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D'coda Dcoda

Decon Bubble in Fukushima: Contractors Charging US$13,000 Per House [18Oct11] - 0 views

ex-skf.blogspot.com/...-in-fukushima-contractors.html

shared by D'coda Dcoda on 19 Oct 11 - No Cached
  • Yet another fine example of how a government is so good at misallocating the resource. By pledging to pour hundreds of billions of yen (probably in trillions) into "decontaminating" Fukushima, the Japanese government has already spawned a brand-new industry of residential decontamination. Who are the industry participants? Cleaners, painters, just about anyone who has a high-pressure washer.Some are apparently charging 1 million yen (US$13,000) to hose down your house. As you can see in the video in the previous post, their idea of "decontamination" looks little more than year-end cleanup. Power washing seems to somehow turn cleanup into "decontamination".From Yomiuri Shinbun (10/19/2011):
  • As decontamination work gets underway in Fukushima Prefecture to remove radioactive materials from the Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant accident, so do troubles with the decontamination contractors. Some are asking 1 million yen [US$13,000] to decontaminate a house.
  • Disputes over the cost may increase in the future, and there are some who point out that there should be a guideline specifying what constitutes the standard decontamination work and the cost associated with it.
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  • Regarding decontamination, some municipalities like Fukushima City have the city-wide decontamination plan and focus on particular areas to decontaminate. On the other hand, there are cases where the residents hire contractors for decontamination on their own. There are also active sales promotion by the contractors.
  • Disputes mostly rise from the latter cases. The Fukushima prefectural department in charge of decontamination has received a complaint from a resident who was presented with a bill for 1 million yen by the contractor who did the decontamination work for his residence. The department says it has received similar complaints.
  • Fukushima City has received inquiries from the residents about the cost of decontamination. One resident who hired the contractor to decontaminate for 200,000 yen [US$2,600] asked the city whether or not this cost would be paid by either the national government or TEPCO.
  • There were no contractors specialized in decontaminating residences, until now. Many cleaning companies and painters are entering the field. One building management company in Minami Soma City says, "If we calculate the same way as the cleaning of a personal residence, 200,000 to 300,000 yen per residence would be appropriate."Hmmm. Decontamination is not the same as cleaning, really. But from what I've heard directly from people who have witnessed the so-called "decontamination" in Fukushima and what I've seen on video, they are one and the same.
  • Blasting the roof and wall with power washer after more than 7 months may not even be enough to dislodge radioactive cesium, as Professor Yamauchi has analyzed. Even if it does, it simply moves cesium to somewhere else, like the neighbor's yard or onto the public road. Then, particularly in the case of Fukushima, the contaminated mountains and forests surrounding the cities and towns will supply radioactive cesium and other nuclides over time with rain and wind.But no matter. Money is there to be made, as near-endless supply of money flowing from the national government to "decontaminate" Fukushima and make people stay.If blasting with power washer does decontaminate, I am pretty sure Russians, Ukrainians, and Belarusians have done that long time ago.
  • Prime Minister Noda, whom you can see in the video in the previous post, won the leadership election thanks to his oratorical skills and NHK misreporting on the votes available for Banri Kaieda, looks absolutely clueless. Just as his predecessor, the whole thing looks way over his head.
D'coda Dcoda

(Part 3) Professor Tatsuhiko Kodama of Tokyo University Tells the Politicians: "What Ar... - 0 views

ex-skf.blogspot.com/...essor-tatsuhiko-kodama-of.html

shared by D'coda Dcoda on 29 Jul 11 - No Cached
  • Testimony by Professor Tatsuhiko Kodama of Tokyo University continues. He goes back to Minami Soma City where his Radioisotope Center has been helping to decontaminate.We at the Radioisotope Center of Tokyo University have been helping to decontaminate Minami-Soma City, sending about 4 people at a time and doing decontamination work for the length of 700km per week.Again, what's happening to Minami-Soma clearly shows that 20 or 30 kilometer radius [from the nuke plant] doesn't make any sense at all. You have to measure in more detail like measuring each nursery school.
  • Right now, from the 20 to 30 kilometer radius area, 1,700 school children are put on the buses to go to school. Actually in Minami-Soma, the center of the city is located near the ocean, and 70% of the schools have relatively low level of radiation. Yet, children are forced to get on the school buses to go all the way to schools near Iitate-mura [where radiation is higher], spending 1 million yen everyday for the busing.
  • I strongly demand that this situation be terminated as soon as possible.What's most problematic is the government's policy that they will compensate the residents for the moving cost only if their areas are designated as official evacuation zones. In a recent committee held at the House of Councilors [Upper House], President Shimizu of TEPCO and Mr. Kaieda, Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry answered that way. I ask you to separate the two immediately - compensation criteria issue and children's safety issue.
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  • I strongly ask you to do whatever you can to protect the children.Another thing is, what I strongly feel when I'm doing the decontamination work in Fukushima is that emergency decontamination and permanent decontamination should be dealt with separately.
  • We've been doing a lot of emergency decontamination work. For example, if you look at this diagram, you will notice that the bottom of this slide is where small children put their hands on. Every time the rain stream down the slide, more radioactive materials accumulate. There can be a difference in radiation level between the right side and the left side. If such difference occurs and if the average radiation of the slide is 1 microsievert, then one side can measure as high as 10 microsieverts. We should do more emergency decontamination work in such places.
  • The ground right under the roof gutter is also where children frequently put their hands on. If you use high pressure washer you can reduce the radiation level from 2 microsieverts to 0.5 microsievert.However, it is extremely difficult to lower the level to less than 0.5microsievert, because everything is contaminated. Buildings, trees, whole areas. You can lower radiation dose of one place, but very difficult to do that for the whole area.Then, how much will it cost when you seriously do the decontamination work? In case of "Itai-Itai Disease" caused by cadmium poisoning, to decontaminate half of cadmium-contaminated area of roughly 3,000 hectare, the government has spent 800 billion yen so far.How much money will be needed if we have to decontaminate the area 1,000 times as big?
  • Finally, Professor Kodama has 4 demands, although probably due to the time constraint he was able to elaborate only three:So, I'd like to make four urgent requests.First, I request that the Japanese government, as a national policy, innovate the way to measure radiation of food, soil, and water, through using the Japan's state-of-the-art technology such as semiconductor imaging detectors. This is absolutely within Japan's current technological capability.
  • Second, I request that the government enact a new law as soon as possible in order to reduce children's radiation exposure. Right now, what I'm doing is all illegal.The current "Radiation Damage Prevention Law" specifies the amount of radiation and the types of radionuclides that each institution can handle. Now Tokyo University is mobilizing its workforce in its twenty-seven Radioisotope Centers to help decontaminate Minami-Soma City, but many of the centers don't have a permission to handle cesium. It's illegal to transport it by cars. However, we cannot leave highly radioactive materials to mothers and teachers there, so we put them all in drums and bring them back to Tokyo. To receive them is illegal. Everything is illegal.
  • The Diet is to blame for leaving such situations as they are. There are many institutions in Japan, such as Radioisotope Centers at national universities, which have germanium detectors and other state-of-the-art detectors. But how can we, as the nation, protect our children if these institutions' hands are tied? This is the result of the gross negligence by the Diet.
  • Third, I request that the government as a national policy mobilize technological power of the private sector in order to decontaminate the soil. There are many companies with expertise of radiation decontamination; chemical companies such as Toray and Kurita, decontamination companies such as Chiyoda Technol and Atox, andconstruction companies such as Takenaka Corporation. Please mobilize their power to create a decontamination research center in Fukushima as soon as possible.
  • It will take tens of trillions of yen to do the decontamination work. I'm gravely concerned that it might become public works project involving concessions. [In other words, business as usual in Japan where only the businesses and politicians benefit.]We don't have the luxury to spare a single second considering the financial condition of the Japanese government. We must figure out how we really do the decontamination work.What on earth is the Diet doing, when 70,000 people are forced out of their homes and wandering?
D'coda Dcoda

