LATEST ON JAPAN'S NUCLEAR BATTLE – AT 10:28 A.M. ET:   As could reasonably be expected, some radioactivity has been found in some of Japan's food supply, especially in areas near the crippled nuclear plant.  This is a cause for concern, but certainly not for panic.    From The New York Times:

TOKYO — The government said Saturday that it had found higher than normal levels of radioactive materials in spinach and milk at farms near the ravaged nuclear power plants, the first confirmation by officials that the nuclear crisis unfolding at power plants nearby has affected the nation’s food supply.

While officials downplayed the immediate risks to consumers, the findings are likely to further unsettle a nation worried about the long-term effects of the damaged nuclear power plants. The crisis, which has entered its second week, has caused alarm in some countries that fallout from Japan might reach their shores.

At the current level of damage, the amount of fallout reaching the shores of the United States is insignificant. 

Tokyo Electric Power Company, with help from the Japan Self-Defense Force, police and firefighters, continued efforts to cool the damaged reactors on Saturday. About 500 workers from the utility connected a transmission line almost a mile long to Reactor No. 2 at the Fukushima Daiichi Power Station. They hope to restart a cooling system there on Sunday.

Restoring power at the reactor could provide a glimmer of hope after days of increasingly dire news that now includes contaminated food. Yukio Edano, the chief cabinet secretary, said that spinach and milk were the only two products that were found with abnormally high levels of radioactive materials. The newly discovered radioactivity contained in the average amount of spinach and milk consumed during an entire year would be equal to the amount received in a single CAT scan.

That puts it into perspective.  Obviously, should there be a complete catastrophe at the stricken plant, radiation levels could go higher, but that's what technicians are striving to prevent.  We will know more about this tomorrow, when attempts will be made to restart the cooling systems, which, if operating, can prevent a meltdown and subsequent spewing of high levels of radioactivity into the air.

At present, the nuclear "crisis" in Japan is no worse than our "crisis" at Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania, where no one died.  As for comparisons with Chernobyl, the old Soviet Union's worst nuclear failure, they are absurd.  The Soviets botched their entire response to the Chernobyl disaster, never even warning residents not to drink milk produced near the failed nuclear plant.  That milk was highly contaminated, and did indeed produce thousands of thyroid cancers.

Japan's handling of the present situation is far superior.  That does not release Japan from responsibility for the safety failures and allegedly lax management that led up to the Fukushima failure, but we should not let hysterical headlines sway us.

March 19, 2011