Kelp off California was contaminated with short-lived radioisotopes a month after Japan’s Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant accident, a sign that the spilled radiation reached the state’s coastline, according to a new scientific study.

Scientists from CSU Long Beach tested giant kelp collected off Orange County, Santa Cruz and other locations after the March 2011 accident and detected radioactive iodine, which was released from the damaged nuclear reactor.

The largest concentration was about 250 times higher than levels found in kelp before the accident.

‘Basically, we saw it in all the California kelp blades we sampled,’ said Steven Manley, a CSU Long Beach biology professor who specializes in kelp.

The radioactivity had no known effects on the giant kelp, or on fish and other marine life, and it was undetectable a month later.

Iodine 131 ‘has an eight-day half-life, so it’s pretty much all gone,’ Manley said. ‘But this shows what happens half a world away does effect what happens here. I don’t think these levels are harmful, but it’s better if we don’t have it at all.’

Spread in large, dense, brown forests across the ocean off California, giant kelp is the largest of all algae and grows faster than virtually any other life on Earth. […]