Mass Mortality among Rocky Shore Invertebrates across 100 km of Northeastern Pacific Coastline- Peer Reviewed Article

Tags

2011, algae, benthic organisms, British Columbia, California, Dana Durnford, echinoderms, food chain, Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station, invertebrates, Jay Cullen, Ken Buesseler, mortality event, phytoplankton, plankton, plutonium, predators, prey, radiation, radiation testing, radio iodine, Radionuclides, sea stars, Sea urchins, TEPCO, Tide pools, toxic algae, U. Vict BC, WHOI, widespread mortality event, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute

“In late August 2011, formerly abundant intertidal populations of the purple sea urchin (Strongylocentrotus purpuratus, a well-known ecosystem engineer), and the predatory six-armed sea star (Leptasterias sp.) were functionally extirpated from ~100 km of coastline. Other invertebrates, including the gumboot chiton (Cryptochiton stelleri) the ochre sea star (Pisaster ochraceus), and subtidal populations of purple sea urchins also exhibited elevated mortality.” Jurgens LJ, Rogers-Bennett L, Raimondi PT, Schiebelhut LM, Dawson MN, Grosberg RK, et al. (2015) “Patterns of Mass Mortality among Rocky Shore Invertebrates across 100 km of Northeastern Pacific Coastline“. PLoS ONE 10(6): e0126280. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0126280 http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0126280 (100 km is approximately 62 miles)

“By far, of all the marine invertebrates, the largest levels of plutonium are found in benthic organisms and those predators feeding on benthic organisms.. The starfish, in each case, were collected as they were feeding on the mussel beds. The Pu concentration, although different in each sample, was about four times that found in the mussels upon which each was feeding… Carey (1969) found, from studies of.. Oregon coastal starfish, that the prey, rather than the environment, was the main route through which this radioisotope was transferred to the starfish.” Noshkin et. al. (1971) See entire article here: https://miningawareness.wordpress.com/2015/11/08/radionuclides-in-sediment-vs-seawater-and-in-plankton-marine-invertebrates-e-g-sea-stars/

About benthic animals: http://www.fisheries.is/ecosystem/marine-life/benthic-animals/

“In late August and September 2011, intertidal populations of two echinoderms—S. purpuratus and Leptasterias sp.—were decimated over a large, continuous region. We found only ten surviving intertidal purple urchins out of a prior regional population we estimate at many millions of individuals. For both intertidal S. purpuratus and Leptasterias sp., the overall mortality rate was therefore >99.99% over 100 km of coastline. At subtidal locations, mortality of S. purpuratus was severe but incomplete… There were no obvious physical stressors (e.g., a storm, heavy rainfall event, or heat wave) that occurred during late August and early September 2011, when the onset of mortality was observed… The geographic scale, rapidity, and taxonomic scope of this mass mortality event are notable, as is the high mortality rate for purple urchins and six-armed sea stars. Although localized mass mortalities are not uncommon for S. purpuratus [40, 76, 77], no previously documented mortality event has been so severe over such a large region” Jurgens LJ, et. al. (2015) “Patterns of Mass Mortality among Rocky Shore Invertebrates across 100 km of Northeastern Pacific Coastline“. PLoS ONE 10(6): e0126280.

Now, isn’t this what Dana Durnford has been talking about? It seems to be. He’s talking about further up the coast, but the same coastline. Is this why Jay Cullen of U. Vict. BC and someone from Woods Hole (WHOI) – almost certainly Ken Buesseler – wanted Dana arrested before Dana could make a documentary?

Original Fukushima fallout plume from US Gov NOAA. However, by TEPCO’s own admission, radioactive emissions have continued:

http://sos.noaa.gov/Datasets/dataset.php?id=332 Additional models: http://polar.ncep.noaa.gov/mmab/papers/tn309/MMAB_309.pdf

“Sea urchins move slowly, and feed on mostly algae.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_urchin “The purple sea urchin, along with sea otters and abalones, is a prominent member of the kelp forest community” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strongylocentrotus_purpuratus Kelp would absorb radioactive iodine. Radioactive iodine from Fukushima was found in California kelp shortly after Fukushima (look online). Iodine 131 has a half life of 8 days, but Iodine 129 of 15.7 million of years.

Jurgens (2015) et. al. state that: “We observed strongly discolored seawater indicating high near-shore plankton concentrations beginning August 24, 2011 and lasting for the next week. Chlorophyll-a data suggest a phyto-plankton bloom early in the month, and a second bloom beginning around August 22, which peaked between August 26 and 29, 2011…” They note that: “As is the case for many documented mass-mortality events, we cannot unambiguously ascribe the current die-off to a particular cause or set of causes… The most likely cause of this mortality event therefore appears to be a toxin produced by phytoplankton that bloomed concurrently with the die-off. Mortality of echinoderms and gastropods following HABs has been documented, but less commonly than effects on fishes and bivalves…”

Uptake of radionuclides by phytoplankton (e.g. algae) has been long documented and studied, as in this 1956 USGS article: “The Accumulation and Exchange of Strontium by Marine Planktonic Algae” US. Fish and Wildlife Service, 1956: http://www.aslo.org/lo/toc/vol_1/issue_2/0123.pdf Different algae react to different radionuclides in different ways.

