Unease over radioactivity in Arctic waters

Norwegian researchers say radioactivity from the Sellafield nuclear plant in northwestern England is reaching the Arctic Ocean near northern Norway.

Tests show the presence of technetium, a radioactive byproduct that’s released when used uranium is upgraded for new uses.
Sellafield is also a nuclear reprocessing facility.

Although researchers say the amount of radioactivity measured is not hazardous, these technetium emissions are raising concern among buyers of Norwegian fish and the Embassy of Japan, a major customer for Norwegian seafood, has asked local officials for more information on the traces of radioactivity.

On the other side of the circumpolar world, in the Alaska’s Aleutian Island chain, scientists and natives are worried that radiation from the largest underground nuclear weapons blast ever is leaking into the surrounding marine environment.

At 11 a.m. Nov. 6, 1971, the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission exploded a five-megaton bomb inside a deep shaft under Amchitka Island.

The thermonuclear blast was almost 400 times more powerful than the weapon that levelled Hiroshima, Japan in 1945. Code-named Cannikin, the blast was felt throughout Alaska and registered as a magnitude seven earthquake on seismographs around the world.

At last month’s American Geophysical Union, scientists said tectonic forces moving deep beneath the seabed have been splitting Amchitka apart and creating new underground fissures in the island’s coast.

Recent geophysical evidence shows the Aleutian Island chain is moving apart at a rate of about two centimeters a year.

New seismic faults and new fissures in Amchitka’s rocks have opened up around the Cannikin blast site, allowing hazardous radioactive elements to escape into the water around the island.

No U.S. agency has monitored Amchitka or its nearby waters.

But five years ago Greenpeace tested the waters around the island. Its experts found dangerous plutonium, as well as americium, a nuclear fission byproduct.