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Radioactive cesium was detected in the brown rice in the preliminary testing. Total 52 becquerels/kg of radioactive cesium was found, with 23 becquerels/kg of cesium-134 and 29 becquerels/kg of cesium-137. The amount was far below the national provisional safety limit (500 becquerels/kg total radioactive cesium).

Next to detect cesium in rice was Chiba.

According to the division for safe agriculture promotion in Chiba prefectural government, the brown rice taken at two locations within Shirai City on August 22 was tested. From one location, 47 becquerels/kg of radioactive cesium was detected, with cesium 134 22 becquerels/kg and cesium-137 25 becquerels/kg. The prefectural government plans to conduct the full survey on the brown rice after the harvest by the end of August, and if the rice tests under the provisional safety limit it will be allowed to be shipped.But in Fukushima, hardly any radioactive cesium was detected in the early harvest rice.

Chiba Prefecture announced on August 25 that 47 becquerels/kg of radioactive cesium was found in the mochi-rice (glutinous rice) grown in Shirai City in Chiba Prefecture in the preliminary test before the harvest to survey the effect of radioactive materials from the Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant accident. The amount of radioactive cesium was far below the national provisional safety limit (500 becquerels/kg). It is the second case of radioactive cesium detection in the country, the first one being in Hokota City in Ibaraki Prefecture.

From Mainichi Shinbun (8/26/2011):

From Yomiuri Shinbun (8/26/2011):

Fukushima Prefecture announced on August 26 the test results of the early-harvest rice harvested in a location in Nihonmatsu City, two locations in Motomiya City, and one location in Koriyama City.

From the location in Nihonmatsu City, 22 becquerels/kg of radioactive cesium was found. No radioactive cesium was detected in all the other locations. Based on the results, the prefectural government has allowed the rice harvested in these locations, except for one in Motomiya City, to be shipped. It will be the first shipment of rice from Fukushima after the Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant accident.

According to Fukushima Prefecture, two types of early-harvest rice harvested on August 25 and 26 were tested. When the rice in the Nihonmatsu City location was milled, no radioactive materials were detected. As to the location in Motomiya City (Arai-mura), the testing was done on all rice fields. If the results show the level of radioactive cesium is less than the provisional safety limit, the rice will be allowed to be shipped.

These cities are located in "Naka-dori" (middle third) of Fukushima Prefecture where highly radioactive rice hay has been found. 500,000 becquerels/kg of cesium was found in rice hay in Koriyama City, and in Motomiya City, 57 kilometers west of Fukushima I Nuke Plant, the number was even higher at 690,000 becquerels/kg. For your reference, Fukushima's radioactive cesium detection limit, according to the prefecture: 10 becquerels/kg

Radioactive cesium (cesium-137) in rice in Fukushima before the accident: ND to 0.14 becquerels/kg, after milling Radioactive cesium (cesium-137) in rice in Chiba before the accident: ND, after milling

Radioactive cesium (cesium-137) in rice in Ibaraki before the accident: ND to 0.045 becquerel/kg, after milling (source data for radioactive cesium in rice in Fukushima, Chiba, Ibaraki from Japan Chemical Analysis Center, from 2000 to 2009)

CPS didn’t just pull nukes out of a hat when it went looking for energy options. CEO Milton Lee may be intellectually lazy, but he’s not stupid. Seeking to fulfill the cheap power mandate in San Antonio and beyond (CPS territory covers 1,566 square miles, reaching past Bexar County into Atascosa, Bandera, Comal, Guadalupe, Kendall, Medina, and Wilson counties), staff laid natural gas, coal, renewables and conservation, and nuclear side-by-side and proclaimed nukes triumphant. Coal is cheap upfront, but it’s helplessly foul; natural gas, approaching the price of whiskey, is out; and green solutions just aren’t ready, we’re told. The 42-member Nuclear Expansion Analysis Team, or NEAT, proclaimed “nuclear is the lowest overall risk considering possible costs and risks associated with it as compared to the alternatives.” Hear those crickets chirping?

NEAT members would hold more than a half-dozen closed-door meetings before the San Antonio City Council got a private briefing in September. When the CPS board assembled October 1 to vote the NRG partnership up or down, CPS executives had already joined the application pending with the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. A Supplemental Participation Agreement allowed NRG to move quickly in hopes of cashing in on federal incentives while giving San Antonio time to gather its thoughts. That proved not too difficult. Staff spoke of “overwhelming support” from the Citizen’s Advisory Board and easy relations with City staff. “So far, we haven’t seen any fatal flaws in our analysis,” said Mike Kotera, executive vice president of energy development for CPS. With boardmember and Mayor Phil Hardberger still in China inspecting things presumably Chinese, the vote was reset for October 29.

