WHOI Erases Fukushima Pacific Contamination Data

**Update and additional information added at the end of the post**

The Woods Hole “Our Radioactive Ocean” project has erased years of Fukushima Pacific contamination data from their website. The website originally contained data from their 2011 monitoring voyage and data for each year up to 2015. As of today the website only contains data for 2013-2014 with some of the 2013 data near Hawaii now missing.

Since we have been following the ongoing monitoring done by various groups on the Pacific, our article archive provides a documentable paper trail of what used to be there and what work has been done in the past.

Our article from March 2013 when Woods Hole announced the program included a temporary web address for the monitoring program that was later replaced by the official OurRadioactiveOceans.org. This old address still contains all the data from 2011-2015 but the public would not be directed to this page and would only be found if you had the same old link as on our 2013 article.

This is the 2013 map off of the OurRadioactiveOcean.org website captured today:
 

This map captured today from the obscure now unused for public engagement,  WHOI address:

The 2013 map off of the WHOI old address shows a large number of 2013 data points. The public facing OurRadioactiveOcean.org shows three data points that do not show on the old map. Please note that this version of their data map also shows the existence of 2011 and 2012 data as seen in the upper right. There are a large number of 2011-2012 tests on the WHOI address that are no longer on the site given to the public. Selecting “all years” on the current public facing website does not bring up the 2011-2012 or missing 2013 data.

In looking at both websites, selecting “all years” on both sites resulted in these two maps below. The first being from WHOI’s old site:
Map below from OurRadioactiveOceans.org (both maps pulled today):

Whatever the reason for removing data on the public website, that data is no longer available to the public. Unless someone happened to have the old Woods Hole address they would not know of the older reporting data. This older data is important for both historical understanding of the disaster, and context for newer testing results.

**EDIT** This article from 2014 cites both the newer OurRadioactiveOcean.org website AND the 2012 data residing there.

**UPDATE** Two other unrelated websites house screen shots of the OurRadioactiveOcean.org site, both taken in 2014 that show the 2011-2012 data was on the site.

1. Deep Sea News
http://www.deepseanews.com/2014/01/first-results-from-crowdfunded-study-shows-radioactive-seawater-from-fukushima-has-not-reached-the-us-coast/
Screenshot of Deep Sea News including the URL showing their screenshot of OurRadioactiveOcean.org taken in January of 2014 that shows the 2011-2013 data was previously included on the website.
 Image from the Deep Sea News screenshot for easier viewing of the years available in the top right corner. Both images should open larger in a new tab for improved inspection.

2. Orgo-Net
http://orgo-net.blogspot.com/2014_04_01_archive.html
3/4 down the page or word search for the title  Jak radioaktivní je Tichý oceán?
Image from the Orgo-Net website screencaptured from OurRadioactiveOcean.org in 2014
Again, the current version of OurRadioactiveOcean.org screen captured November 9, 2015 below for comparison. 2011 and 2012 are now missing.

This article would not be possible without the extensive efforts of the SimplyInfo research team
Join the conversation at chat.simplyinfo.org

© 2011-2023 SimplyInfo.org, Fukuleaks.org All Rights Reserved Content cited, quoted etc. from other sources is under the respective rights of that content owner. If you are viewing this page on any website other than http://www.simplyinfo.org (or http://www.fukuleaks.org) it may be plagiarized, please let us know. If you wish to reproduce any of our content in full or in more than a phrase or quote, please contact us first to obtain permission.