Unalaska, AK – According to a projection by the United Nations released earlier this week, a radioactive plume bound from Japan was scheduled to touch the Aleutian Islands yesterday. But while state and federal officials have been closely monitoring the situation at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, they say that the failure there has not had any impact on Alaska.

"All air monitoring stations are indication background levels," says Jon Edwards, a radiation expert with the Environmental Protection Agency.

The EPA has decided to expand its "RadNet" system, which examines air and drinking water for radiation contamination. While the EPA already had radiation monitors in place in Anchorage, Juneau, and Fairbanks, the agency is setting up new ones in Unalaska and Nome - along with an extra one in Juneau - to cover a greater geographic area across the state. The monitors arrived in Unalaska and Nome yesterday, and they'll be up and running by next week says Bernd Jilly, chief of the Alaska State Public Health Laboratories.

"As of right now, those two new devices are being set up and calibrated," says Jilly. "And it's going to take a while to basically get the bugs worked out."

Greg Wilkinson is a spokesperson for Alaska's Department of Health and Social Services, and he says that the state does not expect those monitors to pick up high levels, since the scenario projected by the U.N. has not actually played out.

"This was a what if' or what might' happen," says Wilkinson. "It hasn't happened. That's not real data. People need to understand that that was a mock-up."

He adds that radiation levels would have to be 40 times higher than usual for there to be any health concern.

In Unalaska, residents have continued on with their daily lives. Public Safety director Jamie Sunderland stressed that community members should be doing exactly that, and avoiding medical precautions that could have adverse side effects.

"Right now there is no threat," says Sunderland. "You don't need to panic and you don't need to be taking iodine."

The EPA will be posting more information about radiation levels in the United States at their website, EPA.gov.