Fukishima

Fukushima is an enormous problem that's getting bigger.

Nuclear Engineer Dr. Arjun Makhijani, president of the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research, confirmed that ocean currents are carrying the radioactive water to the West Coast.

"There are several hundred tons of radioactive water that are pouring into the ocean at the site every day," Makhijani said.

According to a study published in the Journal Deep Sea Research 1, it will begin arriving this March. But Makhijani says there's no need to panic. The radiation will be diluted, and levels found on the West Coast are very low and not considered dangerous so far. But the question is, will we really know?

"I think we should be doing a better monitoring of food. I don't think the EPA and FDA are doing a good enough job," Makhijani said.

so what do independent estimates say? The first measures come from the U.S. government. The FDA has stepped up its monitoring of radiation in seafood due to the Fukushima incident.

'We are actively watching for information that could implicate U.S. food and are always ready to take further action.'
- FDA spokeswoman Theresa Eisenman

“Since the time FDA began its targeted testing of Japanese imports following the Fukushima incident, FDA has only found one sample of food -- a ginger powder -- that contained detectable levels of cesium, but those levels were far below FDA’s [safety levels] and posed no public health concern,” FDA spokeswoman Theresa Eisenman told FoxNews.com.

“We are actively watching for information that could implicate U.S. food and are always ready to take further action,” she said.

Meanwhile, the EPA keeps track of radiation within U.S. borders and presents the data online in nearly real time through RadNet, a nationwide system of monitors.

“RadNet sample analyses and monitoring results of precipitation, drinking water, and milk provide baseline data on background levels of radiation,” the EPA said in a statement to FoxNews.com.

The agency does not monitor radiation levels at sea, however, and in a statement pointed to the International Atomic Energy Agency, which relies on Japanese government data.

Independent estimates confirm that radiated particles at sea are relatively low. One measurement comes from researchers at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.

“I stood on a ship two miles from the Fukushima reactors in June 2011 and as recently as May 2013, and it was safe to be there (I carry radiation detectors with me),” Ken Buesseler a Senior Scientist at the WHOI, has reported. He also tested radioactivity in the water.

“Although radioactive isotopes in the samples and on the ship were measurable back in our lab, it was low enough to be safe to handle samples without any precautions,” he has said.

In Japan, more than 100 volunteer-run radioactivity testing sites have also started up, which would likely notice a sharp uptick in radioactivity.

Doug Dasher, who studies radioecology at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, said it remains possible that there will be minor effects for people on the U.S. West Coast, despite the low test results.

“No acute effects resulting in mortality or damage to organs … would be expected,” he told FoxNews.com. But he added that more subtle effects might occur.

“Longer term chronic effects, cancer or genetic effects… odds are statistically low, if the concentrations in the models remain within the projections, [but] cannot be said to be zero.”

Additional leakage from Fukushima could increase the odds, he said.

“The estimates [of radiation] vary substantially and do not, at least so far, account for the continued leakage from the Fukushima site to the marine environment,” he said.

Is the whole west coast radioactive?