FILE - In this Feb. 10, 2016, file photo, members of a media tour group wearing a protective suit and a mask walk together after they receive a briefing from Tokyo Electric Power Co. employees (in blue) in front of storage tanks for radioactive water at the tsunami-crippled Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant in Okuma, Fukushima Prefecture, northeastern Japan. In an AP interview, a chief architect of an ?ice wall? being built into the ground around the broken Fukushima nuclear plant defends the project but acknowledges it won?t be watertight, and as much as 50 tons of radiated water will still accumulate each day. TEPCO, the utility that operates the facility, resorted to the $312 million frozen barrier after it became clear that something had to be done to stem the flow of water into and out of the broken reactors so that they can be dismantled. (Toru Hanai/Pool Photo via AP, File)

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Radiation from the Fukushima disaster in Japan was detected on the shores of Oregon

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December 09, 2016 07:09 PM EST

Radiation in the ocean from the Fukushima nuclear disaster has been detected on Oregon shores, reports CBS News.

Samples from the Tillamook Bay and Gold Beach taken at the beginning of 2016 have now been tested and show that radiation from the disaster have reached the western state, but at extremely low levels that are not harmful to humans or the environment.

A great deal of contaminated water was released when the Fukushima nuclear plant was destroyed after a tsunami hit it in March of 2011 as a result of a 9.0 magnitude earthquake.

These samples are the first time that such radiation has been detected on U.S. shores. They were taken in January and February of 2016 and analyzed later, according to USA Today.

Japan's Nuclear Disaster Explained

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Fukushima nuclear disaster now a financial meltdown too, with cleanup costs soaring past $190 billion. https://t.co/BGGrRFzAEK
— Steve Silberman (@stevesilberman) December 9, 2016

The cleanup in the wake of the disaster has been incredibly expensive.

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