Just two weeks ago, Ken Buesseler at WHOI launched a brilliant crowdfunded campaign ‘Our Radioactive Ocean” to measure radiation off the West Coast of the US. And not surprisingly, it was a huge success. In just two weeks, they have funded, sampled and tested sites in California and Washington. And the results from the first four sites are now posted on their website.

Young scientists from California sampling seawater for the people [screenshot from ourradioactiveoceans.org]

Young scientists from California sampling seawater for the people [screenshot from ourradioactiveoceans.org]
And the results are that radioactive seawater from Fukushima has not been detected at any of the 4 sites that were sampled. Seawater was measured for both Cesium-137 and Cesium-134. By comparing the relative concentrations of both isotopes they could figure out the source of the radioisotopes. They found very low-levels of Cesium-137, but Cesium-134 was below detectable levels, indicating the Cesium is originally from atomic bomb-testing in the 1960s rather than Fukushima.

What does this mean for the west coast right now? In the immortal words of Ken Buesseler himself…

‘The reason why we see such low levels of radiation in these samples is because the plume is not here […]