Environment – Page 7

November 5, 2025 by Nukewatch Leave a Comment

Long-Term Operation of South Africa’s Koeberg Reactors: A Costly Gamble Enters Phase Two

By Lydia Petersen

CAPE TOWN, South Africa ⸺ In July 2024, Eskom Corp. brought Unit 2 of the Koeberg nuclear reactor station ⸺ a cornerstone of South Africa’s nuclear so-called Long-Term Operation (LTO) strategy ⸺ back online after significant delays. Framed as a “fix for energy insecurity and climate change,” the project is mired in cost overruns, missed deadlines, and legal wrangling. In July 2025, Eskom, owner and operator of the Koeberg reactors, was court-ordered to pay 1-billion South African rands (approximately $56.4 million) over disputes tied to a delayed steam generator replacement. The court’s decision exposes the risks and contradictions of extending aging nuclear infrastructure, not only for South Africa, but for the world, and is a global caution against nuclear “solutions” to the climate crisis.

A crumbling timeline

The repeated delays in the restart of Unit 2 disrupted Eskom’s energy planning and deepened the country’s electricity crisis during which South Africa has been experiencing rolling black-outs. While Koeberg Unit 1 received a 20-year operating license extension, the decision on Unit 2’s extension was deferred. The National Nuclear Regulator (NNR) has since opened a public comment period on the proposed extension, even as the unit resumes operations. With Unit 1 now offline for a planned outage, Koeberg will not run at full capacity again until late 2025. This fragmented process raises serious questions about how nuclear LTOs are being justified in the context of South Africa’s ongoing energy instability.

The $56-million fallout

Recently, the Western Cape High Court ordered Eskom to pay $56 million to France’s nuclear giant Framatome, which oversaw Koeberg’s steam generator replacement. Eskom had resisted resolving the matter through adjudication, opting instead for litigation, and insisted the payment was a “contractual obligation” rather than a penalty. Regardless of semantics, public funds are once again being used to resolve disputes tied to questionable project governance. The full financial cost of Koeberg’s LTO remains secretive, a recurring theme in nuclear contracting worldwide.

Unfinished safety business

Despite Unit 1’s license extension, critical safety concerns remain unresolved. The NNR imposed 29 safety conditions for continued operation, including issues related to containment integrity, corrosion, and seismic preparedness. Eskom claims it is addressing these, but civil society groups have flagged inconsistencies and a lack of transparency in compliance reporting. Adding to the concern is a broader governance issue: the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has warned that South Africa’s Department of Mineral Resources and Energy, an active promoter of nuclear power, should not serve as the oversight body for the NNR. This conflict of interest undermines regulatory independence and erodes public trust.

**An unlined trench at South Africa’s Vaalputs National Radioactive Waste Disposal Facility. Photo credit: National Radioactive Waste**
**Disposal Institute**

Waste transport ⸺ a hidden risk

One of the least discussed but most consequential aspects of Koeberg’s LTO is the increase in radioactive waste shipments to the Vaalputs National Radioactive Waste Disposal Facility in the Northern Cape. Waste is transported 375 miles by road inmetal or concrete containers, following IAEA transport regulations. However, the reality on the ground tells a different story.

The primary route to Vaalputs is the R355, a remote, poorly maintained road that has long been flagged by community members and civil society as a safety hazard. Years of appeals to government departments and portfolio committees have yielded no meaningful upgrades. With Koeberg’s LTO expected to generate waste for another two decades, and a proposed Centralized Interim Storage Facility (CISF) at Vaalputs, the volume and frequency of waste transports will increase significantly.

This raises serious questions about South Africa’s ability to meet international benchmarks, not just in packaging and radiation shielding, but in infrastructure resilience, emergency preparedness, and community protection. The IAEA’s standards emphasize not only container integrity but also route safety, public consultation, and risk mitigation. South Africa’s current transport framework falls short on all three.

A global cautionary tale

Koeberg’s LTO is not an isolated case. Across the U.S., Europe, and Asia, utilities are attempting to extend the lives of aging reactors under similar conditions: deferred maintenance, ballooning costs, and weakened oversight. These efforts are often framed as climate solutions, yet the lived realities — from legal disputes to unresolved safety risks — tell a different story. South Africa’s experience with Koeberg adds to mounting global evidence that nuclear power, particularly operating extensions for aging plants, cannot form the backbone of a just and democratic energy transition.