Here is a recent study about using algae to clean-up radionuclides after nuclear accidents:
“Here we describe the accumulation of water-soluble radionuclides released by nuclear reactors by a novel strain of alga. The newly discovered green microalgae, Parachlorella sp. binos (Binos) has a thick alginate-containing extracellular matrix and abundant chloroplasts. When this strain was cultured with radioiodine, a light-dependent uptake of radioiodine was observed. In dark conditions, radioiodine uptake was induced by addition of hydrogen superoxide. High-resolution secondary ion mass spectrometry (SIMS) showed a localization of accumulated iodine in the cytosol. This alga also exhibited highly efficient incorporation of the radioactive isotopes strontium and cesium in a light-independent manner. SIMS analysis showed that strontium was distributed in the extracellular matrix of Binos. Finally we also showed the ability of this strain to accumulate radioactive nuclides from water and soil samples collected from a heavily contaminated area in Fukushima. Our results demonstrate that Binos could be applied to the decontamination of iodine, strontium and cesium radioisotopes, which are most commonly encountered after nuclear reactor accidents.” “Absorption of Radionuclides from the Fukushima Nuclear Accident by a Novel Algal Strain“, by Hiroki Shimura, Katsuhiko Itoh, Atsushi Sugiyama, Sayaka Ichijo, Masashi Ichijo, Fumihiko Furuya, Yuji Nakamura, Ken Kitahara, Kazuhiko Kobayashi, Yasuhiro Yukawa, Tetsuro Kobayashi Published: September 12, 2012DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0044200
http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0044200

“Winds drive ocean currents in the upper 100 meters of the ocean’s surface. However, ocean currents also flow thousands of meters below the surface“. http://oceanservice.noaa.gov/education/kits/currents/06conveyor.html

The Peer Reviewed article about the sea urchins should make people think twice, before they accuse Dana Durnford of lying. Dana is a former ocean diver, who sustained an injury, which put him in a wheel-chair. As such, he would notice things that the uneducated eye would miss. In particular, those who have never even been to the US or Canada appear poorly placed to judge what’s going on. Furthermore, unusual mortality events have been ongoing on the west coast and reported in the mainstream media, and by the US government.

Many people appear incapable of understanding nuance. Dana never said everything was missing: http://www.thenuclearproctologist.org Some probably even miss the nuance of “nuclear proctologist”. What do proctologists do? They examine A-holes! While one might dislike this choice of names, one cannot deny its subtle brilliance. “A” was historically used for atomic, as well. Furthermore, Dana Durnford has no reason to lie. Anyone who watched any of his earlier videos, before his trip, knows that he’s a good-hearted man. And, anything bad he says is righteous anger in the style of the Old Testament prophets and Jesus turning over the money-changers tables.

Now you can argue if these dead animals are a spurious correlation or if Fukushima alone caused it, or in conjunction with others things – the proverbial straw which broke the camels back, but the above article lends peer-reviewed credence to what Dana has documented, albeit in a different part of the coastline.

Woods Hole (WHOI)’s “Our Radioactive Ocean .org” “help us” – “Our Radioactive Ocean Sampling Demo” features Ken Buesseler saying at around 1.45 minutes that the water should not have sediments or seaweed in it, http://www.ourradioactiveocean. org/helpus.html, whereas the article by WHOI, below, suggests that sediments, plankton, seaweed and organisms feeding in sediments is the place to look! Dana Durnford pointed this out on Sept. 30th, a little over a month before he was arrested for allegedly frightening Jay Cullen and someone at WHOI – apparently Ken Buesseler, and his videos removed. Why are they afraid of a man in a wheel-chair? Despite all of their partnerships and sponsors, WHOI, wants around $600.00 per sample to test in a machine that costs $75,000, meaning that citizen scientists would be better served to buy or rent their own! 125 samples would pay for the machine and many more than this would be needed, making this a shake-down to boot. One of two thousand samples would be a good start, and that would cost the citizen scientist 1.2 million $ for 2,000 samples at $600 a pop. The smart citizen scientist would buy a gammascout detector for $409, which tests for alpha, beta, and gamma radiation. Then they can test an endless array of wet and dry sediments, and even dehydrated seawater for radiation. Water is an radiation insulator, after all. Will it be perfect? Probably not. But, the WHOI study is only looking for cesium in water. And, would you really trust WHOI when it partners-sponsors with entities like the US Dept. of Defense, Raytheon, U. of Tokyo, etc? Or, Jay Cullen who got $630,000 to test seawater but is using volunteers, and whose funding entity has ties to the nuclear and uranium mining industry and Canadian Dept. of Defence? Do you trust Jay Cullen to do testing when he thinks or pretends to think that a man in a wheelchair constitutes a danger to himself? Either he is not too bright or very mean-spirited or both. How would anyone trust such a person?

This post explains why Buesseler’s testing method is not the best way, and Jay Cullen-WHOI’s funding-partnership ties to the nuclear/uranium mining and defense-defence depts/industry: https://miningawareness.wordpress.com/2015/11/08/radionuclides-in-sediment-vs-seawater-and-in-plankton-marine-invertebrates-e-g-sea-stars/

BOLD ADDED FOR EMPHASIS THROUGHOUT