Plutonium is up there…the killer, one particle inhaled can kill.   There is a long list of radioactive substances from Fukushima that is in our atmosphere.   Those of you who have been checking the link in the right-hand column (enenews.com)     will be aware of how much worse it has become for us since that first day of the tsunami.

Those of you who are keeping up with Fukushima news will know what a dangerous thing is being planned over there with the spent fuel rods…next week, I think.   It’s never been done before and some think the risk is so high and the consequences so fatal that they ought to not do it.

Those are the last of my cherry tomatoes trying to get ripe out on my deck.

My tomatoes.    My peppers.    My wonderful big herb garden.

I’m a little nervous about  eating anything from the deck now.

The parts of my  skin that was exposed to the rainwater became prickly after a half hour.   It occurred to me to take a shower and wash my hair.   It was a little disconcerting to feel so much better after the shower.   It means there was something on my skin that was not very good.

 

RAIN. AGAIN.

Are you keeping up with Fukushima news?     I have a link in the right-hand column to make it easier for you to find enenews, for instance.     But — it’s okay.  It’ll go on even if you’re not paying attention.

It’s worse than we realize, and all the scientists who know some of what’s going on have no idea how to stop the meltdowns which are contaminating the earth.  More than one time I’ve heard it called “an extinction level event.”

And so, when it rains, sometimes I go out and see how much Fukushima is coming down on us.  I have a wet deck.   I have vegetables and herbs growing on my deck.   And I have a Geiger counter  (radiation detector).

Normal background Counts Per Minute is 20 – 30.   I tested my own living room.

Then I went outside, in the rain.

Speaks for itself.   And then I checked around and under my green pepper leaves.    A sideways 114 CPM.

That was a few days ago.  Some of the radiation dissipated.  It rained again today, briefly.  I forgot I had placed my newly-washed white kitchen garbage can out on the deck to dry.   It wasn’t dry anymore after the rain, so I brought it in to dry.

And thought I’d check the Counts Per Minute.

Slightly radioactive white kitchen garbage can.

Extinction Level Event,  eventually,   just not as fast as a giant asteroid.