As South Africa pushes ahead with its nuclear agenda, civil society continues to demand transparency, accountability, and a genuine shift toward community-owned renewable energy, not false solutions cloaked in the language of climate urgency. The road to Vaalputs is more than a transport route; it’s a symbol of systemic neglect, regulatory failure, and the urgent need for a new energy paradigm.

— Lydia Petersen is an environmentalist and anti-nuclear activist from Capetown, South Africa. She is the spokesperson for Koeberg Alert Alliance.

November 5, 2025 by Nukewatch Leave a Comment

Summer Heatwaves Force French and Swiss Nuclear Reactors to Shut Down ⸺ Again

Summer river water temperatures in France and Switzerland were nearing or exceeding 80 degrees Fahrenheit. Between the high heat and a marine jellyfish bloom, at least seven reactors were shut down and several others had to reduce output. Most nuclear reactors pump cooling water from nearby rivers or the sea, returning heated water to the environment. This can harm biodiversity as the hotter water has less oxygen, can be subject to algal blooms, and can cause large kills of fish and other organisms.

Extreme temperatures caused by global warming can mean that reactors are sometimes unable to be cooled as the water bodies become too hot, or that reactors must shut down in order to prevent raising the water temperature to unsafe levels.

Both France and Switzerland have safeguards intended to curtail reactor operations when river temperatures reach a certain level. However, during a major 2022 heatwave, both countries allowed reactors to continue operating with water hotter than the allowed maximum, in order to avoid electricity shortages.

Simultaneously, numerous swarms of jellyfish, expanding due to warmer waters, clogged water intake systems and caused four reactors in France to shut down in August.

Reactors have been forced to reduce output or shut down on several occasions in recent years. Switzerland, which produces about one third of its energy from four nuclear reactors, plans to phase them out by 2033. France’s 56 reactors account for about 65% of the country’s electricity.

A 2024 report by the Cour des Comptes, a French administrative court tasked with auditing government spending, projected the “country may see the amount of electricity lost because of climate-related shutdowns triple or quadruple by 2050.”
⸺ Euronews.com, July 2, 2025; New York Times July 3, 2025

November 5, 2025 by Nukewatch Leave a Comment

Fukushima Triple Meltdown Recovery Plagued with Setbacks

By John LaForge

Workers flee disaster site after tsunami scare

Japan is one of the most earthquake prone areas in the world, and the regular quakes raise traumatic memories of the March 11, 2011 record-breaker that left 19,000 dead and smashed the six-reactor Fukushima-Daiichi site. This July there were several: a magnitude 5.5 quake struck just off Japan’s southeast Tokara coast July 3; a mag. 4.2 quake hit east of Iwaki, in Fukushima Prefecture July 12; and a mag. 4.1 quake shook the same area July 25.

In late July, an extremely powerful 8.8-magnitude quake struck Avacha Bay in Russia’s Far East, triggering tsunami warnings and evacuations across the entire Pacific Rim. The U.S. Geological Survey said the quake was one of the strongest ever recorded.

The owner/operator of the wrecked reactor complex, Tokyo Electric Power Co., evacuated its entire staff of 4,000 in response to warnings of a possible nine-foot tsunami, after first halting its pumping of radioactive wastewater into the Pacific.

Elsewhere in Japan, over two million people were urged to evacuate the eastern seaboard, and a 4-foot tsunami wave did strike north of Fukushima at Iwate Prefecture, some 1,090 miles from Avacha Bay, site of the major Russian earthquake.

— Nukenet, The Independent, BBC News, July 30, 2025

China partially lifts ban on Japanese seafood imports

China “conditionally resumed” the importation of Japanese seafood products June 30, after conducting water sample inspections off the coast of the Fukushima disaster site. Beijing had banned all such imports as a protest and precaution, following Japan’s 2023 launch of its deliberate discharging of large volumes of radioactively contaminated cooling water into the Pacific Ocean. The 2023 ban was imposed to “comprehensively prevent the food safety risks of radioactive contamination caused by the discharge of nuclear wastewater from Fukushima into the sea,” China’s General Administration of Customs said then.

