Pentagon Releases Radiation Exposure Estimates for Japan-Based Troops
By
Joseph Marks
Department will expand the website to include Navy ships off the coast.
A Defense Department website launched Wednesday provides estimates of radiation exposure for adults and children at 13 U.S. military bases in mainland Japan following the 2011 explosion at the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant.
The department plans to expand the site by the end of the year to include exposure estimates for U.S. Navy ships off the Japanese coast during the two months following the March 12, 2011, explosion, according to a press release. The site may also include exposure estimates for 8,000 defense personnel and families who had their radiation levels measured in person, the site said.
The site has few bells and whistles -- just a map with icons at the 13 bases that link to nearly uniform PDFs with exposure estimates.
No Defense personnel in Japan are known to have been exposed to radiation levels that produce illness or other negative results, the department said. The Defense Department routinely produces registries when personnel are within range of a major environmental hazard.
The Pentagon said it estimated radiation levels at the 13 sites itself and noted that its measurements generally jibe with more extensive measurements taken by the Japanese government and the World Health Organization.