No one at the meeting asked about cost, though the board did request a month-by-month analysis of the fiasco that has been the South Texas Project 1&2 to be delivered at Monday’s meeting. When asked privately about cost, several CPS officers said they did not know what the plants would run, and the figure — if it were known — would not be public since it is the subject of contract negotiations. “We don’t know yet,” said Bob McCullough, director of CPS’s corporate communications. “We are not making the commitment to build the plant. We’re not sure at this point we really understand what it’s going to cost.” The $206 million outlay the board will consider on Monday is not to build the pair of 1,300-megawatt, Westinghouse Advanced Boiling Water Reactors. It is also not a contract to purchase power, McCullough said. It is merely to hold a place in line for that power.

It’s likely that we would come on a recurring basis back to the board to keep them apprised of where we are and also the decision of whether or not we think it makes sense for us to go forward,” said Larry Blaylock, director of CPS’s Nuclear Oversight & Development. So, at what point will the total cost of the new plants become transparent to taxpayers? CPS doesn’t have that answer. “At this point, it looks like in order to meet our load growth, nuclear looks like our lowest-risk choice and we think it’s worth spending some money to make sure we hold that place in line,” said Mark Werner, director of Energy Market Operations.

Another $10 million request for “other new nuclear project opportunities” will also come to the board Monday. That request summons to mind a March meeting between CPS officials and Exelon Energy reps, followed by a Spurs playoff game. Chicago-based Exelon, currently being sued in Illinois for allegedly releasing millions of gallons of radioactive wastewater beneath an Illinois plant, has its own nuclear ambitions for Texas. South Texas Project The White House champions nuclear, and strong tax breaks and subsidies await those early applicants. Whether CPS qualifies for those millions remains to be seen. We can only hope.

CPS has opted for the Super Honkin’ Utility model. Not only that — quivering on the brink of what could be a substantial efficiency program, CPS took a leap into our unflattering past when it announced it hopes to double our nuclear “portfolio” by building two new nuke plants in Matagorda County. The utility joined New Jersey-based NRG Energy in a permit application that could fracture an almost 30-year moratorium on nuclear power plant creation in the U.S.

After Unit 1 came online in 1988, it had to be shut down after water-pump shaft seared off in May, showering debris “all over the place,” according to Nucleonics Week. The next month two breakers failed during a test of backup power, leading to an explosion that sheared off a steam-generator pump and shot the shaft into the station yard. After the second unit went online the next year, there were a series of fires and failures leading to a half-million-dollar federal fine in 1993 against Houston Power. Then the plant went offline for 14 months. Not the glorious launch the partnership had hoped for. Today, CPS officials still do not know how much STP has cost the city, though they insist overall it has been a boon worth billions. “It’s not a cut-and-dried analysis. We’re doing what we can to try to put that in terms that someone could share and that’s a chore,” said spokesman McCollough. CPS has appealed numerous Open Records requests by the Current to the state Attorney General. The utility argues that despite being owned by the City they are not required to reveal, for instance, how much it may cost to build a plant or even how much pollution a plant generates, since the electricity market is a competitive field.

How do we usher in this new utopia of decentralized power? First, we have to kill CPS and bury it — or the model it is run on, anyway. What we resurrect in its place must have sustainability as its cornerstone, meaning that the efficiency standards the City and the utility have been reaching for must be rapidly eclipsed. Not only are new plants not the solution, they actively misdirect needed dollars away from the answer. Whether we commit $500 million to build a new-fangled “clean-coal” power plant or choose to feed multiple billions into a nuclear quagmire, we’re eliminating the most plausible option we have: rapid decentralization.

A 2003 study at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology estimates the cost of nuclear power to exceed that of both coal and natural gas. A U.S. Energy Information Administration report last year found that will still be the case when and if new plants come online in the next decade. If ratepayers don’t pay going in with nuclear, they can bet on paying on the way out, when virtually the entire power plant must be disposed of as costly radioactive waste. The federal government’s inability to develop a repository for the tens of thousands of tons of nuclear waste means reactors across the country are storing spent fuel in onsite holding ponds. It is unclear if the waste’s lethality and tens of thousands of years of radioactivity were factored into NEAT’s glowing analysis.

