Sythe’s Inspector device is featured in the video, which led some to believe that radioactive material from the Fukushima Daiichi reactor meltdown in Japan was now hitting the West Coast. Sythe also specializes in radiation detection and public safety. He was so concerned about the video that he asked his friend Steve Weiss, an electrical engineer from the Coastside, to mail some Half Moon Bay sand to his Sebastopol home to “personally test a sample of sand from the beach, and I am convinced there is no link to Fukushima,” he said.
He found that the radioactive areas of the beach seem to be associated with dark sand below the high tide level.
“The levels detected are about five to 10 times what you would normally expect to find on a beach," he said. "But if the sand were contaminated by radiation from Fukushima it would show Cesium-137 a product of nuclear fission which is reported to be the major health concern in Fukushima."
What Sythe found on Surfer's Beach was not this. He got radium and thorium, which are naturally occurring radioactive elements, he said. The radiation level is elevated, but roughly equivalent to some granite counter top material from Brazil. He documented his findings in a blog post on the Geiger Counter Bulletin here.
Whether this material is naturally occurring at this beach or not remains a question, said Sythe. “There are reports that a pipeline was once at this location and oil pipelines can collect heavy radioactive minerals.”
He believes the beach is safe but would err on the side of caution with young children and babies "to make sure they don't inhale or eat the sand," said Sythe, who describes himself as conservative when it comes to dealing with controversial issues regarding radiation health and safety and prefers a more "precautionary approach," he said.
