Japan releases radioactive water several million times the legal limit into the Pacific Ocean

Democracy Now reports radiation at the shoreline of the Fukushima nuclear power facility has measured several million times the legal limit, just four weeks after the earthquake and tsunami and days after workers discovered a crack where highly contaminated water was spilling directly into the Pacific Ocean.

On yesterday’s program, host Amy Goodman was joined by Phillip White, an international liasion officer at the Citizens Nuclear Information Center in Japan.

AMY GOODMAN: Talk about the millions—the radiation is millions of times the acceptable limit. What does this mean in the water, in the ocean?

PHILIP WHITE: Well, it depends how it spreads out, whether it goes off into the Pacific or whether it accumulates in pockets along the coastline. It will certainly have an effect on fishing. The fishing industry is already seriously damaged by this. But I think you’ve got to look at it as—it’s an ongoing thing. It’s not as if this one release solves the problem. Tokyo Electric Power Company says that this will have a very small—be a very small dose, represent a very small dose to people who continue to eat fish. But whether or not that is an accurate analysis, it’s not as if this is the end of the story. So, it’s a very serious situation, and it’s a long way before this is going to be brought under control .

Even if experts say the radiation will dissipate quickly in the ocean, there is no certainty of the effects. That said, the new levels prompted the Japanese government on Tuesday to create an acceptable radiation standard for fish for the first time

“Cancers from this sort of level of radioactivity will not appear in the first few months or year; they will be late-onset phenomena,” White says. “So, it’ll require a lot of monitoring of health to actually see what the impact of this is.”