The federal dump choice, Nevada’s Yucca Mountain, is expected to cost taxpayers more than $60 billion. If it opens, Yucca will be full by the time STP 3&4 are finished, requiring another federal dump and another trainload of greenbacks. Just the cost of Yucca’s fence would set you back. Add the price of replacing a chain-link fence around, let’s say, a 100-acre waste site. Now figure you’re gonna do that every 50 years for 10,000 years or more. Security guards cost extra. That is not to say that the city should skip back to the coal mine. Thankfully, we don’t need nukes or coal, according to the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy, a D.C.-based non-profit that champions energy efficiency. A collection of reports released this year argue that a combination of ramped-up efficiency programs, construction of numerous “combined heat and power” facilities, and installation of on-site renewable energy resources would allow the state to avoid building new power plants. Texas could save $73 billion in electric generation costs by spending $50 billion between now and 2023 on such programs, according to the research group. The group also claims the efficiency revolution would even be good for the economy, creating 38,300 jobs. If ACEEE is even mostly right, plans to start siphoning millions into a nuclear reservoir look none too inspired.

To jump tracks will take a major conversion experience inside CPS and City Hall, a turning from the traditional model of towering plants, reels of transmission line, and jillions of dependent consumers. CPS must “decentralize” itself, as cities as close as Austin and as far away as Seattle are doing. It’s not only economically responsible and environmentally sound, but it is the best way to protect our communities entering what is sure to be a harrowing century. Greening CPS CPS is grudgingly going greener. In 2004, a team of consultants, including Wisconsin-based KEMA Inc., hired to review CPS operations pegged the utility as a “a company in transition.” Executives interviewed didn’t understand efficiency as a business model. Even some managers tapped to implement conservation programs said such programs were about “appearing” concerned, according to KEMA’s findings.

While the review exposed some philosophical shortcomings, it also revealed for the first time how efficiency could transform San Antonio. It was technically possible, for instance, for CPS to cut electricity demand by 1,935 megawatts in 10 years through efficiency alone. While that would be accompanied with significant economic strain, a less-stressful scenario could still cut 1,220 megawatts in that period — eliminating 36 percent of 2014’s projected energy use. CPS’s current plans call for investing $96 million to achieve a 225-megawatt reduction by 2016. The utility plans to spend more than four times that much by 2012 upgrading pollution controls at the coal-fired J.T. Deely power plant.

In hopes of avoiding the construction of Spruce 2 (now being built, a marvel of cleanliness, we are assured), Citizen Oversight Committee members asked KEMA if it were possible to eliminate 500 megawatts from future demand through energy efficiency alone. KEMA reported back that, yes, indeed it was possible, but would represent an “extreme” operation and may have “unintended consequences.” Such an effort would require $620 million and include covering 90 percent of the cost of efficiency products for customers. But an interesting thing happens under such a model — the savings don’t end in 2012. They stretch on into the future. The 504 megawatts that never had to be generated in 2012 end up saving 62 new megawatts of generation in 2013 and another 53 megawatts in 2014. With a few tweaks on the efficiency model, not only can we avoid new plants, but a metaphorical flip of the switch can turn the entire city into one great big decentralized power generator.

Even without good financial data, the Citizen’s Advisory Board has gone along with the plan for expansion. The board would be “pennywise and pound foolish” not to, since the city is already tied to STP 1&2, said at-large member Jeannie O’Sullivan. “Yes, in the past the board of CPS had been a little bit not as for taking on a [greater] percentage of nuclear power. I don’t know what their reasons were, I think probably they didn’t have a dialogue with a lot of different people,” O’Sullivan said.

For this, having a City-owned utility offers an amazing opportunity and gives us the flexibility to make most of the needed changes without state or federal backing. “Really, when you start looking, there is a lot more you can do at the local level,” said Neil Elliott of the ACEEE, “because you control building codes. You control zoning. You can control siting. You can make stuff happen at the local level that the state really doesn’t have that much control of.” One of the most empowering options for homeowners is homemade energy provided by a technology like solar. While CPS has expanded into the solar incentives field this year, making it only the second utility in the state to offer rebates on solar water heaters and rooftop panels, the incentives for those programs are limited. Likewise, the $400,000 CPS is investing at the Pearl Brewery in a joint solar “project” is nice as a white tiger at a truck stop, but what is truly needed is to heavily subsidize solar across the city to help kickstart a viable solar industry in the state. The tools of energy generation, as well as the efficient use of that energy, must be spread among the home and business owners.