Accelerate decontamination , Japan [26Aug11] - 1 views

search.japantimes.co.jp/...ed20110826a1.html

shared by D'coda Dcoda on 25 Aug 11 - No Cached
  • Some 100,000 people are still living as evacuees away from their homes in the wake of the severe accidents at Tokyo Electric Power Co.'s Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant. Kyodo News has reported that some 17,000 children in Fukushima Prefecture have changed schools or kindergartens because of radiation fears. Of these children, some 8,000 moved out of the prefecture.
  • Given this situation, it is imperative that the central government vigorously push the work of decontaminating areas contaminated with radioactive substances released from the nuclear power reactors. The central and local governments also should provide psychological care to both children who moved to new schools or kindergartens and children who have remained at their schools and kindergartens.
  • The Diet is expected to soon enact a special law under which the central government will be responsible for disposing of highly radioactive rubble and sludge, and decontaminating radioactive soil. In some cases, the central and local governments will carry out decontamination work together. The cost will be shouldered by Tepco.
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  • To accelerate the decontamination work, the Kan administration has decided to set up an office to deal with radioactive contamination within the Cabinet and a decontamination team in Fukushima Prefecture.
  • The education and science ministry estimates that radiation accumulation at 35 places inside the warning area in a period of one year from the start of the nuclear fiasco will exceed 20 millisieverts per year, a level sufficient enough to trigger an evacuation order. At 14 of these places, it is estimated that the radiation level will be more than 100 millisieverts per year. At one place, it is estimated that the level will be 508.1 millisieverts per year and at another 223.7 millisieverts per year.
  • The data underline the need for the central government to carry out decontamination work methodically and with perseverance. It also should take a serious look at the fact that radioactive contamination has spread outside Fukushima Prefecture. Beef cows in many parts of eastern Japan were fed on radioactive rice straw and the cows were was shipped to all the prefectures except Okinawa. Radioactive contamination has also been detected in sludge of sewage treatment plants in many parts of eastern Japan.
  • The central government must establish methods to decontaminate areas so that local governments can easily emulate them. It is expected to collect necessary data from a model project in the Ryozan area in Date, Fukushima Prefecture. Decontamination will be carried out in an area of 100-meter-by-100-meter square that will include agricultural fields and houses with extremely high radiation levels.
  • Depending on the nature of soil, the central government will try several decontamination methods such as directing high pressure water to wash away radioactive substances and removing soil after hardening it with chemicals. After determining the cost and benefit of the contamination work, and the amount of radioactive substances collected, it will write a decontamination manual as well as develop computer software to measure the effect of decontamination work.
  • Another problem is how to deal with radioactive rubble in areas devastated by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami, and radioactive sludge that has accumulated at sewage treatment plants. Decontamination of areas contaminated with radioactive substances will also produce contaminated soil. The central government must hurriedly find places for long-term storage of contaminated rubble, sludge and soil.
  • Your Party has made a reasonable proposal concerning decontamination work. It calls for giving priority to decontaminating areas close to Fukushima No. 1, radiation "hot spots," as well as kindergartens and parks. Its main aim is to minimize the effect of radiation on children and pregnant women. The central government and other parties should carefully study the proposal and take legislative and other necessary actions.
  • To ensure effective decontamination, detailed radiation maps will be indispensable. A reliable system to accurately gauge radiation levels of various foods also should be set up. Decontamination will be a difficult and time-consuming task. It is important that the central and local governments give accurate information about the situation to local residents and avoid giving a false hope about when evacuees can return to their homes. The central government envisages a long-term goal of limiting people's radiation exposure to 1 millisievert per year. But Mr. Shunichi Tanaka, a former acting chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission, who carried out decontamination work in Iidate and Date in Fukushima Prefecture, says that in some places in the prefecture, it is impossible to lower the radiation level to 1 millisievert per year and that a realistic goal should be 5 millisieverts per year. Informed public discussions should be held on this point.
  • D'coda Dcoda on 25 Aug 11
     
    A letter to the editor of Japan Times
D'coda Dcoda

#Radiation in Japan: 300,000 Bq/Kg of Radioactive Cesium from Soil in Fukushima City [0... - 0 views

ex-skf.blogspot.com/...n-in-japan-300000-bqkg-of.html

contamination soil

shared by D'coda Dcoda on 06 Oct 11 - No Cached
  • NGO "FoE Japan (Friends of Earth Japan) did its own survey of radiation contamination in Watari District in Fukushima City with the help from Professor Tomoya Yamauchi of Kobe University. Watari District has high radiation levels throughout the district, but the national government has so far refused to designate anywhere in the district as "evacuation recommended" area.If the government designate an area as such, the government has to pay for the relocation cost. As the result, the designation in other cities like Date City has been very arbitrary and spotty, rendering the whole exercise worthless. Often, the residents are simply moved to the other parts of the same city with slightly lower radiation.
  • Judging from Professor Yamauchi's air radiation survey (in Japanese), this particular location looks like the one that had 23 microsieverts/hour radiation at 1 centimeter off the surface of the dirt in the roadside drain. Professor Yamauchi hypothesized that radioactive cesium from surrounding mountains and forests washes down the drain after the rain, and naturally gets concentrated in the dirt.
  • In my communication with Professor Yamauchi, I asked if the decontamination as currently practiced in Fukushima works at all, given the non-result in Watari District which he surveyed. He said the spot decontamination like removing the dirt and sludge is useless as radioactive materials simply come from somewhere else, so the district-wide decontamination including the surrounding mountains would be necessary to "decontaminate" in the true sense of the word - to remove radioactive materials, not reduce.
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  • 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
D'coda Dcoda

110 Volunteers and Residents to "Decon" High Radiation Area in Fukushima City [29Oct11] - 0 views

ex-skf.blogspot.com/...rs-and-residents-to-decon.html

shared by D'coda Dcoda on 30 Oct 11 - No Cached
  • 110 volunteers from all over the country with good intentions, who chose to go to one of the very high radiation area (Onami District) in Fukushima City in Fukushima Prefecture to do the decontamination work.Part of Onami District was "decontaminated" back in August as the "model" decontamination by the cleaning contractors hired by the city. In most locations, the radiation was hardly reduced, and in some locations the radiation after the "decontamination" went up. (Take a look at the results of the decon in August in my Japanese blog post.)
  • As you see in the photo by Yomiuri Shinbun, the district is in the mountains. Radioactive materials will continue to come from the mountains, no matter how (and how many times) they "decon" the roads and houses.But Japanese media reports the effort by the volunteers and the residents of Onami District of Fukushima City trying to decontaminate, as if it's a good thing. This one from Yomiuri Shinbun (10/29/2011):
  • On October 29, decontamination work started in Onami District in Fukushima Prefecture with volunteers and the residents participating.
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  • 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.
D'coda Dcoda

