To read the online papers, like ABC News (here), you'd think the detection of plutonium around the Fukushima reactors indicates a meltdown is suddenly underway, as if nothing has been happening since the quake and tsunami struck on March 11, 17 days ago, and radiation subsequently began to pour out of the facilities.
Yet the reports from Japan are not wholly satisfactory, evidenced by speculation about a direct correlation between the problems at reactor 3 (where plutonium is an ingredient in Mixed OXide fuel) and what has been found in the soil.
Kyodo News likens the amounts detected in the soil to amounts routinely found during the era of atmospheric testing of nuclear weapons before the Test Ban Treaty (here):
[T]he levels confirmed from soil samples taken at the plant on March 21 and 22 were almost the same as those from the fallout detected in Japan following past nuclear tests by the United States and Russia, said the utility known as TEPCO.
And NHK World has perhaps a slightly different angle (here):
[T]he level detected is the same as that found in other parts of Japan and does not pose a threat to human health. ...
The Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency says the detected level is the same as that found in the environment and not health-threatening for workers who conducted the sampling, nor residents in surrounding areas.
The question is whether the plutonium traces found are the normal residue from the era of atmospheric testing, are otherwise normal traces unrelated to that time, or are related to a problem at reactor 3.
Additional testing is said to be underway.
Meanwhile, if it bleeds, it leads.
