-to meltdown, “was approximately 400
times more potent than the atomic
bomb dropped on Hiroshima,” but that
the nuclear tests in the 60s and 70s
“contributed 100 to 1,000 times more
radioactive material to the environment
than Chernobyl.”18 The Bravo shot
had about a 1,000 times more
powerful yield than the bomb dropped
on Hiroshima. In terms of the amount
of nuclear fuel involved in the
mentioned nuclear accidents, there
was approximately 1,852 tons of
combined nuclear fuel in the four
reactor buildings that were destroyed
or damaged at Fukushima. The sole
reactor destroyed in the Chernobyl
accident had approximately 245 tons
of nuclear fuel inside, however official
estimates say more radioactive
material was released from Chernobyl
than Fukushima, at least during the
onset of the accidents. The area most
affected by the Chernobyl accident
was not inside Ukraine where the plant
was located, but in neighboring
Belarus where radiation was the
number one demographic factor
“responsible for the depopulation” of
the country.19 Although Hawaii is
much farther away from Japan than
Belarus is Ukraine, the possibility still
exists that “depopulation” from
radiation exposure could still occur on
the island chain. My goal was to go to
New Zealand where the country has a
long history of anti-nuclearism, but
instead ended up in New Mexico,
which is ironically the same place
where the nuclear industry started out.
So why do I still feel like
people will think I’m crazy if I tell them
Fukushima fallout is one of the
reasons I left Hawaii, even though
there is plenty of evidence to suggest
that I was likely to be exposed to
heavy metal contamination and
radioactive fallout even more than I
already was had I stayed there? Why
do I still not want to believe Hawaiians
are in any danger now? Why do I still
want to believe that the fallout we
were exposed to was safe? And we
were exposed. After all, on April 27,
2011, just a month after the
Fukushima disaster occurred, the
Honolulu Star-Advertiser reported that
radioactive cesium-134 and 137,
iodine-131 and strontium-89 from
Fukushima were found in tested milk
samples taken from Hilo, the city
where I was living with my wife and
children.20 The Star-Advertiser article
quotes a statement issued by the EPA
to Forbes blogger Jeff McMahon,
which said the strontium levels were
“27,000 times below the Derived
Intervention Level set by the U.S. Food
and Drug Administration.” The article
states the EPA had released the
measurements on its website and that
the levels of Strontium-89 were at 1.4
pico-curies per liter (pCi/L), far below
the FDAs 4,400 pCi/L “action level.”
There is no mention of the EPA’s
Maximum Contaminant Level (MCL)
for any of the radionuclides detected
in the Hilo milk, and even more
interesting is the fact that the article
says the Honolulu EPA office could not
confirm the readings at the time the
article was written, however it repeats
a statement allegedly issued by the
EPA to a blogger who works for an
entirely different publication which isn’t
even located in Hawaii. In place of
getting a quote from the EPA, StarAdvertiser reporter William Cole
quotes a state health department
official, Lynn Nakasone, who said he
could not get through to anybody at
the EPA Honolulu office, however it is
that same state health department
official who is quoted in the article as
s a y i n g “ I t ’s o f n o h e a l t h
consequence,” and that “I realize it is
a different reading and new data, but I
guess from our point of view, it’s not a
health risk.”21
Although the public was told
the levels were too low to be of any
concern, there is concern because,
according to a letter from dairy
farmers to milk share members on the
Big Island being circulated on the
internet, radioactive materials found in
milk is an indication that the entire
food chain is contaminated. The letter
states, “Milk from the large dairies in
Hamakua and Hawi has shown
elevated levels of radiation, from 400
to 2400 times the recognized safe
levels.”22 Interestingly, Meadow Gold
dairy products produced in Hawaii
[44]
disappeared from grocery store
shelves after the radiation levels were
reported in the milk, and initially I had
thought the letter to share members
was from Meadow Gold to milk
shareholders, but when I went back to
find the letter on the internet I learned
that it was from the owners of a Milk
and Honey Farm in Pahoa. After
contacting several farms via email I
received a reply stating that no testing
had ever been done on any of the
farms and no further testing was
planned, making me question where
that share member letter actually
originated, as there were many
instances in which information about
Fukushima would seem to just
disappear