From a human health perspective, Buesseler sees a potential strontium leak as far more worrying than a little cesium. Fukushima cleanup crews have collected a hundred and fifty million gallons of radioactive water in more than a thousand temporary storage tanks, and are adding another hundred thousand gallons a day as groundwater seeps into contaminated reactor buildings. They have been able to extract cesium from this water, but getting the strontium out is proving to be a greater challenge. There have already been two leaks from individual tanks, and Buesseler estimates that the total amount of strontium sitting in the remaining tanks is at least a hundred times greater than the amount of radioactive material released in the initial aftermath of the earthquake. It is partly for this reason, he says, that the existing fallout is worth tracking—to see where and how quickly the ocean currents might carry future contamination. Since no U.S. federal agency has taken on the task, he has recruited volunteers like Stevens to collect samples up and down the Pacific coast.
Source: Is Radioactive Water Worth Worrying About? – The New Yorker
My ultimate goal for this independent study is to find ways to connect nuclear energy to resiliency – a term that has been suggested to replace sustainability in certain environmental circumstances. I find this especially relevant in this article, as we rise into an industry that has the potential to vastly change the functions of our planet. With the long-lasting effects that radio-activity can have, the need for an adapting “baseline” of environmental understanding is ever more important. Most laypeople discussing nuclear energy disaster (a group in which I count myself) talk about the effects of radiation on local communities. However, as we see these effects spreading, I become more and more interested in how we must be resilient on a larger scale. How can we be resilient to something that not only decimates the livability of land, but also has the potential to spread? I am not anti-nuclear energy; in fact I find myself rather pro-nuclear energy, but I am also pro-resiliency. How can we better understand nuclear power to make it more possible to believe in both?