This Is What Passes as "Decontamination" in Fukushima (for That Matter, in Japan) [25Oc... - 0 views

ex-skf.blogspot.com/...passes-as-decontamination.html

shared by D'coda Dcoda on 28 Oct 11 - No Cached
  • Date City in Fukushima Prefecture, 60 kilometers northwest of Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant and with high radiation areas and spots all over the city, has started the city-wide "decontamination" effort on October 26, according to Fukushima Minyu newspaper (10/27/2011). According to the article,
  • In today's decontamination work, the cleaning contractor hired by the city removed the sludge in the rain gutter at a residence, and washed the frontage of the house with a power washer.That's called "decontamination" in Japan, instead of "yard cleaning".So I looked for any video footage of "decontamination" in Date City. I didn't find the latest effort, but I did find the ones from this summer, when the city carried out decontamination with the help of volunteers and the advice from Dr. Shunichi Tanaka, former acting commissioner of the Japan Atomic Energy Commission (under the Cabinet Office) and current decontamination advisor to Date City.
  • Much touted (by the Minister of the Environment Goshi Hosono) new Japanese decontamination technology amounts to hand-scraping the soil by volunteers with hardly any protection.First, the video at Co-op Fukushima of the decontamination effort in July in the very same district in Date City:
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  • 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...)
D'coda Dcoda

"Decontamination" Defined by Ministry of the Environment Is Nothing But a General, Thor... - 0 views

ex-skf.blogspot.com/...on-defined-by-ministry-of.html

shared by D'coda Dcoda on 27 Jan 12 - No Cached
  • according to Sankei Shinbun, who has been unabashedly pro-nuclear energy and in favor of dispersing radioactive materials throughout Japan via the disaster debris to share in the "pain".The paper has an article about the meeting between the Ministry of the Education officials and the heads of the municipalities within the 20-kilometer radius "no entry zone" where the heads of the municipalities received the information from the Ministry about their lot - whether they can return after the decontamination work by the national government or not.
  • But that isn't the interesting part of the article.At the end of the article, there is a separate section that the newspaper writes about what "decontamination" is, according to the Ministry of the Education:
  • Decontamination: "It is like a cleaning job of stubborn dirt or stains" (Ministry of the Environment senior officials). Basically, it relies on manpower, using hand tools like shovels and scrubbing-brushes. According to the guideline published at the end of last year by the Ministry of the Environment, what can be easily removed, such as dead leaves, is to be removed by hand. The roofs are to be washed down by high-pressure washers, and the concrete surface such as the entrance of a house is to be scrubbed by scrubbing-brushes and deck brushes. As for the grassland and the soil where radioactive materials have penetrated, the surface is to be removed using shovels or diggers. Workers must pay attention not to get exposed to radioactivity by wearing the protective gear.
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  • It looks as long as you follow these procedures the Ministry will call it "decontamination" and the job is done by the book. The subcontractors get paid by the general contractors, who get paid by the Ministry.If you believed what Goshi Hosono, Minister of the Environment, said about decontaminating Fukushima - "Japan is not the Soviet Union, we have advanced technology to deal with radiation contamination, and we can do what others may have failed", sorry. There is nothing high-tech about any of these methods, and they don't even work.
D'coda Dcoda

Radiation cleanup plan falls short [09Nov11] - 0 views

www.japantimes.co.jp/...nn20111109f1.html

shared by D'coda Dcoda on 10 Nov 11 - No Cached
  • Radioactive fallout from the crippled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant has caused widespread fear, prompting the government in August to adopt basic targets for decontamination efforts in and around Fukushima Prefecture.
  • But the government's plan falls short and efforts should focus in particular on residential areas with more aggressive decontamination measures and goals, including reducing current radiation levels by 90 percent, two radiation experts said when interviewed by The Japan Times. "I really doubt their seriousness (about decontamination)," said radiation expert Tomoya Yamauchi, a professor at the Graduate School of Maritime Sciences at Kobe University.
  • Areas with radiation exposure readings representing more than 20 millisieverts per year have been declared no-go zones, and the government has shifted the focus of its decontamination plan to areas with radiation readings, based on an annual accumulative amount, of between 20 millisieverts and more than 1 millisievert, with the goal of reducing the contamination by 50 to 60 percent over two years. Decontamination efforts by humans, however, are expected to only yield a reduction of 10 to 20 percent. Nature, including the impact of rain, wind and the normal degradation of the radioactivity of cesium-134, whose half-life is roughly two years, is assumed to do the rest, thus reaching the best-case scenario of cutting the contamination by 60 percent.
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  • The experts said the government's goal of human effort achieving a 10 to 20 percent reduction is not ambitious enough. "A 10 percent reduction doesn't really mean anything. I mean, 40 percent of the radiation would be reduced just by natural causes, so I think the government is almost saying it is just going to wait for the radioactive materials to decrease naturally," said Shunichi Tanaka, former chairman of the Atomic Energy Society of Japan. The main radioactive materials that spewed from the Fukushima No. 1 plant are cesium-134 and -137, the second of which has a half-life of 30 years. Given the relatively short half-life of cesium-134, the total radiation will naturally be halved in four years and fall to one-third in six years, although the threat from the latter will remain for a longer time. The government is now trying to reduce contamination mainly by using high-power water hoses, known as pressure washers, on structures and removing surface soil and vegetation in limited areas.
  • But radioactive cesium can find its way into minute cracks and crevices. It is hard to remove, for example, from roofs made of certain materials, or surfaces that are rusted or whose paint is peeling, Yamauchi said. He has monitored radiation in areas in the city of Fukushima and found that the levels were still quite high after the city performed cleanup operations. To lower the contamination to pre-March 11 levels, Yamauchi said drastic, and highly costly, efforts by the government are needed, including replacing roofs and removing the surface asphalt of roads. Tanaka meanwhile pointed out that the government has not even floated a plan for decontaminating the no-go zones where the radiation exceeds 20 millisieverts per year — areas where there isn't even a timetable for when evacuees will be able to return.
  • If the government doesn't speed up the decontamination work, it will be years before the evacuees may be able to return home, he said, adding that the government can't set a target date because it isn't sure how the cleanup effort will fare. The government's stance regarding the no-go zone is largely based on recommendations by the International Commission on Radiological Protection and other scientists that call for the maximum radiation exposure of between 20 and 100 millisieverts per year under an emergency situation. The ICRP theorizes that cumulative exposure of 100 millisieverts could increase the cancer mortality risk by about 0.5 percent, meaning about 50 out of 10,000 people exposed to that level could die of cancer caused by radiation.
  • "Municipalities need to communicate closely with residents (to solicit their involvement) . . . without the participation of the residents, they can't find space for the storage," Tanaka said.
D'coda Dcoda

Entire area of major city 60km from Fukushima meltdown to be decontaminated - Officials... - 0 views

enenews.com/pect-process-may-take-20-years

shared by D'coda Dcoda on 13 Jul 11 - No Cached
  • Entire area of major city 60km from Fukushima meltdown to be decontaminated — Officials expect process may take 20 years
  • Fukushima to decontaminate entire city, Yomiuri Shimbun, July 14, 2011
  • he Fukushima municipal government likely will decontaminate the city’s entire area in response to the ongoing crisis at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant, according to city government sources. [...] Fear of radioactive contamination is widespread among the city’s residents as radiation levels in some areas of the city have been confirmed as higher than those within the 20-kilometer-radius no-entry zone surrounding the nuclear power plant. [...] The city government expects it will take at least several years–and possibly close to 20–to decontaminate the whole city. [...] Wikipedia: As of 2003, the city has an estimated population of 290,866 [...] Fukushima City is about 63 kilometres (39 miles) north-west of Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant.
D'coda Dcoda

