The good news is that I was able to run radiation tests on livers, spleens, stomachs and other tissue of Copper River Sockeye salmon caught last night.
Their radiation levels in average millisieverts per minute was nominal. Background radiation in the room in which they were measured was in the high 60s.
The fish tissue itself was at 73 millisieverts per minute, less than my basement, but more than my kitchen, and far lower than the ash pile at the fire pit in our front yard.
The bad news is two-fold. First, the sockeye catch remains fairly low considering the tremendous amount of fish that have entered the river. Secondly, this morning - at about 1:00 am, O'Brien Creek, which was in full spate, cut a new channel to the north of the long-existing one, at the entrance of its estuary below the old railway bridge.
When Kelly and I got to O'Brien Creek last night at about 10:30 pm, we were able to drive onto the Chitina Corporation land at the spit, and down to the new landing for the charter boats. But when we came back in the early morning, the river had left its banks, and was quickly eating away land.
The cleaning trailer maintained by Mark Hem and Sam McAllister had to be moved, lest it be washed into the advancing creek.
