California Potentially In Path Of Fukushima Radiation

Up to six cores at the Fukushima nuclear facility in Sendai, Japan may have already experienced meltdown. Unfortunately, this looming disaster raises the possibility (and at this point, it is just that, a possibility) of wind carrying airborne radioactivity as far as California:

California is closely monitoring efforts to contain leaks from a quake-damaged Japanese nuclear plant, a spokesman said Saturday, as experts said radiation could be blown out across the Pacific.

. . .

"At present there is no danger to California. However we are monitoring the situation closely in conjunction with our federal partners," Michael Sicilia, spokesman for California Department of Public Health, told AFP.

. . .

Experts have suggested that, if there were a reactor meltdown or major leak at Fukushima, the radioactive cloud would likely be blown out east across the Pacific, towards the US West Coast.

"The wind direction for the time being seems to point the (nuclear) pollution towards the Pacific," said Andre-Claude Lacoste of the French Nuclear Safety Authority, briefing journalists in Paris on the Japanese crisis.

Time to recall that Southern California has two nuclear reactors of its own at the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station. Let's hope the Big One never hits here.