Joel Serface, with bulb-polished pate and heavy gaze, refers to himself as a “product of the oil shock” who first discovered renewables at Texas Tech’s summer “geek camp.” The possibilities stayed with him through his days as a venture capitalist in Silicon Valley and eventually led him to Austin to head the nation’s first clean-energy incubation center. Serface made his pitch at a recent Solar San Antonio breakfast by contrasting Texas with those sun-worshipping Californians. Energy prices, he says, are “going up. They’re not going down again.” That fact makes alternative energies like solar, just starting to crack the 10-cent-per-killowatt barrier, financially viable. “The question we have to solve as an economy is, ‘Do we want to be a leader in that, or do we want to allow other countries [to outpace us] and buy this back from them?’” he asked.

To remain an energy leader, Texas must rapidly exploit solar. Already, we are fourth down the list when it comes not only to solar generation, but also patents issued and federal research awards. Not surprisingly, California is kicking silicon dust in our face.

The PM assistant and the current Minister in charge of the nuclear accident at Fukushima I Nuke Plant Goshi Hosono is going to announce the abolition of the "emergency evacuation-ready zone", because "the 1st step in TEPCO's "roadmap" has been mostly successfully implemented".

Fukushima Prefecture has announced it will shut down the official shelters within Fukushima, which will force the evacuees to go back to their own homes.

Minami-Soma City has issued a notice to all 32,000 city residents who have been living in the shelters, temporary housing outside Fukushima Prefecture that they must return to Minami-Soma, high radiation or not. (Mainichi Yamagata version, 7/12/2011)

The national government will spend 100 billion yen (US$1.26 billion) to observe the health of 2 million Fukushima residents for 30 years, instead of evacuating them ASAP. About 1600 yen (US$20) per year per resident. Life is cheap. Since the national government is utterly broke, it will be ultimately paid for by the taxpayers of Japan.Remember, Dr. Shunichi Yamashita will be the vice president of the Fukushima Medical University who will do the observation and research.

Matsudo City in Chiba Prefecture found 47,400 becquerels/kg of radioactive cesium in the ashes from the city's garbage incinerator, but the city simply mixed with other ashes with low radiation to bring the final number to 5,660 becquerels/kg. Since the final mixed ashes measured LOWER than the provisional limit for burying the ashes (8,000 becquerels/kg), the city already buried the ashes and will continue to do so. (Mainichi Chiba version, 7/13/2011)

On the other hand, Nagareyama City in Chiba Prefecture simply sent 30 tonnes of its radioactive ashes (27,000 becquerels/kg) from its incinerator by cargo train to Odate City in Akita Prefecture in Tohoku. Nagareyama City has a contract with a private waste disposal company in Odate City in Akita. This waste disposal company is not a nuclear waste disposal company; as far as I could tell from the description of the company, it is just a regular waste disposal company. (Sponichi, 7/12/2011)

By the way, Matsudo City in Chiba is simply doing what the Ministry of the Environment has decided - mix and match. If the garbage or debris is likely to exceed the 8,000 becquerels/kg limit, burn with other stuff and lower the number. If it's already in ashes, mix them up with lower radiation ashes. When the Ministry of the Environment decided this policy, the Minister was Ryu Matsumoto, who's now in hospital after resigning from his post as the Minister of Recovery and Reconstruction.

The city plans to decontaminate the entire 110,000 households in the city. Onami District is the first to be decontaminated, and the contractors hired by the city have been working since mid October. However, the city felt it was difficult to proceed only with the government effort, and decided to call for volunteers.

Today, 110 volunteers that applied for the work and the area residents participated. They would do the work in the locations with relatively low radiation. After fitted with gloves, masks and personal survey meters, they went to the private residences or public meeting halls whose roofs and walls had been already washed by the contractors with pressure washers. They collected dead leaves, removed weeds, and put in new soil where the surface of the soil had been removed.

