来自福岛核灾难的辐射接近加州海岸
Scientists at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution on Monday said they had detected cesium 134—radioactive fallout from the 2011 Fukushima nuclear meltdown—about 100 miles offshore of the Northern California town of Eureka.
来自伍兹霍尔海洋研究所的科学家在星期一表示，他们已经检测到源于2011年的福岛核危机的铯134的放射性沉降物，已经到达加利福尼亚北部100英里的Eureka小镇近海。But don't freak out.
但是不要被吓到了"This Fukushima-derived cesium is far below where one might expect any measurable risk to human health or marine life, according to international health agencies," the scientists said in a statement. The levels were 1,000 lower than the limits for drinking water set by the United States Environmental Protection Agency, they said.
“国际健康机构表示，这些由福岛泄露的铯对人类健康或海洋生物其造成的实际危害风险，远远小于之前人们的估计。”科学家们在一份声明中这样表示。放射性物质的含量只有由美国环境保护署规定的饮用水指标的一千分之一，他们说。
In an "Ask Me Anything" post on Reddit on Monday morning, Ken Buesseler, a Woods Hole marine scientist, said that if a person swam for six hours a day, 365 days a year, off Eureka, the radiation exposure would still be a thousand times less than what a person would be exposed to from a single dental X-Ray.
在星期一上午红迪网上的“知道求助”页面上，Ken Buesseler，伍兹霍尔海洋科学家，表示如果说一个人一天游泳游了六小时，一年游了365天，在Eureka小镇的沿海进行的话，暴露在其下所受到的辐射仍然只有在牙科中做一次X光的照射所受到的辐射的千分之一。Since the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami, the radiation dispersed from the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant accident has been making its way across the Pacific Ocean. The power plant meltdown released unprecedented amounts of radioactive elements into the ocean, with cesium 134 traces in waters off Japan's coast tens of millions of times higher than what Buesseler and his team have found here.
自2011年3月地震和海啸以来，从福岛第一核电厂事故中散发出来的核辐射物质已经跨越了太平洋。核电厂熔炉熔毁泄露放前所未有的大量的放射性元素进入海洋，铯134的踪迹显示在日本海岸线附近的水域该放射性物质的含量比科学家Buesseler和他的团队所发现的含量高出一千万倍。"When cesium levels are in the 10's millions, there are possible direct impacts on mortality and reproductive ability of marine life," Buesseler said on Reddit.
“当铯的含量在千万水平的时候，这可能会对海洋生物的繁殖能力和死亡率有直接的影响，”Buesseler在红迪网上说。Those concerns prompted Japanese officials to close fisheries and impose some of the strictest radiation testing on food products in the world.
这些问题促使日本政府关闭渔业和对食品产品实施最严格的一些放射性物质检测。In the U.S., scientists have been measuring Fukushima-influenced radioactivity in kelp forests off Southern California, fish caught from San Diego to Seattle, and Wood Hole has been monitoring water samples from Alaska to Mexico.
在美国，科学家们测量了被福岛核辐射影响的加利福尼亚南部的海带森林，以及从圣地亚哥捕到西雅图获的鱼，并且伍兹霍尔海洋研究所监控从阿拉斯加地区延伸到墨西哥的水样本Buesseler said the Eureka offshore sample was the only one that showed traces of cesium 134.
Buesseler说尤里卡小镇是沿海样品中唯一一个发现铯134的踪迹的地方。So when do scientists expect the radiation to reach the West Coast?
因此科学家预计核辐射什么时候到达美国西海岸？"We don't know exactly when the Fukushima isotopes will be detectable closer to shore because the mixing of offshore surface waters and coastal waters is hard to predict," Buesseler said in a statement.
“我们不知道什么时候福岛核原料的同位素将更靠近海岸以致可被检测到，因为地表水和沿海水域的海洋混合之后是很难预测的，”Buesseler在一份声明中说。While the detected levels are well below those deemed harmful to humans, models predicting how much radiation could be along the West Coast suggest cesium levels will increase over the next two to three years.
尽管检测到的水平远远低于那些被认为对人体有害的程度，然而数据模型预测沿着西海岸的辐射量表明铯的含量将在未来两到三年增加。Buesseler said careful and consistent monitoring of the water is needed to keep tabs on the radiation.
Buesseler说，监视辐射的状态需要谨慎和持续对水质的测量才行。"We need both citizen scientists to keep up the coastal monitoring network, but also research vessels and comprehensive studies offshore like this one, that are too expensive for the average citizen to support," he said.
“我们既需要平民科学家保持沿海监测网络的工作状态，也需要像之前提到的职业科研人员和海上综合性研究，但是这种形式的研究对于普通国民来说负担太重了，”他说。
