Fukushima forests, dubbed ‘radiation reservoirs,’ are full of mutated life forms
by: Daniel Barker
NaturalNews.com
Friday, March 18, 2016
Five years after the earthquake-triggered events that led to the meltdown of three reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant in Japan, significant levels of radiation remain in the area – particularly in the forests near the disaster site.
The Japanese government has been attempting to clean up the radiation in the villages near the plant so that they can be repopulated, but so far, the surrounding countryside has been left alone, based on the advice of the Atomic Energy Commission.
The cleanup efforts have greatly reduced the amount of radiation in the villages, but according to a new report published by Greenpeace that was based in part on several peer-reviewed studies, the forests near the plant have become “radiation reservoirs,” where radiation-induced mutations are now appearing in several plant and animal species.
The “complex and extensive” environmental consequences are in the early stages, and will likely continue for hundreds of years, due to the long half-life of the radioactive elements released during the disaster.
From the Greenpeace report:
“Clearly, some early impacts are already being seen: internal tissue contamination in forest plants and trees resulting in caesium translocation in bark, sapwood, and heartwood; high concentrations in new leaves, and at least in the case of cedar – pollen; apparent increases in growth mutations of fir trees with rising radiation levels; heritable mutations in pale blue grass butterfly populations; DNA-damaged worms in highly contaminated areas; high levels of caesium contamination in commercially important freshwater fish; apparent reduced fertility in barn swallows; and radiological contamination of one of the most important ecosystems – coastal estuaries.”
The Rest…HERE
