Testing for presence of radioactivity in BC Pacific Ocean’s seafood supply

Due to the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear power plant incident in March 2011, large quantities of contaminated water were released to the Pacific Ocean in Japan. The severity of contamination on the marine environment is unclear, therefore, the public is concerned with the possible internal radiation exposure from ingesting contaminated seafood products caught in the Pacific Ocean. This study was aimed to investigate the presence or absence of gamma radioactivity in commonly consumed seafood products from B.C. In total, ten different species of fish and three different species of shellfish were selected for analysis. For each species of fish, two samples were collected and each sample was from a different local seafood market. For each species of shellfish, ten samples were collected from three different sources. Using the portable GR-135 Plus gamma ray spectrometer, the samples were tested and analyzed for the presence of Fukushima radionuclides, particularly Cesium-137 (Cs-137) and Cesium- 134 (Cs-134).Based on the analyzed fish and shellfish, no gamma radiation was detected. The detector did not identify any gamma radiation over the normal background readings.