Chinese customs officials said June 30 the seafood import ban would continue for ten prefectures, namely Fukushima and its nine closest neighboring states. Products from other regions will need health certificates, radioactive substance detection qualification certificates, and production area certificates issued by the Japanese government for Chinese customs declarations, the government said.

Relatedly, Hong Kong announced that it will maintain its ban on Japanese seafood, sea salt, and seaweed imports from the same ten prefectures still targeted by mainland China — Fukushima, Gunma, Tochigi, Ibaraki, Miyagi, Niigata, Nagano, Saitama, Tokyo, and Chiba — citing ongoing concerns about the risks associated with the discharge of radioactive wastewater.

— NavigatorInsurance.com, July 7; BBC, June 30; Reuters, June 29, 2025; Agence France Presse, Daily Sun, Aug. 24, 2023

Tepco lost $6 billion as meltdown recovery falters

Tokyo Electric Power Co. Holdings corporation (Tepco), the owner and operator of the six reactors at Fukushima, lost $6.1 billion (903 billion yen) between April and June this year, overrun with the costs of inventing, designing, building, and testing robotic machines with which to remotely extract the ferociously radioactive melted reactor fuel from deep inside the earthquake and tsunami-wrecked reactors. There are a total of over 880 metric tonnes of “corium” or melted and rubblized uranium and plutonium fuel in three reactors that Tepco claims it will extract. Nikkei-Asia reported August 1 that Tepco says it has $4.7 billion “earmarked for future demolition work,” which doesn’t even cover this spring’s one-quarter loss. Tepco has said that its preparations for the extraction are “expected to take 12 to 15 years.”

The quarterly financial loss makes a mockery of announced plans by the government and Tepco to fully complete decommissioning of the rubbished reactors by 2051.

— Nikkei-Asia, July 29 and Aug. 1; The Mainichi Japan, Aug. 1, 2025

Japan’s placement of radioactive soil on the grounds of the Prime Minister in Tokyo has theatrical precedents. During a 2016 meeting with officials, President Barack Obama drank a glass of filtered water in Flint, Michigan, which was scandalized by lead-poisoned drinking water. Photo: Carlos Barria/Reuters

Radioactive soil placed in Prime Minister Ishiba’s office grounds, in “safety” parody

In a surreal display of political slapstick July 19th, the office of Japan’s PM Shigeru Ishiba buried on his office’s garden grounds two cubic meters of radioactive soil scraped up during Fukushima clean-up operations (in which some 14-to-20 million metric tonnes of topsoil and debris were scraped up) — “to show it is safe to reuse.”

Japan’s public broadcaster NHK reported that “The radioactive cesium concentration in the soil being buried is 6,400 Becquerels per kilogram” (Bq/kg). “Becquerels” are a standard measuring unit of radioactivity. The 6,400 is below the legally permitted limit of 8,000 Bq/kg for the so-called “recycling.”

The radioactivity emitted by the soil comes from cesium-137 which was spewed in huge amounts by Fukushima’s melting and exploding reactors, and which came down as fallout. Cesium fallout still contaminates huge areas of forests and farmlands in the region.

The millions of tons of collected soil now in storage are being tested and sorted to identify material with cesium at 8,000 Bq/kg or less. Several million tons of it may then be used as fill in construction projects, road-building, and railway embankments all around Japan. Asphalt, farm soil, “or layers of other materials should be used to seal in the radioactivity,” Akira Asakawa, an Environment Ministry official with the soil project, told the Agence France Presse or AFP.

The PM’s demonstration plot is the first “reuse” of the poisoned waste, while experiments elsewhere have been halted due to public protest. The PM’s contaminated dirt was covered up with about eight inches of normal soil to provide some radiation shielding.

Any radiation exposure is unsafe, but negative effects like radiation sickness, immune disorders, or cancers caused by contact with the radioactive soil would take years or decades to appear, owing to the latency period between radiation exposure and the onset of induced health problems. The joke seems to be that since Prime Minister Ishiba hasn’t dropped dead after walking by, low-dose exposure must be harmless.

