ENE News Update: Gov’t Official: Chilling report from Pacific Ocean… “Silence on the seas” — “Quite literally, there isn’t any fish” — Japan

Gov’t Official: Chilling report from Pacific Ocean… “Silence on the seas” — “Quite literally, there isn’t any fish” — Japan Professor: Fukushima posing reproduction risk to marine life, ongoing concern over bio-accumulation of radioactive material (VIDEOS)

Published: July 21st, 2015 at 9:16 pm ET By ENENews  Email Article 51 comments

Senator Penelope Wright, Parliament of Australia, Mar 5, 2015 (emphasis added): “Like many others, I read an article in 2013 by Ivan Macfadyen called ‘The ocean is broken‘. It was published in The Sydney Morning Herald… He is an experienced sailor, so he had the ability to compare his experience then with… other trips. It was chilling. It was heartbreaking really. He had noticed changes in the last years. Basically, he was confronted by the silence that he heard, the silence on the seas, and he realised that this was attributable to the fact that they saw very, very few birds. They also caught very few fish… two fish.”
Interview with Ivan Macfadyen, Talk Radio Europe, May 24, 2015 (at 14:30 in): “The reality was… if I would have had no spare dry food on the boat — relying on fish this time around — we would have starved to death — because, quite literally, there isn’t any fish. There’s vast tracks where they’re just all gone. Where you could fish reliably, they’re just not there… I used to fish here on exactly the same course, at exactly the same time of year… the same ocean, on the same course, into the same place — and I could catch fish everyday, and for some reason now 10 years later they’re all gone.”
Though not discussed in the above interview, Macfadyen has attributed his statement “The ocean is broken” to the impact of Fukushima:

• Host: What about sea birds and all of that?
• Macfadyen: As you get closer up to Japan they’re all gone, they’re not there anymore… Everything’s all gone, it’s just like sailing in a dead sea… there’s nothing…
• Host: After Japan you headed [to] America, did you see any impact from…Fukushima?
• Macfadyen: It’s dead. That’s where I coined the phrase, ‘The ocean’s broken’ – because, for thousands of miles, there’s nothing. No birds, no fish, no sharks, no dolphins, no turtles… they’re not there… all those beautiful creatures, they’re just all gone… We’d seen a whale, round about probably 1,000 miles [off] Japan, just lying on the surface with like a big tumor… just behind its head… it looked like it was going to die… it didn’t try to get away, it didn’t flap its tail, it didn’t do anything… It had such a profound effect on me… Just talking about it makes me feel like I want to cry.

Prof. Yukari Takamura, Nagoya Univ., Aug 25, 2014: On March 11 2011 [there was] an extremely severe nuclear accident at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant… According to the report of the French government… it is estimated that 27.1 thousand terabecquerels of radioactive cesium-137 had leaked into the ocean by July 2011, causing significant marine pollution. Even in July 2013, TEPCO announced that contaminated ground water in the area of Fukushima Daiichi NPP had been leaked into the plant port. There is ongoing concern that some of the radioactive material may be bio-accumulating in fish and marine animals… [A]n enormous amount of radioactive substances were emitted into the environment… Some research demonstrates the existence of a potential ecological risk… particularly for reproduction. The knowledge about a long-term radiological risk to the ecosystem is still very limited… environmental monitoring and increased knowledge is a key that will allow us to evaluate the ecological impact… The 1996 Protocol to Amend the Vienna Convention on Civil Liability for Nuclear Damage… covers some damage to the environment by including recovery for the costs of measures of reinstatement of impaired environment, as well as for loss of income derived from an economic interest in any use or enjoyment of the environment.
Watch Sen. Wright’s speech here | New Macfadyen interview | Macfadyen on Fukushima