Japan Dumps Radioactive Water Into the Pacific Ocean

Japan started pouring thousands of tons of radioactive water into the Pacific Ocean today, saying that it was needed to prevent a worse leak from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.

So far over 11,500 tons of radioactive water has been dumped into the ocean as workers also try to deal with a crack that has been leaking contamination.

Japanese officials say the water being discharged is less radioactive than the water now leaking into the sea, and that its top concentration of radioactive iodine-131 is 20 becquerels per cubic centimeter, or 200,000 becquerels per kilogram. That’s 10 times the level of radioactivity permitted in food. According to Dr. James Cox, a radiation oncologist at Houston’s MD Anderson Cancer Center and a CNN consultant, the radiation will be quickly diluted.

Read more at Sustainability Ninja