This Is How "Decontamination" Is Done, and To Be Done in Fukushima [18Oct11] - 0 views

ex-skf.blogspot.com/...contamination-is-done-and.html

shared by D'coda Dcoda on 19 Oct 11 - No Cached
  • As Prime Minister Noda looked on, workers contracted by Fukushima City "decontaminated" a relatively new-looking residence in Onami District in Fukushima City on October 18. It is to be served as "model decontamination" for the rest of the district, as well as for the city.It amounts to nothing more than power washing to "move" radioactive materials from one place to another.Onami District of Fukushima City, along with another district (Watari District), has high air radiation and soil contamination. In the "model decontamination" work done by the city in August, the radiation hardly went down, while in several locations it went up. Quite a "model decontamination". It is probably a model distribution of government money among well-connected contractors.This is a footage of the TBS news:
D'coda Dcoda

Living with Fukushima City's radiation problem [08Dec11] - 0 views

www.greenpeace.org/...38305

shared by D'coda Dcoda on 09 Dec 11 - No Cached
  • While people in the 20 km exclusion zone around the Fukushima disaster site have been evacuated, the residents of this densely populated city have already waited nine months for decontamination of their houses, gardens and parks without getting any official government support for relocation, not even for children and pregnant women. We spent four days in Fukushima City doing a radiation survey in the neighbourhoods of Watari and Onami. People there have been left to cope alone in a highly contaminated environment by both the local and national governments. Our radiation experts found hot spots of up to 37 microSieverts per hour in a garden only a few meters away from a house and an accumulation of radioactivity in drainage systems, puddles and ditches. Overall, the radiation levels in these neighbourhoods are so high that people receive an exposure to radiation just from external sources that is ten times the annual allowed dose. How high their internal exposure is from eating contaminated food and inhaling or ingesting radioactive particles remains unknown, since no government program is keeping track of this.
  •  Parks are the most contaminated areas in Fukushima City. Some are marked with signs: “Due to radioactive contamination, don’t spend more than one hour per day in this park.” Even on sunny days last week, the parks where empty
  • Even inside their houses, they have to worry about radiation. We measured the rooms of an elderly lady’s house who is expecting her grandchildren for Christmas. She wanted to know what the safest place was for her grandchildren to sleep.   People in Fukushima City are worried about their health, especially families with children and pregnant women. We walked around with dosimeters and radiation detection equipment and were aware of what we are exposed to and of the risk we were taking. The residents of Fukushima City had one government survey at their house last July, if any at all. Detected hotspots where left unmarked, no instructions were given on how to behave in a radioactive environment. Since then, only 35 of the thousands of houses that need to be decontaminated have been cleaned by the government.  
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  • The decontamination done by the local authorities is both uncoordinated and thoroughly inadequate. The subcontractors they are using are badly instructed, risking their own health and spreading the radioactive contamination instead of removing it. We found radioactive run-off water from a decontamination process leaking directly into the environment. And because there is no storage site for radioactive waste from decontamination work, the waste is buried directly on people’s property, sometimes only a few meters away from their houses. The Japanese government doesn’t know how to deal with the massive contamination caused by the nuclear disaster. Instead of protecting people from radiation, they are downplaying the risks by increasing the allowed radiation levels far above international standards. And professors like Dr. Yamashita, who make statements like ‘If you smile, the radiation will not affect you’ are being employed as official advisors on radiation health risk.
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#Radiation in Japan: Evacuation-Ready Zone to Be Abolished on September 30 [26Sep11] - 0 views

ex-skf.blogspot.com/...in-japan-evacuation-ready.html

shared by D'coda Dcoda on 27 Sep 11 - No Cached
  • The Japanese government says it will abolish the "evacuation-ready" zone in 5 municipalities that lie between 20 to 30-kilometer radius from Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant on September 30, all at once. It may be construed as a declaration by the national government that it is now "safe" to return after slightly over 6 months after one of the worst nuclear accidents in history (which many thing is "the" worst).Yomiuri Shinbun (9/26/2011):
  • The Japanese government will abolish the "evacuation-ready" zone on September 30. The "evacuation-ready" zone was set between 20 to 30-kilometer radius from Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant after the accident [where the residents are required to be ready to evacuate on a moment's notice and where no pregnant women and small children are supposed to be living].
  • Tadahiro Matsushita, Vice Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry, informed the heads of the municipalities in the zone in the morning of September 26.
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  • In the "evacuation-ready" zone, residents are required to be ready to take refuge indoors or evacuate outside the zone in case of a nuclear emergency. The zone includes part or all of 5 municipalities - Minami Soma City, Tamura City, Naraha-machi, Hirono-machi, Kawauchi-mura. Currently, about 30,000 residents out of pre-accident area population of 58,000 have evacuated outside the area.
  • Each municipality will carry out decontamination of schools and homes based on the "recovery plan" [that it has submitted to the national government], and ask the residents who have evacuated to come back.Fukushima Prefecture will build new homes for the returning residents, Yomiuri also reports:
  • On the national government's notice that it will abolish the "evacuation-ready" zone by the end of this month, Fukushima Prefecture is finalizing the plan to build temporary houses in the 5 municipalities whose designation as "evacuation-ready" zone will be lifted. The prefectural government has started the selection process for the locations.
  • The houses are for people who lost their homes in the earthquake and tsunami, so that they can live closer to their old homes [i.e. come back from their temporary shelters outside the area].
  • The 5 municipalities are Minami Soma City, Tamura City, Hirono-machi, Naraha-machi, Kawauchi-mura. The prefectural government will ask the municipalities how many houses they want built. Minami Soma City has already asked the prefectural government for 400 houses.
  • "decontamination"? Good luck to them if the data from Watari District in Fukushima City is any indication. Professor Tomoya Yamauchi of Kobe University compared the radiation levels before and after the district's "decontamination" effort, and found that it hardly made a dent. In a place where the removal of contaminated dirt didn't happen, the radiation level doubled in a month, possibly with new deposits of radioactive cesium migrating from the surrounding area. Scrubbing the roofs and walkways with power washer lowered the radiation by 30% at most. (Professor Yamauchi's report is here, in Japanese.)
  • But the "decontamination" projects, which are usually undertaken by the neighborhood associations with minimal support from the municipal government's cleaning contractors, seem to have an effect of making the residents feel the radiation may have gotten lower because of their own effort, and that it will be OK to continue to be living there.A cheap, almost ideal solution for the politicians in the national government and the prefecture - decontamination by the residents, no need to pay for evacuation costs, a building boom for temporary houses creating jobs for the locals.
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#Radiation in Japan: Tsukuba City's Idea of Voluntary "Decontamination" [14Sep11] - 0 views

