UN projection shows radioactive plume hitting Southern California by Friday

Thursday, March 17, 2011 by: Ethan A. Huff, staff writer
Tags: radioactive plume, California, health news

(NaturalNews) Experts from the United Nations (UN) Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO) have put out a forecast projecting the potential path of the Fukushima Daiichi radiation plume, and they say by sometime on Friday it will hit the US West Coast of Southern California. Based on wind patterns and the direction the plume is headed, it will pass through the Aleutian Islands in the Northern Pacific Ocean near Alaska on Thursday, and head down through Southern California and onward east through Friday.

You can view the interactive map forecast of the plume's progression here:
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2011/03/1...

The CTBTO is tasked with monitoring nuclear activity around the world and conducting radiation projection in order to assess where to track nuclear activity. But according to a recent report in The New York Times (NYT), the UN agency refused to release the Fukushima forecast to the public, even though it insists that the plume will be so dispersed that it will not be harmful. The NYT was able to obtain it from another source.

"It's simply an indication," said Lassina Zerbo, head of CTBTO's International Data Center, to the NYT. "We have global coverage. So when something happens, it's important for us to known which station can pick up the event."

Numerous US government groups continue to claim that the radiation from the Fukushima plant will not be harmful to Americans. The US Nuclear Regulatory Commission, for instance, claims that because the nations are thousands of miles apart, the levels of radioactivity will be harmless. However a plume is still a plume, and the US Navy's Seventh Fleet sure seemed concerned when it recently moved its ships out of the plume's path.

The CTBTO projection indicator ends at March 18, however reports indicate that if it were to have continued beyond Friday and into the days to follow, the plume is expected to continue east through Nevada, Utah, and Arizona.

Sources for this story include:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/17/science/17...