Readers may remember a very similar high-level comedy sketch performed by former President Barack Obama, who traveled to Flint, Michigan in May 2016. Drinking water supplies there had been contaminated with lead and to calm the public uproar, Obama sat before the cameras and theatrically downed a glass of water. The straight-faced routine was proof positive, and rock-solid confirmation beyond doubt of any kind whatsoever that Flint’s tap water was safe to drink. Bottom’s up!

— Nippon TV, July 23; NHK, July 19; AFP, New Straits Times, July 15; Associated Press, May 27, 2025; PBS, May 4, 2016

Disaster response to last eons

Countless dilemmas and setbacks have plagued the now 14-year-long emergency response to the triple reactor meltdown and widespread radiation releases that began March 11, 2011 at Fukushima on Japan’s northeast coast.

One of the latest stumbling blocks acknowledged by Tepco July 29 are the “unprecedented” technical complexities of finding, contacting, removing, and containerizing 880 tonnes of highly radioactive melted reactor fuel still smoldering at the bottom of three devastated reactors.

Unprecedented is the key word here, since the industry has never before had to contain such a large mass of wasted and unapproachable radioactivity. All the work of dealing with the wasted fuel must be done robotically and remotely, since the waste’s fierce radioactivity kills living things that come near.

Toyoshi Fuketa, head of a regulatory body overseeing the site, said at a press conference earlier that “The difficulty of retrieving the first handful of debris has become apparent,” the Kyodo News agency reported.

In 14 years’ time, engineers have managed to design, build, test, and rebuild a one-of-a-kind robot that finally succeeded in removing less than one gram of the meltdown waste from reactor No. 2 last year. That “success” was already three years behind schedule, “and some experts estimate that the decommissioning work could take more than a century,” CBS News and Mainichi Japan reported.

The torturously slow process has made Tepco’s early prediction of complete cleanup by 2051 (40 years’ time) appear to have been made up for PR reasons.

Tepco said July 29 that it would need another 12 to 15 years’ worth of preparation — until 2040 — “before starting the full-scale removal of melted fuel” at the No. 3 reactor. Tepco earlier claimed that “full-scale” extraction would begin four years ago, in 2021 according to the daily Asahi Shimbun August 1.

Of an estimated 880 tonnes of debris, only 0.9 gram has been recovered to date. With one million grams in a tonne, Tepco has only 879 million grams to go, and “A simple calculation based on the time since the accident suggests the removal process could take another 13.6 billion years to complete,” the Asahi Shimbun smirked.

— Mainichi Japan, Aug. 5; Asahi Shimbun, August 1; Nuclear Engineering International, July 31; UPI, CBS, AP, World Nuclear News, July 29, 2025

China’s reactor report card omits embarrassing radioactive emission info

China issues annual reports on its large nuclear power operations known as “China Nuclear Energy.” The 2024 edition, its latest, made headlines by omitting for the first time information on the routine radioactive gases and liquids released from its operating reactors.

Kyodo News reported that the omission may be a way to avoid accusations of hypocrisy since China has strenuously condemned Japan’s discharge of radioactively contaminated wastewater to the Pacific. At the same time China’s domestic reactors in 2022 reportedly “released wastewater containing tritium at levels up to nine times higher than the annual discharge limit” set by Japan’s discharge authorities.

— Kyodo News, July 17; Agence France Presse, New Straits Times, July 15, 2025

November 5, 2025 by Nukewatch Leave a Comment

Serial Killers on the Loose: Cancer Death Rates Rising in Reactor Host Communities

Analysis of CDC data shows excess cancer deaths in counties that host the 16 oldest U.S. reactors

In commercial nuclear power reactors, after capital costs of construction are paid, which for the Monticello reactor in Minnesota was in the early 1990s, selling nuclear electricity is extremely profitable. Xcel Energy sells electricity for about $0.10/kWh. At this rate, every day that Monticello operates, it produces over $1.5 million that primarily pays Xcel Energy managers and shareholders.

Nuclear fission occurs in commercial nuclear reactors because uranium-235 atoms explode in chain reactions that produce atomic debris and extreme amounts of heat. Every element on the Periodic Table and all its radioactive isotopes are part of this debris, including gases such as radioactive helium, xenon, iodine, and krypton, and fine particulates like strontium-90. These materials are vented to the air or get absorbed by primary cooling water that circulates through reactor cores, and they must be removed in order for reactors to continue functioning.