ex-skf.blogspot.com/...-japan-tsukuba-citys-idea.html

shared by D'coda Dcoda on 15 Sep 11 - No Cached
  • Shorts, short-sleeve T-shirts, no masks, sneakers, with small kids. (In other words, all the things you should never do.)As "decontamination" is set to become a new bubble for Fukushima Prefecture if not for entire Japan, the national government strongly encourage citizen volunteers to "decontaminate" their own neighborhood.So, one elementary school in Tsukuba City in Ibaraki Prefecture called on the parents to do the "decontamination" of the school yard on September 9, and Ibaraki City proudly posted the photographs of the occasion on its webpage.
  • Except... oops one of the photos showed the presence of small children. It was supposed to be done by adult volunteers only, for the safety for the kids. People started to question the wisdom of "decon" with children, so the city quietly substituted the photo with the one without any children in it.
  • Professor Hayakawa of Gunma Prefecture (of radiation contour map fame) is one of those people who happened to capture the photo before Tsukuba deleted from its site:
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  • Not only you see children, but the parents are seen in shorts, T-shirts, no masks, no protective gear. They have rakes, shovels and brooms as tools. Tsukuba City's webpage shows houses right next to the school yard. (I bet they were not too happy to see the dust flying up from the operation.)The website of this particular school proudly announces the radiation level decreased by 0.002 to 0.01 microsievert/hour for the school yard. The radiation level dropped by two-third in ditches and under the rain gutters by removing the dirt.
  • Why did the school do this nearly useless "decontamination" which hardly reduced the radiation level except under the gutters and in the ditches? Probably to "alleviate fear and anxiety" among parents, as every single politician and bureaucrat in Japan spouts these days. Now the school is all set for its annual autumn school athletic meet.
  • It's all in your head, they say.I still occasionally see some tweets by people from high radiation areas saying "We'll adapt to high radiation quickly, won't we? After all, there are locations in the world with 10 millisieverts/year radiation!" Well, according to Dr. Alexey Yablokov (link is PDF file), it takes about 20 generations or 400 years for people to become less sensitive to radiation effect.
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True radiation decontamination still a long ways away [07Oct11] - 0 views

australiancannonball.com/...ination-still-a-long-ways-away

clean-up

shared by D'coda Dcoda on 07 Oct 11 - No Cached
  • Though the government last month lifted the “emergency evacuation preparation zone” designation of some areas greatly affected by the ongoing crisis at the Fukushima No. 1 Nuclear Power Plant, radiation decontamination efforts are still taking place in areas with high levels of radiation. The three main decontamination methods that have been highly publicized through media reports are: the stripping away of surface soil from school playgrounds and athletic fields, the removal of mud accumulated in gutters, and the washing of roofs using high-pressure water cleaners. While the first method is considered effective, the remaining two have been found to be effective only to a certain point, and some especially warn against overestimating the effects of high-pressure water cleaners.
  • “It might make you feel like you’re decontaminating, but there’s a limit to the amount of radioactive cesium that’s caked onto roofs that can be eliminated with high-pressure water cleaners,” says Kunihiro Yamada, a professor of environmental science at Kyoto Seika University. “The water cleaners wash surface dirt off, but then that tainted water goes into sewers and can contaminate rivers, thereby affecting farm goods and seafood. If people in highly populated areas were to begin using water cleaners, we may end up finding people forcing tainted water onto each other.” End Extract http://mdn.mainichi.jp/mdnnews/national/news/20111007p2a00m0na018000c.html
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"Geiger counters going off their scales" in Watari during recent survey [20Oct11] - 0 views

enenews.com/se-again-after-decontamination

shared by D'coda Dcoda on 22 Oct 11 - No Cached
  • “Residents in the town’s district of Watari also found their Geiger counters going off their scales, which go up to 10 microsieverts per hour”, said Kanna Mitsuta, a Friends of the Earth researcher who participated in a Sept. 14 radiation survey in Fukushima City, 60km from the meltdowns, according to the Deutsche Presse-Agentur. Can it be ‘Decontaminated’? Tomoya Yamauchi, professor and radiation expert at Kobe University, said the contamination in the area is so severe that authorities need to remove not only the topsoil but also road surfaces, roofs and concrete walls, reports the DPA.
  • Mitsuta is concerned that the decontamination effects are only temporary, “Radiation levels drop soon after decontamination work, but whenever it rains, contaminated soil flows into the area from surrounding mountain forests and the levels climb once again.” What about the reactor that is still releasing radioactive steam? Might that also be why decontamination is not going as planned? From Oct. 18 & 19:
  • Recriticality? Major Japan paper reports on detection of iodine-131 in Tokyo, Kawasaki Nuclear Engineer: Radioactive steam continuously leaking out of Reactor No. 3 — It’s important to recognize how serious damage is at this reactor (VIDEO)
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Shutdown of Fukushima Reactors Is Ahead of Schedule [Nov11] - 0 views

spectrum.ieee.org/...-reactors-is-ahead-of-schedule

shared by D'coda Dcoda on 28 Oct 11 - No Cached
  • Editor's Note: This is part of the IEEE Spectrum special report: Fukushima and the Future of Nuclear Power.
  • This past April, when the Japanese government and Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO) jointly unveiled their plan to bring the damaged reactors of the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant to a cold shutdown and gain control of the release of radioactive materials, they set a tentative completion date for mid-January 2012. And "tentative" had to be the operative word, for the obstacles TEPCO faced—and to some extent still does face—are challenging in the extreme. They include:
  • Fuel rod meltdowns in reactors 1, 2, and 3 due to loss of cooling systems following the 11 March earthquake and tsunami; Severe damage to the upper levels of reactor buildings 1, 3, and 4 and slight damage to building 2, stemming from hydrogen explosions; High levels of radiation and contaminated rubble, making working conditions hazardous and difficult; Thousands of metric tons of contaminated water accumulating on the site and leaking out of the reactors.
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  • It appears, however, that the process is now ahead of schedule. Environment Minister Goshi Hosono, who is also in charge of the Fukushima nuclear accident recovery, told the International Atomic Energy Agency's annual general conference in Vienna on 19 September that Japan was now aiming to complete a cold shutdown of the Fukushima plant by December 2011, instead of mid-January 2012. Progress was already evident in July, when Hosono announced that workers had completed step 1 of the two-step road map on schedule, reducing radioactive emissions and starting to bring down the core temperatures in reactors 1, 2, and 3. Hosono attributed the success to the construction of a new cooling system, which had begun pumping water into all three damaged reactors. In addition to cooling, the system also decontaminates the water accumulating in the basements of the reactor and turbine buildings. The contamination is the result of injected water coming into contact with the molten fuel in the pressure vessels.
  • Critics, however, were quick to question the stability of the system and its ad hoc design. The combination of filtering and decontamination technologies—mainly from the French nuclear giant Areva and the U.S. nuclear waste management company Kurion—includes some 4 kilometers of piping. The critics have a point. Even with the addition of a reportedly more robust system (to be used in parallel or as backup as needed) from Toshiba and IHI Corp., TEPCO admits the system underwent 39 disruptions between 10 July and 8 September. One consequence is that roughly 100 000 metric tons of water still need to be decontaminated.
  • Disruptions and remaining challenges notwithstanding, TEPCO has been making progress toward step 2 of the road map: a cold shutdown. According to TEPCO, that means achieving and maintaining a temperature of less than 100 °C as measured at the bottom of a reactor pressure vessel—the steel vessel containing the fuel rods—which itself is enclosed inside a protective containment vessel. A major advance came at the beginning of September, when TEPCO was able to start up the core spray lines to cool reactors 1 and 3. The core spray lines apply water directly to the cores from above, while the system installed in July has been cooling the cores by injecting water from the bottom. TEPCO has also begun increasing the amount of water being injected into reactor 2. The core spray line could not be used until recently because TEPCO first had to survey the subsystem's piping and valves. Given the high radiation in the area, this was difficult, but workers completed the job in July and confirmed the system's operability in August.
  • By late September, as a result of these efforts, the temperatures in all three reactors had dropped below 100 °C for the first time since the accident. As of 29 September, the temperatures for reactors 1, 2, and 3, respectively, were 77.5 °C, 99.7 °C, and 78.7 °C. "We are steadily bringing the postaccident situation under control," says Hosono. "To achieve step 2 this year, we'll move the schedule forward and do our best." But Yoshinori Moriyama, deputy director-general of Japan's Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency (NISA) is cautious. "We need to maintain this state over the midterm," he says. "Temporary lower temperatures and the nonrelease of radioactive substances do not immediately mean that this is a cold shutdown." In order for NISA to declare a cold shutdown, the temperatures must remain stable and below 100 °C into December. So NISA won't officially declare a cold shutdown until near the end of 2011.
  • Despite these positive developments, nuclear experts point out that achieving a cold shutdown does not make the troubled plant completely safe, given that even spent fuel continues to generate heat for years after use. And upon achieving a cold shutdown, TEPCO must take on a new series of challenges. These include finding where the injected water is escaping, stopping those leaks, dealing with the accumulated contaminated water, removing and storing the thousands of spent fuel rods from the pools in reactors 1 to 4, and then figuring out a way to remove the melted fuel. The last is a task that could take a decade or more, according to experts.
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Fukushima radiation alarms doctors [18Aug11] - 0 views

