TEPCO, BP, Radiation & the Coming Ocean Food Chain Tsunami

Much has been written about the possible food chain effects of the earthquake and tsunami disaster in Japan. Most of this has been based on the two best case scenarios of airborne and ground based radiation. This looming problem is true for Japan, Korea and their trading partners, so wise countries should ban all Japanese food imports for the foreseeable future. Sushi is now oceana-non-grata.

But therin lies the more insidious, long term problem: the ocean.

It has been proven that sea creatures migrate many thousands of miles across the Pacific, and one of the stopping points on that migration are the Japanese islands. Unlike the BP Oil Spill disaster of 2010, the Cesium 137 being dumped into the ocean both intentionally and unintentionally will cause a ripple effect effecting the entire Pacific Rim, between both Poles.

Mother Nature, microbes and dilution have saved the Gulf of Mexico and BP (for now; just don’t disturb the ocean floor).

The same will not happen for TEPCO. The coming ocean food chain disaster is just beginning, and will only start to show up after the media has forgotten the Japanese nuclear debacle.

The plankton, krill, shrimp and other contaminated (breathing irradiated water is just SO efficient) food fish will be consumed by tuna, turtles, whales, squid, and so on up the food chain until the Pacific Ocean becomes a toxic fish pond. We have only the word of a power company if and when the radioactive water leak has been stopped. Even then, there is no underwater webcam watching this for verification, as any approach of this area for remediation or verification is a suicide “kamikaze” mission.

You go first, eh?

In summation, our advice is to bail out of any stocks and investments that include edible ocean products. Restaurants that specialize in fish will be another casualty. Instead, invest in any farm or pond raised fish at least half a world away in the panamerican zone. You could go so far as to say that any investment in that Pacific Rim area will not do well after the next 5 to 10 years.

Oh, and hold the Calimari, please.

Ocean Foodchain Tsunami

BREAKING NEWS:

By Kenji Hall and Julie Makinen, Los Angeles Times

4:39 AM PDT, April 5, 2011

Reporting from Tokyo

The operator of Japan’s stricken Fukushima nuclear plant said Tuesday that it had found radioactive iodine at 7.5 million times the legal limit in a seawater sample taken near the facility, and government officials imposed a new health limit for radioactivity in fish…Monday samples also were found to contain radioactive cesium at 1.1 million times the legal limit…The utility initially believed that the leak was coming from a crack, but several attempts to seal the crack failed…Tepco continued releasing what it described as water contaminated with low levels of radiation into the sea to make room in on-site storage tanks for more highly contaminated water… fish with high readings of iodine are being found…young fish also contained 447 bequerels of cesium-137, which is considered more problematic than iodine-131 because it has a much longer half-life…Another haul of sand lance with 526 bequerels of cesium was detected Tuesday, in excess of the standard of 500 bequerels per kilogram…Fishing of sand lances has been suspended. Local fishermen called on Tepco to halt the release of radioactive water into the sea and demanded that the company compensate them for their losses…Fishing has been banned near the plant, and the vast majority of fishing activity in the region has been halted because of damage to boats and ports by the March 11 tsunami and earthquake. Still, some fishermen are out making catches, only to find few buyers because of fears about radiation…Tepco’s shares dropped to an all-time low Tuesday, falling by the maximum daily trading limit — about 18% — to 362 yen, below the previous record low of 393 yen reached in December 1951. The company’s share price has lost 80% of its value — nearly 1.1 trillion yen — since the quake and tsunami, according to the Tokyo Stock Exchange…”We take the stock price decline very seriously,” Fujimoto told reporters…

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