The radioactive debris gets stripped out of primary cooling water, collected in holding tanks, and is held for some period. Due to the volume of these stripped materials, it is not profitable to contain them until they are no longer dangerous. So, after storing them for a designated period, they get released to the atmosphere under specified weather conditions. These are “routine radioactive releases.” Once these radioactive materials get released, they disperse into our biosphere. They are available for absorption, ingestion, and inhalation by living things, including humans.

Radiation monitoring at reactor sites is not designed, or intended, to detect these radioactive releases or to identify where they migrate or where they might accumulate. Radiation causes cancer. According to the 2005 National Academy of Sciences BEIR VII Report (Biological Effects of Ionizing Radiation), every exposure to radiation has the potential to cause cancer. There is no safe dose. While infants, children and women are more susceptible than adult males, every molecule of radiation routinely released by nuclear facilities has potential to initiate cancer in a person.

Joseph Mangano, an epidemiologist with master’s degrees in Public Health and Business Administration, is sole or co-author of 41 peer-reviewed medical journal articles, including articles published by The Lancet and The British Medical Journal.

The Center for Disease Control (CDC) public health data analyzed by Mangano identifies cancer mortality over three time periods in counties that host 16 of the nation’s oldest nuclear power reactors. Mangano’s analysis compares CDC reported cancer mortality in host counties with state-wide cancer mortality averages. The bottom-line results of this analysis are presented on the map of “Excess Cancer Deaths” below. The first time period of Mangano’s analysis, 1968-1978, establishes the baseline for comparison and accounts for an initial cancer latency period, as the first of the 16 oldest nuclear reactors came on-line in 1969.

Mangano’s CDC data analysis finds significant excess cancer deaths for host counties for 15 of the 16 oldest nuclear facilities. Further, the analysis finds that excess cancer deaths are greater, often significantly greater, in the 1999-2020 time-period than between 1979 and 1998. This is not surprising, considering that more people were exposed for longer periods of time during the 1999-2020 time frame.

What is the value of a human life? The results of Mangano’s analysis of CDC county-by-county public health data are clear: commercial nuclear operations are killing residents at an accelerating and alarming rate. His analysis found that the Monticello reactor accounted for 328 excess deaths from 1999 to 2020.

Every two months in Wright and Sherburne counties, cancer kills three more people as a result of radiation released into the environment by Monticello nuclear operations. What would be the public response if every three weeks, news broadcasters identified a victim and announced that the Wright and Sherburne county “serial killer” had struck again? How long, as a society, would we find such killing to be acceptable? This death toll in exchange for expensive electricity and corporate profiteering is intolerable, so nuclear reactors must be phased out.

Projected excess cancer deaths, 2031-2050, in Minnesota’s Wright and Sherburne counties

The Monticello nuclear power reactor started operating in 1971, and its recently-extended license expires in 2051, meaning Monticello could operate for up to 80 years (the oldest U.S. reactors started 55 years ago). The NRC has approved six applications for reactors to extend licenses up to 80 years. It is currently reviewing 16 others, and expects at least 19 more.

Reactors were designed to last 40 years, based on deterioration of mechanical parts. Keeping reactors well past the 40-year mark raises safety and health issues. The more than 100 cancer-causing gases and metallic particles routinely released from Monticello into the environment, alongside those from accidental radioactive leaks, can enter human bodies by way of air, food, and water, potentially leading to higher cancer rates.

In 1968-1978, the age-adjusted death rate for Wright and Sherburne counties was 10.5% below the U.S. rate (wonder.cdc.gov). Since then, the two-county rate has steadily moved closer to equaling the U.S. rate. In the most recent 12-year period for which final data are available (2009-2020), the local rate was just 2.2% below the U.S. rate. Then, for the first time, the local rate exceeded the U.S. rate in 2015, 2017, 2020, 2022, and 2023.

The population of Sherburne and Wright counties increased between 1970 and 2020, from 115,527 to 180,270. Projected future numbers are 269,000 in 2030 and 343,000 in 2050. The estimated number of Sherburne and Wright county residents who will die of cancer in the two decades 2031-2050 is 10,010.