english.aljazeera.net/...201181665921711896.html

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  • Scientists and doctors are calling for a new national policy in Japan that mandates the testing of food, soil, water, and the air for radioactivity still being emitted from Fukushima's heavily damaged Daiichi nuclear power plant."How much radioactive materials have been released from the plant?" asked Dr Tatsuhiko Kodama, a professor at the Research Centre for Advanced Science and Technology and Director of the University of Tokyo's Radioisotope Centre, in a July 27 speech to the Committee of Health, Labour and Welfare at Japan's House of Representatives. "The government and TEPCO have not reported the total amount of the released radioactivity yet," said Kodama, who believes things are far worse than even the recent detection of extremely high radiation levels at the plant. There is widespread concern in Japan about a general lack of government monitoring for radiation, which has caused people to begin their own independent monitoring, which are also finding disturbingly high levels of radiation. Kodama's centre, using 27 facilities to measure radiation across the country, has been closely monitoring the situation at Fukushima - and their findings are alarming.According to Dr Kodama, the total amount of radiation released over a period of more than five months from the ongoing Fukushima nuclear disaster is the equivalent to more than 29 "Hiroshima-type atomic bombs" and the amount of uranium released "is equivalent to 20" Hiroshima bombs.
  • Kodama, along with other scientists, is concerned about the ongoing crisis resulting from the Fukushima situation, as well as what he believes to be inadequate government reaction, and believes the government needs to begin a large-scale response in order to begin decontaminating affected areas.Distrust of the Japanese government's response to the nuclear disaster is now common among people living in the effected prefectures, and people are concerned about their health.Recent readings taken at the plant are alarming.When on August 2nd readings of 10,000 millisieverts (10 sieverts) of radioactivity per hour were detected at the plant, Japan's science ministry said that level of dose is fatal to humans, and is enough radiation to kill a person within one to two weeks after the exposure. 10,000 millisieverts (mSv) is the equivalent of approximately 100,000 chest x-rays.
  • t is an amount 250 per cent higher than levels recorded at the plant in March after it was heavily damaged by the earthquake and ensuing tsunami. The operator of Japan's crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO), that took the reading, used equipment to measure radiation from a distance, and was unable to ascertain the exact level because the device's maximum reading is only 10,000 mSv. TEPCO also detected 1,000 millisieverts (mSv) per hour in debris outside the plant, as well as finding 4,000 mSv per hour inside one of the reactor buildings.
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  • he Fukushima disaster has been rated as a "level seven" on the International Nuclear and Radiological Event Scale (INES). This level, the highest, is the same as the Chernobyl nuclear disaster in 1986, and is defined by the scale as: "[A] major release of radioactive material with widespread health and environmental effects requiring implementation of planned and extended countermeasures."The Fukushima and Chernobyl disasters are the only nuclear accidents to have been rated level seven on the scale, which is intended to be logarithmic, similar to the scale used to describe the comparative magnitude of earthquakes. Each increasing level represents an accident approximately ten times more severe than the previous level.
  • Doctors in Japan are already treating patients suffering health effects they attribute to radiation from the ongoing nuclear disaster."We have begun to see increased nosebleeds, stubborn cases of diarrhoea, and flu-like symptoms in children," Dr Yuko Yanagisawa, a physician at Funabashi Futawa Hospital in Chiba Prefecture, told Al Jazeera.
  • She attributes the symptoms to radiation exposure, and added: "We are encountering new situations we cannot explain with the body of knowledge we have relied upon up until now.""The situation at the Daiichi Nuclear facility in Fukushima has not yet been fully stabilised, and we can't yet see an end in sight," Yanagisawa said. "Because the nuclear material has not yet been encapsulated, radiation continues to stream into the environment."
  • Al Jazeera's Aela Callan, reporting from Japan's Ibaraki prefecture, said of the recently detected high radiation readings: "It is now looking more likely that this area has been this radioactive since the earthquake and tsunami, but no one realised until now."Workers at Fukushima are only allowed to be exposed to 250 mSv of ionising radiation per year.
  • radioactive cesium exceeding the government limit was detected in processed tea made in Tochigi City, about 160km from the troubled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, according to the Tochigi Prefectural Government, who said radioactive cesium was detected in tea processed from leaves harvested in the city in early July. The level is more than 3 times the provisional government limit.
  • anagisawa's hospital is located approximately 200km from Fukushima, so the health problems she is seeing that she attributes to radiation exposure causes her to be concerned by what she believes to be a grossly inadequate response from the government.From her perspective, the only thing the government has done is to, on April 25, raise the acceptable radiation exposure limit for children from 1 mSv/year to 20 mSv/year.
  • This has caused controversy, from the medical point of view," Yanagisawa told Al Jazeera. "This is certainly an issue that involves both personal internal exposures as well as low-dose exposures."Junichi Sato, Greenpeace Japan Executive Director, said: "It is utterly outrageous to raise the exposure levels for children to twenty times the maximum limit for adults."
  • The Japanese government cannot simply increase safety limits for the sake of political convenience or to give the impression of normality."Authoritative current estimates of the health effects of low-dose ionizing radiation are published in the Biological Effects of Ionising Radiation VII (BEIR VII) report from the US National Academy of Sciences.
  • he report reflects the substantial weight of scientific evidence proving there is no exposure to ionizing radiation that is risk-free. The BEIR VII estimates that each 1 mSv of radiation is associated with an increased risk of all forms of cancer other than leukemia of about 1-in-10,000; an increased risk of leukemia of about 1-in-100,000; and a 1-in-17,500 increased risk of cancer death.
  • r Helen Caldicott, the founding president of Physicians for Social Responsibility, a group that was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1985, is equally concerned about the health effects from Japan's nuclear disaster."Radioactive elements get into the testicles and ovaries, and these cause genetic disease like diabetes, cystic fibrosis, and mental retardation," she told Al Jazeera. "There are 2,600 of these diseases that get into our genes and are passed from generation to generation, forever."
  • So far, the only cases of acute radiation exposure have involved TEPCO workers at the stricken plant. Lower doses of radiation, particularly for children, are what many in the medical community are most concerned about, according to Dr Yanagisawa.
  • Humans are not yet capable of accurately measuring the low dose exposure or internal exposure," she explained, "Arguing 'it is safe because it is not yet scientifically proven [to be unsafe]' would be wrong. That fact is that we are not yet collecting enough information to prove the situations scientifically. If that is the case, we can never say it is safe just by increasing the annual 1mSv level twenty fold."
  • Her concern is that the new exposure standards by the Japanese government do not take into account differences between adults and children, since children's sensitivity to radiation exposure is several times higher than that of adults.
  • Al Jazeera contacted Prime Minister Naoto Kan's office for comment on the situation. Speaking on behalf of the Deputy Cabinet Secretary for Public Relations for the Prime Minister's office, Noriyuki Shikata said that the Japanese government "refers to the ICRP [International Commission on Radiological Protection] recommendation in 2007, which says the reference levels of radiological protection in emergency exposure situations is 20-100 mSv per year. The Government of Japan has set planned evacuation zones and specific spots recommended for evacuation where the radiation levels reach 20 mSv/year, in order to avoid excessive radiation exposure."
