http://www.doh.wa.gov/Topics/japan2011.htm

Radiation measuring devices are incredibly sensitive. They can detect changes that are barely there. Even if the background radiation level increases several hundred percent above normal, it's only equivalent to about what you get from using CFL instead of incandescent lamps in your home, and we all know how environmentally friendly CFL lamps are...

The real news from Fukushima is that even with everything possible going wrong, nobody has died as a result of the damage to the reactor. Dozens of people are killed every year installing wind turbines and mining coal. Imagine what would happen if Grand Coulee Dam collapsed. In the grand scheme of things, nuclear power is notable for its safety.

Here is a good source of daily air monitoring data by the EPA in your area:

http://www.epa.gov/radiation/rert/radnet-seattle-bg.html

Also here:

http://www.doh.wa.gov/Topics/japan/monitor.htm

This may put things in perspective for you:

"Today, EPA released its latest RadNet results, which include the first results for drinking water. Drinking water samples from two locations, Boise, Idaho and Richland, Washington, showed trace amounts of Iodine-131 – about 0.2 picocuries per liter in each case. An infant would have to drink almost 7,000 liters of this water to receive a radiation dose equivalent to a day’s worth of the natural background radiation exposure we experience continuously from natural sources of radioactivity in our environment."

http://yosemite.epa.gov/opa/admpress.nsf/d0cf6618525a9efb85257359003fb69d/f118f3b38ec3748d8525786900020035!OpenDocument

We have no idea whether anyone in the area of the damaged nuclear reactors has died as a result of being exposed to the results of that damage. Neither the Japanese government nor the private operator of the plant is giving us any information on illness or deaths.

In the grand scheme of things, DBreneman, nuclear reactors which are operated by fallible human beings and are affected by natural disasters are an incredibly dangerous method of providing power. Comparing them to wind turbines is asinine.

Here's an article from the NYT about the fact that Japan--probably the highest-tech nation in the world--used unskilled, poorly-paid contractors at its nuclear power plants. So much for nuclear power plant safety.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/10/world/asia/10workers.html?_r=1

And yet, so far no one has died. The technology is essentially safe.