No Fukushima Radiation Showing Up… Yet.

30 July 2014

Coast Radio News
Local News

Private Testing Fails to Find Fukushima Radiation in Oregon

A group testing West Coast waters for radiation from a damaged Japanese nuclear power plant says they have found no evidence of contamination in Oregon waters.

Massive amounts of contaminated water were released from the Fukushima nuclear power plant in Japan after the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami. Scientists say a plume of radiation will likely hit the United States sometime this year, but at very low levels that won’t harm humans or the environment.

But, so far, no federal agency is monitoring it according to a report in the Salem Statesman Journal.

But, there are observations and records being kept.

A chemical oceanographer from the Massachusetts-based Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Ken Buesseler, using ‘crowd sourced’ money and volunteers has been testing samples from locations ranging between the Bering Strait and San Diego.

So far, none of the samples have tested for the radiation. They do, however, show background levels from nuclear testing in the 1950s and 60s.

The Oregon samples were taken in Pacific City by the Tillamook Estuaries Partnership.

DA Says Reedsport Shooting Justified

A Douglas County Grand Jury has determined that the shooting death of a Reedsport resident two weeks ago by police was justified.

71-year old Glenn Glancey exchanged shots with a Reedsport Police officer and a Douglas County Sheriff’s Deputy in the street outside his home in a Reedsport Trailer Park July 17th. He died three days later.

The Douglas County District Attorney announced the Grand Jury decision yesterday. The identities of the officers involved have not been released.

State Wants to Regulate Insurance Care Providers

Oregon insurance regulators are seeking authority to require private health insurers have enough doctors and other health care providers to adequately serve all their customers.

The move comes as a growing number of insurance policies seek to save money by shrinking the number of providers in their networks.

Regulators also say consumers need more transparency when shopping for insurance, including information about which doctors are covered and whether they’re accepting new patients.

The Oregon Insurance Division has created a task force that’s working on a bill for the 2015 Legislature to consider. If lawmakers sign off, the regulators would then decide on specific criteria for measuring compliance.

Gas Price Relief Nationally… But Not in Oregon

Motorists in other parts of the country are beginning to see some relief at the gas pump as prices fell by a nickel a gallon on average nationally. But, says Marie Dodds with Triple-A of Oregon, those in the Pacific Northwest are still paying quite a bit more for regular.

The average cash price for a gallon of gas in Florence held steady this past week at $3.88, while Oregon’s average price slipped by about a penny-and-a-half and is currently at $3.93.

Nationally, drivers are paying on average $3.52 a gallon… down a nickel in the past week, and 18-cents below the 2014 high of two-seventy recorded in April.

Dodds says Oregonians have been seeing regular declines over the past few weeks, but live in one of only four states where the average price is higher than it was last year at this time.