Lights on Bikes
Dear Editor: It was another dark and stormy night … in Sitka. As I was driving down our rain-soaked city streets, dodging potholes, four-plus-wheeled vehicles, and other two-wheel moving objects, I had a thought: If cars have lights in the front and rear and turn them on when it is hard to see, and pedestrians on the sidewalks, some of them, wear reflective gear and carry bright lights, why is it that many many of the bicycle riders who are getting exercise, saving fuel and allowing us to be a designated bike friendly city do not do any of what drivers and pedestrians do? Will one of those practitioners please enlighten me as to the thinking behind this? Thank you.
Jeff Budd, Sitka
Chinese New Year
Dear Editor: The first clam dancing prop has been made on Jan. 2. It is a prototype, but it is so beautiful and well-finished.
I want to thank MaryAnne Navitsky for working together with me for three weeks on it. Thank you, Noah Mayo, Jack Navitsky and Michael Mayo, who helped to get the materials ready. The clam prop will be used for Chinese New Year celebrations, parade and performance. It is so fun to carry and play around.
We’d love to help if you want to make your own clam. Call Summer for getting the introduction at 738-5092.
I also want to thank my dear friends Kathy Kyle, Yan Yang and family members Michael Mayo, Sherie Mayo and Noah Mayo who helped with the planning of the Chinese New Year celebration along with me.
More information can be found at www.facebook.com/SitkaChineseNY
Summer Shen Mayo, Sitka
By Rep. Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins
Alaska State Legislature
About that Fukushima Radiation...
Winter means two things: snow and the legislative session. I’m also a firm believer this is the best possible use of legislative vanity license plates.
Since the 2011 earthquake and tsunami in Japan, I’ve been trying to find zen with the the ongoing Fukushima nuclear mess. Between colossal tax cuts for oil companies, a budget forecast that induces acid reflux, and Medicaid un-expansion, I barely had the brainspace to worry whether my dad’s smoked sockeye was going to give me colon cancer or turn me into a mutant.
I abandoned my studied indifference when the CBC came out with an alarmingly-titled article in November: “Radiation from Japan nuclear plant arrives on Alaska coast.” I hold plenty of things against Canada, namely their 2010 Olympic men’s and women’s hockey teams, but the CBC, that venerable and trustworthy news institution, is not one of them.
I resolved to learn more. On a trip back east, I passed through D.C. and had the good fortune to sit in on a congressional briefing by Dr. Ken Buesseler of Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. Dr. Buesseler is America’s foremost expert on oceanic radiation; his presentation was equally authoritative.
A friend’s photo from a wonderful koo.ex in Klawock. What good is a legislator? Good for picking up garbage, of course!
The crib notes: There’s no reason to move to Nebraska! We’re not all gonna die — or get cancer or become mutants. The water in Japan is iffy but still safe, and the water 5,000 miles away here in Alaska, is as pure, pristine, and uncarcinogenic as the mountain streams of Southeast Alaska.
When we talk Fukushima radiation, we’re talking Cesium-137, a radioactive isotope which is (surprise!) extremely bad for you and extremely good at giving you cancer. Cesium-137 is measured by what are called “becquerels” (pronounced “beck-er-ELLS”) per meter cubed (abbreviated Bq/m3). Right now, the water immediately off Japan registers about 2,000 Bq/m3 of Cesium-137.
Consider the following: 50,000,000 Bq/m3 can cause birth defects in marine organisms. 7,400 Bq/m3 is the EPA limit for safe drinking water. There are 12 Bq of naturally occurring radiation in a banana. The natural radioactivity of the ocean is 2 Bq/m3.
The water off Japan (2,000 Bq/m3) is elevated and is hardly a best-case scenario, but it’s not as though it’s going to spawn Godzilla.
But remember! This is radiation measured off Fukushima, Japan. It’s many thousands of miles away from Alaska. I may have voted against the bill weakening cruise ship wastewater standards, but Fukushima radiation is a classic example for which the solution to pollution is in fact dilution.
The vast Pacific Ocean is diluting Cesium-137 radioactivity by nearly 200 percent by the time the Kuroshio Current carries Fukushima water to our side of the Pacific. Water contaminated by the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Plant is forecast to arrive on the West Coast, well... right about now. Computer models predict that Fukushima-contaminated water washing up on the West Coast has between 1 Bq/m3 and 30 Bq/m3 of Cesium-137. (Remember, 7,400 Bq/m3 is the EPA limit, and 2 Bq/m3 is the naturally occurring level.) Early data gathered up and down the West Coast corroborates these predictions.
To be clear: there may well be more radiation in a banana (and who doesn’t love bananas?) than off our Alaska coast.
A few days before Christmas, I went over to a friend’s for holiday merriment. Alaskans being Alaskans, this was the result.
As I said, there’s no reason to move to Nebraska!
But, we absolutely need to cautiously monitor the situation. There are legitimate reasons to be concerned about Fukushima, and the Department of Environmental Conservation should play a visible, proactive leadership role. It has not. Unchecked by fact, fear-mongering Facebook posts that make the entire Pacific Ocean look as though it’s practically boiling with nuclear radiation are stirring up paranoia.
Facebook is good for photos of your best friend’s impossibly cute newborn baby. But for Fukushima information, take it from Dr. Buesseler of Woods Hole: the Pacific is safe and so is our seafood.