  • he prime minister's office explained that approximately 23bn yen ($300mn) is planned for decontamination efforts, and the government plans to have a decontamination policy "by around the end of August", with a secondary budget of about 97bn yen ($1.26bn) for health management and monitoring operations in the affected areas. When questioned about the issue of "acute radiation exposure", Shikata pointed to the Japanese government having received a report from TEPCO about six of their workers having been exposed to more than 250 mSv, but did not mention any reports of civilian exposures.
  • Prime Minister Kan's office told Al Jazeera that, for their ongoing response to the Fukushima crisis, "the government of Japan has conducted all the possible countermeasures such as introduction of automatic dose management by ID codes for all workers and 24 hour allocation of doctors. The government of Japan will continue to tackle the issue of further improving the health management including medium and long term measures". Shikata did not comment about Kodama's findings.
  • Kodama, who is also a doctor of internal medicine, has been working on decontamination of radioactive materials at radiation facilities in hospitals of the University of Tokyo for the past several decades. "We had rain in Tokyo on March 21 and radiation increased to .2 micosieverts/hour and, since then, the level has been continuously high," said Kodama, who added that his reporting of radiation findings to the government has not been met an adequate reaction. "At that time, the chief cabinet secretary, Mr Edano, told the Japanese people that there would be no immediate harm to their health."
  • Kodama is an expert in internal exposure to radiation, and is concerned that the government has not implemented a strong response geared towards measuring radioactivity in food. "Although three months have passed since the accident already, why have even such simple things have not been done yet?" he said. "I get very angry and fly into a rage."
  • Radiation has a high risk to embryos in pregnant women, juveniles, and highly proliferative cells of people of growing ages. Even for adults, highly proliferative cells, such as hairs, blood, and intestinal epithelium cells, are sensitive to radiation."
  • Early on in the disaster, Dr Makoto Kondo of the department of radiology of Keio University's School of Medicine warned of "a large difference in radiation effects on adults compared to children".Kondo explained the chances of children developing cancer from radiation exposure was many times higher than adults.
  • Children's bodies are underdeveloped and easily affected by radiation, which could cause cancer or slow body development. It can also affect their brain development," he said.Yanagisawa assumes that the Japanese government's evacuation standards, as well as their raising the permissible exposure limit to 20mSv "can cause hazards to children's health," and therefore "children are at a greater risk".
  • Nishio Masamichi, director of Japan's Hakkaido Cancer Centre and a radiation treatment specialist, published an article on July 27 titled: "The Problem of Radiation Exposure Countermeasures for the Fukushima Nuclear Accident: Concerns for the Present Situation". In the report, Masamichi said that such a dramatic increase in permitted radiation exposure was akin to "taking the lives of the people lightly". He believes that 20mSv is too high, especially for children who are far more susceptible to radiation.
  • n early July, officials with the Japanese Nuclear Safety Commission announced that approximately 45 per cent of children in the Fukushima region had experienced thyroid exposure to radiation, according to a survey carried out in late March. The commission has not carried out any surveys since then.
  • Now the Japanese government is underestimating the effects of low dosage and/or internal exposures and not raising the evacuation level even to the same level adopted in Chernobyl," Yanagisawa said. "People's lives are at stake, especially the lives of children, and it is obvious that the government is not placing top priority on the people's lives in their measures."Caldicott feels the lack of a stronger response to safeguard the health of people in areas where radiation is found is "reprehensible".
  • Millions of people need to be evacuated from those high radiation zones, especially the children."
  • Dr Yanagisawa is concerned about what she calls "late onset disorders" from radiation exposure resulting from the Fukushima disaster, as well as increasing cases of infertility and miscarriages."Incidence of cancer will undoubtedly increase," she said. "In the case of children, thyroid cancer and leukemia can start to appear after several years. In the case of adults, the incidence of various types of cancer will increase over the course of several decades."Yanagisawa said it is "without doubt" that cancer rates among the Fukushima nuclear workers will increase, as will cases of lethargy, atherosclerosis, and other chronic diseases among the general population in the effected areas.
  • Radioactive food and water
  • An August 1 press release from Japan's MHLW said no radioactive materials have been detected in the tap water of Fukushima prefecture, according to a survey conducted by the Japanese government's Nuclear Emergency Response Headquarters. The government defines no detection as "no results exceeding the 'Index values for infants (radioactive iodine)'," and says "in case the level of radioactive iodine in tap water exceeds 100 Bq/kg, to refrain from giving infants formula milk dissolved by tap water, having them intake tap water … "
  • Yet, on June 27, results were published from a study that found 15 residents of Fukushima prefecture had tested positive for radiation in their urine. Dr Nanao Kamada, professor emeritus of radiation biology at Hiroshima University, has been to Fukushima prefecture twice in order to take internal radiation exposure readings and facilitated the study.
  • The risk of internal radiation is more dangerous than external radiation," Dr Kamada told Al Jazeera. "And internal radiation exposure does exist for Fukushima residents."According to the MHLW, distribution of several food products in Fukushima Prefecture remain restricted. This includes raw milk, vegetables including spinach, kakina, and all other leafy vegetables, including cabbage, shiitake mushrooms, bamboo shoots, and beef.
  • he distribution of tealeaves remains restricted in several prefectures, including all of Ibaraki, and parts of Tochigi, Gunma, Chiba, Kanagawa Prefectures.Iwate prefecture suspended all beef exports because of caesium contamination on August 1, making it the fourth prefecture to do so.
  • yunichi Tokuyama, an expert with the Iwate Prefecture Agricultural and Fisheries Department, told Al Jazeera he did not know how to deal with the crisis. He was surprised because he did not expect radioactive hot spots in his prefecture, 300km from the Fukushima nuclear plant."The biggest cause of this contamination is the rice straw being fed to the cows, which was highly radioactive," Tokuyama told Al Jazeera.
  • Kamada feels the Japanese government is acting too slowly in response to the Fukushima disaster, and that the government needs to check radiation exposure levels "in each town and village" in Fukushima prefecture."They have to make a general map of radiation doses," he said. "Then they have to be concerned about human health levels, and radiation exposures to humans. They have to make the exposure dose map of Fukushima prefecture. Fukushima is not enough. Probably there are hot spots outside of Fukushima. So they also need to check ground exposure levels."
  • Radiation that continues to be released has global consequences.More than 11,000 tonnes of radioactive water has been released into the ocean from the stricken plant.
  • Those radioactive elements bio-concentrate in the algae, then the crustaceans eat that, which are eaten by small then big fish," Caldicott said. "That's why big fish have high concentrations of radioactivity and humans are at the top of the food chain, so we get the most radiation, ultimately."
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Plugging leaks will end crisis, not cold shutdown: analysts [12Sep11] - 0 views

