Valley Forum: What about Fukushima?

Most conversations I have these days about wild, edible seaweed on the Pacific coast include the question, “What about Fukushima?”

I was heartened when Rep. Jared Huffman said he is working for an urgent international commitment to deal with the ongoing catastrophe of the crippled nuclear reactors in Fukushima, Japan.

Speaking at a bucolic harvest festival at Navarro Vineyards, Huffman also said he would work to get radiation hazard testing and public information, including reliable, unbiased, regular testing of West Coast foods from land and sea, and radiation hazard monitoring of water, air and soil.

Please consider joining the growing public demand that our government lead an international effort to cope with these reactors that are poisoning the Pacific Ocean and emitting atmospheric radiation.

We live in a world environment that is radioactive everywhere, ranging from harmless natural uranium to isotopes deadly for millennia. Let’s work with our government to get regular radiation hazard testing, and reliable public information.

Edible seaweed, especially the brown kelps so prolific on the Pacific coast, contain algin, iodine and other trace elements which many believe are helping people live through this era of radioactivity. All Pacific Ocean food providers need radiation hazard testing, because of the constant news that radioactive water is pouring into the Pacific from Fukushima.

Now we need an international commitment to keep the Fukushima disaster from poisoning the very foods we need to live with environmental radioactivity.

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  John Lewallen is a resident of Philo, co-owner of the Mendocino Sea Vegetable Company and a member of the Ocean Protection Coalition Steering Committee.