Fukushima Update, 4/19/15; Your Radiation This Week

by Bob Nichol

“Good Day, this is “Your Radiation, This Week.” These are the recorded Radiation Highs that affected people this week around the United States and in your neighborhood. Let’s get right to it.

(*Counts per Minute, 50 CPM is an alert level. Levels are in Gamma unless noted.)

309 CPM Boston, MA

217 CPM New York City

426 CPM Raleigh, NC

258 CPM Atlanta, GA

424 CPM Miami, FL

214 CPM Chicago, IL

227 CPM St Paul, MN

365 CPM Lincoln, NE, Gamma and Beta Radiation Combined CPM.

264 CPM Des Moines, IA

332 CPM Aberdeen, SD

493 CPM Rapid City, SD

388 CPM Kansas City, KA

315 CPM Tulsa, OK

435 CPM Little Rock, AR

206 CPM Dallas, TX

261 CPM Lubbock, TX

410 CPM South Valley, NM

400 CPM Albuquerque, NM

529 CPM Grand Junction, CO

875 CPM Billings, MT

333 CPM Phoenix, AZ

352 CPM Tucson, AZ

148 CPM Las Vegas, NV

324 CPM San Diego, CA

312 CPM Los Angeles, CA

225 CPM San Francisco, CA

413 CPM Spokane, WA”

- http://www.veteranstoday.com/

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by ENENews.com 

KQED Science, Apr 5, 2015: “About thirty miles out from the Golden Gate, the federally protected Farallones are breeding grounds visited by hundreds of thousands of seabirds–many of which use the islands as a  winter way station- but not this year. Gerry McChesney, manager of the site for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, says that’s a bad sign not just for the Farallon Islands but also for wildlife more broadly along California’s coast. There was also hardship for breeding marine mammals. Dozens of pregnant sea lions proved too weak to carry their pups to term “That’s such a bizarre thing,” McChesney says. “We were seeing multiple aborted fetuses every day,” 94 in total– or nearly half the number of sea lions born there in 2014. Nor was the warm winter kind to elephant seal pups. Russ Bradley, Farallon program manager for Point Blue Conservation Science, says elephant seal mothers, trying to cool off amid the unusual heat, led their pups up to a cliff that, while breezy, proved perilous – “and actually had a fair amount of pups fall into this sea channel, because they’re pups and they’re clumsy and they got too close to the edge.” “It is pretty brutal for the biologists out here that had to watch it,” McChesney says. “It was pretty tough.” Among the conspicuously absent birds was a type called Cassin’s Auklet, which feeds on krill. All along the Pacific coast, McChesney says, these birds have been suffering “a huge, unprecedented die-off like we’ve never seen” for want of food. That’s also bad news for other species that eat krill, he says, from salmon to blue whales.”

US Fish & Wildlife Service, Apr 1, 2015: “Over the past four months, seals and sea lions are having difficulty reproducing, local seabirds have had low colony attendance. Observations of disrupted breeding activities include: California sea lions aborting pups due to poor body condition of the mothers. Since January 9th, 94 aborted sea lion fetuses have been recorded on the islands, well in advance of their June due date. Ninety-four is almost half the total number of sea lions born on the island in 2014. High elephant seal pup mortality due to warmer air temperatures. Pup survival was low this year. Many pups died when overheating mothers led them to a cliff edge in attempts to get cool; pups then fell to their deaths.  Low attendance of breeding seabirds– Farallon nesting seabirds usually visit the islands during winter, but this year winter attendance was unusually low. In fact, the Cassin’s Auklet has been largely absent from the islands in the last few months. Since auklets feed mainly on krill, their activity and nesting success are good indicators of the availability of this food resource, which is very important for many marine predators including whales and salmon. “These unusual observations highlight the importance of monitoring our coastal wildlife,” says Gerry McChesney, manager of the site for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. “They are significant indicators of ocean health.”

KGO, Apr 2, 2015: “Researchers view the Farallon Islands as a barometer for the health of the overall ocean and this year in particular has been tough. Hundreds of sea lion pups have beached themselves, but elephant seals are having trouble too.” Doug Cordell, U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service: “Some of them have died when the mothers lead them to a cliffs edge attempting to get cool and the pups then fell to their deaths. We’re seeing unusual occurrences with the bird populations. Very low attendance of the breeding sea birds. Any of these things in isolation you might say, ‘Hmm, that’s interesting.’”

Feb. 22, 2015 winter pelagic trip, Monterey Bay: “Shearwaters were extremely low in numbers, either because of the warm water, or because of the declining numbers which I have been talking about for the past several years, or because of both reasons.” Full KGO broadcast here.

NY Times, Apr 15, 2015: “Regulators approved an emergency closure of commercial sardine fishing off Oregon, Washington and California. Earlier this week, the council shut down the next sardine season. Revised estimates of sardine populations found the fish were declining in numbers faster than earlier believed. Stocks are much lower than estimated last year; the reasons are not well-understood.”

Pacific Fishery Management Council meeting, April 13, 2015: “Ben Enticknap, Oceana senior scientist (1:08:00 in) – “We’ve seen a significant change in recruitment [Recruitment: The number of new young fish that enter a population]. There’s been practically no recruitment in recent years, and this was not expected.” Full recording of the PFMC meeting here.

Undercurrent News, Apr 14, 2015: “According to the report on the emergency action from the PFMC “the total stock biomass of Pacific sardine is declining as a result of poor recruitment.“ A California Wetfish Producers Association official said “little recruitment was observed in 2011-2014.”

Oregonian, Apr 13, 2015: “Pacific coast sardines are facing a population collapse so severe fishing will be shut down. The downward spiral in spite of favorable water conditions has ocean-watchers worried there’s more to this collapse than cyclical population trends. “There are a lot of weird things happening out there, and we’re not quite sure why they aren’t responding the way they should,” said Kevin Hill, a NOAA Fisheries biologist. Fishery managers are adding it to a list of baffling circumstances off the West Coast. NOAA surveys indicate very few juvenile fish made it through their first year. “The population isn’t replacing itself,” Hill said.”

SFist, Apr 14, 2015: “The population appears decimated. As the Council writes, “temperatures in the Southern California Bight have risen in the past two years, but we haven’t seen an increase in young sardines.” Sardines typically spawn in warmer waters, with cold water decreasing their numbers.”

SF Chronicle, Apr 14, 2015: “Sardine population collapses. There’s evidence stocks are going through the same kind of collapse seen in the 1950s. The sardine population along the West Coast has collapsed. Causes of crisis- a lack of spawning- was blamed for the decline. Severe downturn, things recently took a turn for the worse because of a lack of spawning due to poor ocean conditions in 2014. The collapse this year is the latest in a series of alarming die-offs, sicknesses and population declines in the ocean ecosystem along the West Coast. Anchovies have also declined due to a lack of zooplankton. Record numbers of starving sea lions. Brown pelicans, too, have suffered from mass reproductive failures and are turning up sick and dead. Strange diseases have also been proliferating in the sea.”

Monterey Herald, Apr 13, 2015: “For the first time in 30 years sardine fishing will be banned.”

KPCC, Apr 1, 2015: “The first time that sardine fishing has been banned since federal management of the fishery began. Many are worried a catastrophic crash is happening.”

- http://enenews.com/