that s today. there is no appearance that this is going to let up any time soon i know they are trying to do their best to contain this, but the longer this is put out into the atmosphere and the water, anywhere, might this get worse to a point where we have to be worried about the amounts of radiation? you have to understand what the actual levels that are being exposed to the population. with regard to radioactive iodine, it has a half life of only eight days. within about two months, all the radioactive iodine will be gone. that will no longer be a concern. the levels and even the tiny amounts measured today will be much smaller when they are measured tomorrow. i should mention the levels detected in the milk were 5,000 times below the standards that our food and drug administration
this fukushima nuclear power plant in japan. highly radioactive water is leaking from that plant right into the ocean. let s go to lee cowen who is in tokyo for us. the updates on that? that leak, there s no shutting it off at this point, right? well, they re going to try to, alex. they re going to try to patch it with concrete. what we re talking about here is we ve mentioned a lot about the water that s pooling in some of the turbine buildings and then there s underground tunnels that are starting to fill with water that s highly radioactive. now they ve found a separate container. they re calling it a pit. it looks like an an access panel. that had about a foot of also highly radioactive material. but there was a crack in the side of the concrete in the wall and that allowed that water to seep out into the ocean. they think that may be at least one of the sources if not the only source of why we ve seen those levels spike along the coastline in terms of the radiation levels in the
concern. they think if they can seal that up with concrete, that will stop at least one of the leaks. the problem is, they don t know where it s all coming from in the first place. so they have to figure out why all this water is coming from, patch that part, and that will solve a host of other problems. they can t get any of those workers into the key parts of the plants to do the major work in keeping those raeshths cool. they re in the process of pumping it out, but the problem is, it seems to be regenerating as they pour more water on to the reactors to keep it cool. once they find the source of it, a lot of things are going to change relatively quickly. the japanese prime minister is for the first time get ago look at all the devastation from the earthquake and the tsunami. what has been the reaction to that? well, i think a lot of people were hoping he might have taken it a little bit sooner. it s been three weeks before he s actually gotten on the ground to see some of these
non-contaminated fish down the road? that s right and certainly any fish that would be very close to the reactor plants could ingest some quantities of radioactive elements and that s true. that would have to be monitored closely. the water is just dilution as it spreads out over the thousands and thousands of miles. with the churning as you say and normal process of dispersion within the water would reduce the levels further and further away from the coast line how concerns are you that there is an increase in radioactive material detected in u.s. milk? i m not concerned at all. these levels are incredibly low. we have such sensitive detectors in the united states that we can detect tiny quantities of radio activity. here s the problem.
the news that this water is leaking into the pacific of the fukushima plant. how troubled are you by this and what are the problems this can pose? the concern would be for the workers themselves who are experiencing very high levels of radiation exposure. the big concern would be for the workers having to contain that contaminated water and exposing themselves to relatively high levels. when the water gets into the ocean, it s diluted. the pacific is a large ocean and it s dispursed and diluted. the overall impact would be relatively minor when it s further and further away. how is it that the ocean breaks it up. the churning or the movement. what about the fish and the like? how do you know you will get