thoughts?

SHORELINE, Wash. -- Do salmon and steelhead returning to Washington rivers come with a dose of radiation from Japan's crippled Fukushima nuclear power plant? Washington State Department of Health officials don't think so, but they're testing fish anyway.

In the days following the 2011 Japan tsunami, the damaged Fukushima plant was cooled with seawater to try and get it back under control. That sent large quantities of contaminated water into the Pacific Ocean.

At the DOH lab in Shoreline, lab tech John Raney begins filleting a steelhead caught in the Columbia River last week. Soon, the fish is in a blender.

"What we want to do is homogenize the sample to get a good representation,” said Raney.

After several minutes and multiple glove changes to prevent cross contamination, a specially shaped container with the blended fish muscle inside is placed into a gamma detector. The heavy cylindrical case will pick up any nuclear signature in the sample. The test takes about 18 hours.

Technicians are looking primarily for two isotopes: Caesium-137 and Iodine-131. Both isotopes are associated with nuclear power production.

While Iodine-131 can lead to thyroid cancer, its short half life of only eight days means it has already reached extremely low levels after 80 days. The Caesium-137 has a half life of 30 years, but is water soluble and heavy. State health officials say that means it's unlikely to have made it into migratory fish like salmon and steelhead.

"We're planning on collecting returning salmon and steelhead until public concern abates,” said Mike Priddy, the Richland-based manager of DOH’s Environmental Sciences Section.
Priddy said clams will also be tested.

As for that steelhead tested in lab, no radiation beyond normal background levels found naturally was detected.

http://www.king5.com/news/environment/St...-150477655.html

"nessecary, or not?"

Spell check is necessary.
The comma is not.

your right, my bad, i fixed the title

I suppose we won't know until we get the results. If it turns out they're not radioactive, then the sampling wasn't necessary. If it turns out they are, well, it's a good thing we know about it.

Solid work..

Fish on...

Todd

That hurts a little when you do that.

Thanks. I guess that is what can happen when you have to type your own words.

Spellcheck is your friend..especially if you have to tussle with the hard ones like 'is'. It gave Billy Bob Clinton a hard time too.

Brutal.Good luck,
SZ

Another wonderful off topic thread.........good going.

Do you belong to PETA?

do i seriously need to answer that question?

thoughts meaning, waste of time or money?

+1 ... We are talking about this thread, right?

i personally think it is a waste of time... while i dont know, i dont THINK that salmon hang out in the waters near, or even close to Japan... and with the vast millions of gallons of water in the Pacific, even 1000 gallons of radiation wouldnt pose a risk... i would be dilluted beyond belief...

now resident fish, that stay near the area impacted by them dumping the water, most deffinately test them if you are going to eat them...

Do you do that on purpose?

More solid work right there.

It's pretty clear to me that your lifes work is risk management. CDC or NIH?

Go Sox,
cds

Smoke it,and/or give it away....stick to ling or butt...works for us

TWO moderators? REALLY?

ive talked with and to BD since my inception on the internet fishing forums, same with Dr Hook, whome i still talk with to this day... and JG, like i said, he did his job... BD was answering a question basically that i didnt know about, thats hardly "getting attention" thats called being an active member of the forum, and being a human being in general responding to someone... my misspelling, and or being upset about something has nothing to do with being deliberate...

deliberate is :

posting stupid upside down boots, and LYING about it, then, pulling the same crap over and over...

bumping threads 90 years old, just to be an idiot...

responding to peoples posts, with nothing to say but retarded remarks towards said person...

THATS deliberate...

none if which i do, unless, you got it, its done first...

just like you do, will, and HAVE...

you might think your riding on a Clydesdale, but your actually riding on a mini... when you realize that, you might take people differently...

untill then, i havent done sh!t but ask some damn questions...

HI!!

Tell us about your vast knowledge of radioactive material and radioactive decay so we can cipher on your credentials and decide if we can take this statement as fact.

Thank you.