search.japantimes.co.jp/...nn20110911f1.html

shared by D'coda Dcoda on 12 Sep 11 - No Cached
  • Ever since the nuclear crisis erupted six months ago, the public has been clamoring to know when the damaged reactors at the Fu ku shi ma No. 1 power plant will be brought under control and when the nightmare will end. The government and Tokyo Electric Power Co., which runs the crippled plant, are working to bring the three reactors into cold shutdown by mid-January.
  • Cold shutdown means the temperature at the bottom of the pressure vessel, which holds the core, has been lowered to less than 100 degrees. This critical milestone, known as "Step 2" in Tepco's road map for containing the crisis, would limit the release of radioactive materials from the plant to less than 1 millisievert per year, a level that poses no health risks.
  • Since work at the plant is proceeding relatively smoothly, it appears likely the mid-January target will be met. But Fukushima No. 1 will still have a long way to go before the flooded plant's reactors are stable enough to be considered safe, experts warn. The main reason is the abundance of highly radioactive water.
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  • "There are about 110,00 tons of contaminated water (in the plant) and the situation is still not completely under control because coolant water is leaking from the containment vessels. There is no guarantee that the irradiated water won't leak from the plant (and contaminate the environment)" if another natural disaster strikes, said Hisashi Ninokata, a professor of reactor engineering at the Tokyo Institute of Technology.
  • After achieving cold shutdowns of reactors 1, 2 and 3, the government may declare parts of the 20-km no-go zone around the plant safe. It may even let the evacuees return, as long as the area is decontaminated and crucial infrastructure restored.
  • But the longer the tainted water leaks, the more the radioactive waste will grow, leaving the Fukushima plant vulnerable to further disasters, Ninokata said. Before the Fukushima crisis can be said contained, the holes and cracks from which the water and fuel are escaping must be located and sealed. But this extremely difficult task could take years because the radiation near the reactors is simply too high to let workers get near them.
  • "It'll be too early to say that the situation has reached a stable phase even after Step 2 is completed," said Chihiro Kamisawa, a researcher at Citizens' Nuclear Information Center, a nonprofit group of scientists and activists opposed to nuclear power. When a reactor is in cold shutdown, the water cooling its fuel is still hot but no longer boiling, which significantly reduces the amount of radioactive emissions.
  • In late July, the temperature in reactor No. 1's pressure vessel fell below 100 degrees. On Monday, the same thing was achieved in reactor 3 after Tepco activated a system that pumps water deep into the containment vessel. But on Friday, reactor No. 2 was still boiling away with a reading of 112.6. "Efforts seem to be making smooth progress, and I think Step 2 is likely to be achieved by mid-January," said Shinichi Morooka, a Waseda University professor and reactor expert.
  • Another reason for optimism is the progress being made with the water decontamination system. The cleaning rate has greatly improved in the past few weeks and exceeded 90 percent of capacity last week. If the decontamination system ever reaches its full potential, it will allow Tepco to inject coolant at a higher rate and bring the melted cores to lower and stabler temperatures.
  • The government also plans to start decontaminating soil in various hot spots so the evacuees can return once the second step is completed. But some experts are questioning whether residents should be allowed to return so soon. The cracks and holes in the leaking reactors haven't even been pinpointed yet, let alone fixed, they say.
  • "As an engineer, I am worried (about the plan to let residents return) when it is still unclear what is really going on inside the reactors," said Morooka. For the time being, Tepco can only guess where the water is leaking from and which parts need repair, because radiation has prevented workers from fully exploring the buildings.
  • Spokesman Junichi Matsumoto said that since no extensive damage to the reactors was found during inspections of the first and second floors of the buildings, any holes or cracks are probably at the basement level. But with the basement floors flooded, Tepco's top priority is just to get the water out. Plans to fix the reactors aren't even being discussed yet, Matsumoto said.
  • Asked if the containment vessels can take another quake, the Tokyo Institute of Technology's Ninokata said he believes the impact would likely be distributed evenly through the structure without widening existing cracks or holes. But if the impact somehow focuses on parts damaged by the March 11 disasters, there could be further damage, he said. "The containment vessel is what really ensures the safety of a nuclear reactor," Ninokata said, warning that if radioactive materials are still leaking out, allowing residents to return would risk harming their health.
D'coda Dcoda

#Radioactive Produce: National Government Told Fukushima Farmers to Farm as Usual [04Se... - 0 views

ex-skf.blogspot.com/...oduce-national-government.html

shared by D'coda Dcoda on 05 Sep 11 - No Cached
  • It is unconfirmed information, which may not be confirmed at all even if it is true as it may have been the "administrative guidance" from the government without a formal document. Plausible deniability has been one of Japan's forte over hundreds of years if not thousand. A resident of Fukushima City, responding to one of the tweets about why the farmers in Fukushima farmed at all this year and continue to sell produce even when they are aware that the land is heavily contaminated with radioactive fallout from Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant, says the following:
  • Everyone was saying "We can't farm this year". Then the national government said to them, "Farm as usual".She also says in an earlier tweet:
  • I live in Fukushima City. None of the people around me eat [Fukushima produce]. Even the farmers say "We can't eat this year['s produce]". I personally believe it's "we can't eat from now on".Vegetables, meat, rice that even some people in Fukushima don't eat are being promoted and sold all over Japan.
  • ...5 more annotations...
  • To the defense of Fukushima farmers, I am aware that there are many who stopped farming after the accident, and stopped selling their produce because they do not want to force potentially contaminated food on the consumers. Another "un-confirmable" evidence of the national government's culpability is one particular tweet from March which I cannot locate any more but I remember very vividly. It was from someone whose family was the rice farmer in Niigata Prefecture. The JA (agricultural producer co-op) in the area held a meeting and decided to increase the area for planting rice because they thought the rice production in Fukushima would be significantly reduced because of the nuclear accident. To that request, the national government (Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries) answered not to bother, and told them to reduce the area for planting rice as scheduled.
  • Extend and pretend. The national government wanted to pretend to the farmers, to the citizens of Japan and to the outside world that everything was normal, and insisted the farmers in Fukushima till the land and plant just like last year, and the rice farmers in Niigata to reduce their crop as agreed last year. Many Fukushima farmers, even though their good senses told them that might be a bad idea, went along for whatever reason, tilled the land and planted.
  • No doubt they were soothed by the comforting message from Dr. Shunichi Yamashita, who was all over Fukushima preaching it was safe and everything was OK. As the result, radioactive cesium, plutonium, cobalt, and whatever else fell on top of the soil were turned over with the soil and buried deeper and mixed with clean soil.
  • And this national government under the new administration continues to say it will be responsible for decontamination. It is as if they wanted the soil contamination to go deeper so that the decontamination would be on a much, much bigger scale than otherwise, creating bigger and costlier projects for the well-connected companies and individuals. The minister who will be in charge of decontamination and other massive cleanup efforts says we have to share the pain of Fukushima, even as the pain was partly caused and made worse by his government to begin with.
  • I suppose they could justify the astronomical scale of decontamination by saying "it will create jobs in the area", which is exactly what they said when they promoted nuclear power plants in rural areas of Japan in the 1960s.
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