Radioactive testing planned for BC coast
Posted August 10, 2014 9:10 am.
This article is more than 5 years old.
VANCOUVER (NEWS1130) – A Victoria-based scientist is set to lead a new radioactive monitoring network on BC’s coast.
This follows ongoing concern about our waters after a massive earthquake in Japan set off the Fukushima-Daiichi nuclear disaster in Japan three years ago.
Hundreds of tons of radioactive material were pumped into the Pacific Ocean as a result of those meltdowns, prompting many here to stop eating fish and sushi.
But just how radioactive is our coast? UVic professor Jay Cullen plans to find out.
“We are going to establish about 10 perhaps 15 sampling locations along our coast that are going to be operated by citizen scientists,” Cullen explains, “The goal of the program is to rapidly communicate what we are finding and through our collaboration with public health professionals to translate this information into an evaluation of risk that then people can use to make decisions.”
Federal testing to date hasn’t found dangerous levels of radioactivity in local fish.