Scientists predict the lake near the Fukushima nuclear accident will be radioactive for 30 years

The 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster will cost hundreds of billions of dollars to clean up when all is said and done, but the environmental cost could be significantly higher, with nearby lakes contaminated for decades, according to a new study. A group of researchers, led by those at the University of Tsukuba, have found that Lake Onuma on Mount Akagi could be contaminated with radioactive cesium-137 (137CS) for roughly 30 years after the disaster. The researchers used the fractional diffusional method and determined that radioactivity concentration will happen for up to 10,000 days following the accident. Just after the nuclear accident, the radioactivity concentration declined sharply, but that decline slows greatly in the months and years that follow. Lake Onuma is a closed lake and has a limited amount of inflow and runoff water. Japan's Lake Onuma could be contaminated with radioactive cesium-137 (137CS) for roughly 30 years after the Fukushima disaster, a new study has found'Previous investigations have used the two-component decay function model, which is the sum of two exponential functions, to fit the measured 137Cs radioactivity concentration,' one of the study's co-authors, Professor Yuko Hatano, said in a statement.