Volunteers came from from all over Japan including the Tokyo Metropolitan area, Hokkaido, Gifu Prefecture, and Osaka. Rie Koike (age 36) came from Kawaguchi City in Saitama Prefecture with her colleagues at work. She said, "The residents are in a different situation not of their making. I wanted to help them in any way I could."From what I see in the photo, this "decon" looks no different from the one I posted on October 26, calling the house and yard cleaning "decontamination". The difference is that there are radioactive materials in the soil, on the stones, on the house, everywhere, which the flimsy masks and work gloves do not block.

But the volunteers can feel good about themselves for their hard work, the residents can feel as if they've reduced the radiation, and the city and the prefecture and the national government save a good chunk of money. Win-win for everyone.I personally think it is unconscionable for the city to call for volunteers who are in no way trained in any kind of proper decontamination technique (if there is such a thing, that is). And to have a woman in the child-bearing age , like the one Yomiuri interviewed, do the work like this is totally beyond me.

The Co-op page says "We're looking for more decontamination volunteers."Also from July, in a different district of Date City:

Date City is where a researcher claims to have found a large amount of neptunium-239 of Fukushima I Nuke Plant origin. In nearby Fukushima City, Greenpeace researchers found cobalt-60 in soil in a park.They don't look too worried in the videos.(Oh I forgot. The Oxford professor has said max 100 millisieverts per month radiation is safe...)

According to the Fukushima prefectural government, the cattle farms were located in Koriyama City (2 farms), Kitakata City (2 farms) and Soma City (1 farm). The rice hay from one farm in Koriyama City tested 500,000 becquerels/kg of radioactive cesium. In the farm in Soma City, the hay had 123,000 becquerels/kg cesium, and in Kitakata, 39,000 becquerels/kg.These cities are much further away from Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant than Minami-Soma City, where the first case of radioactive beef was traced back.Distance and direction from Fukushima I Nuke Plant:Koriyama City: 60 kilometers, westKitakata City: 105 kilometers, west by northwestSoma City: 43 kilometers, northIf the rice hay left on the rice fields accumulated that much radioactivity, particularly in Koriyama, it is definitely not fit for humans to remain. Not to mention the rice field is not fit for growing rice, though it is far too late, as the rice fields in Tohoku are already long planted.

Today, about 50 parents and the city officials visited the local JA, where the JA officials explained the testing procedures.

JA will test both brown rice and polished rice before shipping, for radioactive materials.

Also, other municipalities in Fukushima Prefecture will switch to the new crop of rice starting next month. They are currently deciding on whose rice to use. Pressure is of course on to use the rice harvested in Fukushima, which even some rice farmers wouldn't feed their family members with (see my post here, bottom third).

For consumers outside Fukushima Prefecture, there is no way of telling whether a bag of new rice contains Fukushima rice, if it is a bag of "blended" rice. There is no requirement to list the places of origin if the rice from different locations are blended. All the label will say is "made in Japan".Convenience store "bento" and "onigiri" is very likely to feature rice from Fukushima. Some stores at least prominently declare that they use Fukushima rice.

While consumers can still avoid, if they want to, Fukushima rice by avoiding "blended" rice and avoiding buying bento at convenience stores, school children cannot.A nation is utterly broken when the leaders think nothing of using children as propaganda tools, and excoriate those citizens who dare raise their voices. It's not just Fukushima Prefecture either.No end in sight of Japanese nuclear horror.

The mayor, who fed 80,000 elementary school children in the city with radioactive beef, then went to an APEC's women's meeting in San Francisco and appealed Yokohama. (As what?) And she wants her official residence renovated by city's taxpayers' money.

I heard it directly from a university researcher whose specialty is radiation measurement. Neptunium, the nuclide that decays into plutonium, flew at least to Iitate-mura and Date City in large quantity. The current survey method focuses only on gamma ray, and all it detects is radioactive cesium. The real danger is alpha-nuclides, which continues to be ignored. Iitate-mura may be being betrayed again..."The article by the comedian cum independent journalist couple continues and says this person attended a lecture given by this researcher.

It still doesn't make sense to me that the information already freely given at a public lecture has to be withheld because of the peer-review process, but oh well.Date City by the way has been selected by the national government to conduct "decontamination" experiments. So is Iitate-mura. They are using high-pressure spray washers to blast roofs, sidings and roads, and digging up the soil. Plutonium? What plutonium?Unlike Iitate-mura, though, almost all residents in Date City still live within the city. Even those who are ordered to move because of high radiation level in their homes have moved to temporary housing that the city has provided, within the city.