The proposal to extend the license for the Monticello reactor for 20 years starting in 2031 was approved by federal regulators. Numerous concerns over local safety and health have been raised. While regulators are not obligated by law to monitor trends in local disease and death rates near reactors, the routine release of radioactive isotopes into the environment raises the issue of excess cancers in this 20-year period.

Two models, each using a different assumption about future differences between local and national cancer death rates, estimate that between 831 and 1,662 excess local cancer deaths would occur in 2031-2050, or between 8.3% and 16.6% of all 10,010 estimated cancer deaths.

Many factors can contribute to cancer mortality, including exposure to environmental toxins such as radioactivity emitted from nuclear reactors like Monticello. The health risks of continued operation of an aging and corroding reactor up to 80 years is a new issue, as Monticello is one of the oldest in the U.S.

Any decision to renew Monticello’s license for an additional 20 years should have included a thorough review of health hazards by officials, followed by public discussion. The historical shift from Sherburne and Wright Counties from a low-cancer area to one nearly equal to the national rate ⸺ and the potential for this to continue or worsen in the future, in an area with a rapidly-rising population ⸺ must be considered as one criterion in this decision.

⸺ Map and analysis by George Crocker of the North American Water Office, and Joseph Mangano, the Director of the Radiation and Public Health Project. This article is taken from a longer brochure currently available from the Coalition for a Nuclear-Free Mississippi River. To learn more, visit the website and sign the petition to shut down the Monticello reactor at nuclearfreemississippi.wordpress.com.

November 5, 2025 by Nukewatch Leave a Comment

Shrimp Sold at Walmart, Kroger and Elsewhere Across 29 States Recalled over Radioactive Contamination

Source of carcinogenic, reactor-borne cesium-137 under investigation

By John LaForge

In a story unprecedented in Nukewatch Quarterly memory, multiple cargo containers carrying shrimp from Indonesia to U.S. grocers were found contaminated with dangerously radioactive
cesium-137 (Cs-137)

None of the dozens of reports reviewed by Nukewatch explained how the cancer-causing isotope Cs-137⸺ a human-made radionuclide only produced inside nuclear reactors ⸺ spread to multiple cargo containers.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) alerted the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) August 19 about the contamination of the containers and shrimp products processed in Indonesia. The tainted containers and shrimp were found at the U.S. ports of Los Angeles, Houston, Miami, and Savannah (Georgia), and delivered to Walmart and Kroger stores.

The cesium scare has expanded broadly. The FDA’s August 19 Import Alert and recall recommendation focused on frozen raw shrimp, but the FDA later added cocktail shrimp and cooked medium peeled tail-off shrimp to its list of at-risk products. Initially applied to 13 states, the FDA later expanded its recall recommendation to 29 states.

Radioactively Contaminated Shrimp

The Wall St. Journal reported August 29 that the recall included 26,460 packages of Great Value cocktail shrimp sold at Walmart stores between July 28 and August 16, and 18,000 bags of Kroger’s Mercado frozen cooked shrimp.

California-based Southwind Foods recalled frozen shrimp bagged and sold under the brands Sand Bar, Arctic Shores, Best Yet, Great American Seafood Imports, and First Street, or Walmart’s Great Value brand.

Tens of thousands of packages of imported shrimp sold at Mariano’s were also recalled. Other affected stores include AquaStar, Baker’s, Gerbes, Jay C, Metro Market, Pay Less Supermarkets, Pick ‘n Save and Beaver Street Fisheries, according to the FDA, which told consumers to dispose of shrimp purchased at specific times in July and August. “If you have recently purchased raw frozen shrimp from Walmart that matches this description, throw it away,” the FDA said in a statement. The FDA did not recommend any special disposal system for radioactively contaminated material.

The FDA notification said, “All containers and product testing positive or alerting for Cs-137 have been denied entry into the country.” Neither the FDA nor the CBP have reported how many containers were found to be contaminated.

All the recalled shrimp came from Indonesia’s giant seafood processor PT Bahari Makmur Sejati, doing business as BMS Foods. The FDA has now targeted the firm with a new “import alert” to stop all its products from coming into the U.S.

The potentially hot shrimp was available from July 17 to August 8, 2025, at dozens of stores in Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Arizona, California, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Mississippi, Nebraska, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia, and Wisconsin.

Is the cesium permitted in U.S. food safe?

