SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — Radioactive contamination from theFukushima power plant disaster has been detected as far as almost 400 miles off Japan in the Pacific Ocean, with water showing readings of up to 1,000 times more than prior levels, scientists reported Tuesday.

But those results for the substance cesium-137 are far below the levels that are generally considered harmful, either to marine animals or people who eat seafood, said Ken Buesseler of theWoods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts.

He spoke Tuesday in Salt Lake City at the annual Ocean Sciences Meeting, attended by more than 4,000 researchers this week.

The results are for water samples taken in June, about three months after the power plant disaster, Buesseler said. In addition to thousands of water samples, researchers also sampled fish and plankton and found cesium-137 levels well below the legal health limit.

“We’re not over the hump” yet in terms of radioactive contamination of the ocean because of continued leakage from the plant, Buesseler said in an interview before Tuesday’s talk. He was chief scientist for the cruise that collected the data.

The ship sampled water from about 20 miles to about 400 miles off the coast east of the Fukushima plant. Concentrations of cesium-137 throughout that range were 10 to 1,000 times normal, but they were about one-tenth the levels generally considered harmful, Buesseler said.

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More locations around Scotland have recorded very low levels of radioactive iodine believed to be from Fukushima nuclear plant in Japan.

The chemical was detected in air samples in Lerwick in Shetland and in grass samples near Dounreay in Caithness.

The Scottish Environment Protection Agency (Sepa) said it also appeared to have been detected in East Kilbride.

Sepa said the levels detected did not pose any threat to health.

The Fukushima nuclear plant was crippled after being hit by a tsunami in the aftermath of a huge earthquake on 11 March.

Radiation leaks were recorded following subsequent explosions and fires.

On Tuesday, Sepa said it had been informed that an air sampler in Glasgow, almost 6,000 miles from Japan, had recorded the presence of radioactive iodine.

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SAN FRANCISCO – Growing concern by Americans over exposure from damaged nuclear plants in Japan has prompted officials to deploy more radiation monitors in the western United States and Pacific territories, federal environmental regulators say. Officials with the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission said they do not expect harmful radiation levels to reach anywhere in the U.S. from Japan. “The agency decided out of an abundance of caution to send these deployable monitors in order to get some monitors on the ground closer to Japan,” Jonathan Edwards, director of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s radiation protection division, said this week. (via AP)

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