There should be more than 3 rice farmers in each town/village, and the farmers have more than one rice paddy.My second suspicion: Why don't they incinerate the samples to really measure below a decimal point, if they do care about safety for the consumers?

before the Fukushima accident, the highest density of radioactive cesium from Fukushima rice (white rice though, not brown rice) was 0.629 becquerels/kg back in 1977, from rice grown in Fukushima City. (data: Japan Chemical Analysis Center)My third suspicion: How did the prefecture test the samples?

Were the samples given to them by the farmers, or did the officials go to the locations and took the samples from the field?Saitama Prefecture was busted this time for trying to do the former to test the tea, like it always does when testing the safety of food. The prefecture announced the intention to test the tea, and the tea farmers were to submit the samples by a given date.There seems to be hardly any public organization in Japan that sides with the consumers.

The testing of harvested rice was completed on October 12 with Nihonmatsu City, and as rice from all districts tested lower than the national provisional safety limit the shipment of rice is allowed in all 48 municipalities that planted rice this year.

Rice from 1,174 locations were tested, in 82% of those locations or 964 locations no radioactive materials were detected. Only one location tested more than 200 becquerels/kg of radioactive materials [cesium].

Therefore, Fukushima Prefecture considers the rice grown in Fukushima is safe. The prefectural government is planning to send the governor and other city officials to the Tokyo metropolitan area to appeal to consumers and to call for increased use of Fukushima rice in restaurants and school lunches in order to counter the "baseless rumors".The NHK article has an accompanying news clip, where you get to see how the "testing" was done at the Fukushima prefectural government. A government worker is waving a scintillation meter over a plastic bag that contains a small amount of brown rice. He spends about 2 seconds at most for each bag.

If you recall, waving a scintillation meter over the meat cow was how they were testing the meat for radiation at first. We know how that ended up.　In the "main" test after the rice harvest, they tested 2 samples per district (villages and towns before they were incorporated into nearby large cities), except for one district in Shirakawa City where 500 becquerels/kg of cesium was detected in the preliminary test. There, if the testing was done according to what the Fukushima prefectural government had announced, samples from two locations per 15 hectares in the district were measured.

But good luck persuading the consumers who refuse to buy Fukushima rice, when a rice farmer in Fukushima is not sending his crop this year to his family members and relatives because of radioactive cesium, no matter how it is "below the safety limit". According to Asahi Shinbun (10/13/2011),

A man, aged 69, grows "Koshihikari" brand rice in Mizuhara district in Fukushima City where 104 becquerels/kg [of radioactive cesium] was detected in the "main" testing. He said, "I have no choice but to tell my grandchild who lives far away to buy rice somewhere else".

He always sends a year supply of rice to his second daughter's family who lives in Sapporo City. He also sends rice to relatives and acquaintances in Fukushima City. But this year, it will be difficult to do so [he probably won't send the rice this year].

Hokiaido

Akita

Yamagata

Gunma

Saitama

Tokyo

Kanagawa

Toyama

Ishikawa

Yamanashi

Shizuoka

Aichi

He also said that spraying water with high-pressure washers hardly work at all on concrete and asphalt surfaces, as radioactive cesium is now deeply embedded in the concretes and asphalt. The only way to decontaminate concrete and asphalt, the professor said, was to physically remove all concrete structures - houses, fences, pavement, etc., which he said would destroy the neighborhood. He is of the opinion that all the residents in the district should be evacuated first, with the government paying for the cost, and the experts should get to work to truly "decontaminate".Professor Yamauchi also wryly observed the the word for "decontamination" in Japanese, 除染 (jo-sen), is misleading. Looking at the characters for the word, it does mean "removing the contamination". So by doing the "jo-sen" work people think they are removing the contamination, when all they may achieve is to reduce the level of contamination somewhat (not much, if Watari District is any indication). He even said it was as if the government was encouraging "decontamination" so as not to evacuate people.

Or in the case of Minami Soma City, it is as if the residents in contaminated areas could feel comfortable enough to remain there by doing the "decontamination" work, as one volunteer related in the US ABC News interview in August. "If this radiation is going to stick around here for five to 10 years, we have to learn to live with it,"she said, instead of moving away from the high radiation area. For her, shoveling dirt from the kindergarten playground was a way to live with "it".17,000 people live in Watari District, with beautiful mountains and water. It is dubbed "hidden paradise" in Fukushima City for the scenery like this