The legally permitted level of Cs-137 contamination in U.S. food is 1,200 Becquerels per-kilogram (Bq/kg) ⸺ even for children. Japan’s permitted level for children is 50 Bq/kg, and 100 Bq/kg for adults. A Becquerel is a standard measure of radioactive decay.

In the United States, the same level of cesium contamination in food is allowed for women, girls, and infants, in spite of the well-established fact that they are far more vulnerable to radiation harm than men and boys.

Radiation and health expert Cindy Folkers of Beyond Nuclear in Tacoma Park, Maryland, reported in 2013 that, “As cesium passes out of your body, its radioactivity starts to damage your kidneys and your bladder, which in turn damages your body’s ability to rid itself of the cesium.” Folkers also noted that Cs-137 and Cs-134 do not occur in nature but are only created in nuclear reactors operated by the military, by industry, and by university researchers.

The FDA’s Import Alert warned about the Cs-137:

[R]adionuclides such as Cs-137, a radioisotope of cesium, can be present in many places around the world as a result of contamination produced high in the atmosphere during nuclear testing. Cs-137 is created via nuclear reactions, such as occurring in nuclear power plants and is also commonly used in medical and other industrial applications. Elevated amounts of Cs-137 can be present at locations where contamination settled from accidents such as Chernobyl in 1986 and Fukushima in 2011.

The Import Alert also described the health risks created by exposure to low doses of Cs-137:

Cs-137 emits beta particles and gamma radiation that are associated with adverse health effects. Potential for health concerns following Cs-137 exposure depends on the dose and the duration of exposure. High doses lead to acute radiation syndrome. However, exposure to low doses spread out over a period of time may not cause immediate apparent adverse effects but may still be harmful. The primary health effect of concern following longer term, repeated low dose exposure (e.g., through consumption of contaminated food or water over time) is cancer, resulting from damage to DNA within living cells of the body.

Where’d the cesium-137 come from?

Beyond Nuclear.org reported that the FDA is still investigating, “but contamination could be from nuclear industries in China, releases from the ruined Fukushima reactors, or somewhere else.”

Dr. Gordon Edwards, President of the Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility (CCNR), wrote September 10, 2025, “It is possible that the cesium-137 contamination came from a “food irradiation” plant, as the two radioactive substances most used in “irradiation” facilities are cobalt-60 and cesium-137.

Both cobalt-60 and cesium-137 are powerful gamma radiation emitters and are used to sterilize medical equipment, and to sterilize certain food items in “food irradiation” facilities. These plants use “very large quantities of cobalt-60 or cesium-137. Shrimp is one such food item,” Edwards wrote. For background on food irradiation see the CCNR website at https://ccnr.org/food_ccnr.html as well as https://ccnr.org/food_irradiation.html.

Kimberly Robertson, Program Director for the Fukushima Fallout Awareness Network, wrote August 26: “UK-based marine biologist Tim Deere-Jones stated, ‘Given the very low reported levels of Cs-137 in Indonesian marine environments, there is a strong possibility that the food fed to the [fish farmed] shrimp is the source of elevated cesium-137…. I consider it likely that such material, often harvested by ‘pirate fishers,’ could be contaminated with Fukushima-derived Cs-137, at endemically high levels in some Pacific Sea areas. It is strongly advised that the source/origin of the foodstuffs fed to the shrimps is investigated with the utmost rigor.’”

It is also possible that the contaminated shipping containers could have come into close contact with radioactive waste being shipped in the other containers on the same ship. It’s also possible, although highly unlikely and extremely scandalous, that the same containers used to ship the shrimp had earlier been used to transport radioactive waste.

Kimberly Robertson concluded her post urging: “Regardless of the exact source of the radioactive
contamination, [R.F.] Kennedy, as Secretary of the Dept. of Health and Human Services, must direct the FDA to lower the current allowable levels of cancer-causing Cs-137 in food. The shrimp radiation levels were detected at 68 Bq/kg, which would not have been allowed in Japan [due to its] 50 Bq/kg level for kids. U.S. kids, however, are allowed 1,200 Bq/kg, the same as adults. That must change.”

Sign and share the sign-on letter widely at https://nislappdc.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/FFAN-letter-to-HHS.pdf, and call the FDA at 1-888-SAFEFOOD to voice your concerns.

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