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550 to 690 becquerels/kg of radioactive cesium detected in the commercial teas grown in 3 tea plantations in Tokyo. The Tokyo Metropolitan government tested 30 teas in early October, and radioactive cesium was detected from 29 of them.Back in May, three elementary school in Itabashi-ku, Tokyo had the pupils pick radioactive tea leaves (2,700 becquerels/kg of radioactive cesium) as part of their social studies activities. But that wasn't, apparently, a big deal since it was not a commercial product.Mainichi Shinbun (10/18/2011):

Tokyo Municipal government announced on October 18 that 550 to 690 becquerels/kg of radioactive cesium, exceeding the national provisional safety limit of 500 becquerels/kg, was detected from the "Tokyo Sayama-cha" tea from three tea plantations in Tokyo. It is the first time radioactive cesium was detected from commercial teas grown in Tokyo.

According to the Tokyo Metropolitan Bureau of Industry and Labor, the teas were picked in May at three tea plantations in Musashi Murayama City, Mizuho-machi, and Akiruno City. Part of the teas was consumed by the growers themselves but the rest haven't been sold yet. The tea plantations store 500 kg, which the Tokyo government has requested them to discard.Discard how? Dump them in a garbage can as regular garbage, I suppose, since the radiation level is "low".

India has become a reprocessing hub for waste from around the world. But the regulation is lax, leading to concerns radioactive material may be in the products exported back to the world.

a scrap metal dealer had been admitted to the hospital and was showing symptoms of radiation exposure.

Deepak Jain, a 27-year-old had been rushed to the hospital after a high fever hadn't subsided for seven days and the skin on his hand started peeling off.

"Despite Yucca Mountain being the law and $14.5 billion in taxpayer dollars spent to develop it, the Obama administration has taken several steps, without the consent of Congress, to terminate all operations," Hastings said. "Unfortunately, some are following his lead and playing political football with this critical issue to Washington and other states with nuclear repositories."

"They have yet to provide a compelling alternative to Yucca Mountain," he said. "Rep. McMorris Rodgers believes it's time to get to work." In the Senate, Democrat Patty Murray of Washington has been one of the most vocal opponents of shutting down the Yucca site, referring to it recently as a "misguided path."

At the debate Tuesday, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich of Georgia was the only candidate who defended the Yucca dump, noting that scientists had studied waste-storage sites exhaustively and concluded that the Nevada site was the best option without major safety threats. "We have to find some method of finding a very geologically stable place, and most geologists believe that, in fact, Yucca Mountain is that," Gingrich said.

First it was "it cannot be from Fukushima I Nuke Plant" when the radiation measured was 57.5 microsieverts/hour.Then it was "it may be from Fukushima I Nuke Plant, and it may not be" when the density turned out to be 276,000 becquerels/kg of radioactive cesium. But since the density was very high, the suspicion was voiced all around (including me) that someone secretly dumped the radioactive sludge or dirt, possibly from cleaning out his yard, onto that location.The Ministry's current position: "It is highly likely that radioactive cesium is from Fukushima I Nuke Plant, and radioactive cesium has been condensed at that particular location because the storm drain nearby was broken."So radioactive cesium from Fukushima I Nuke Plant has been naturally concentrated by elements, 200 kilometers away from the plant, to the density level on par with those found in Fukushima. The Kashiwa City's dirt contains almost as much radioactive cesium in the dirt in the location in Watari District (link is in Japanese) in Fukushima City where 300,000 becquerels/kg of radioactive cesium was found (also near the drain).

Points from the Ministry's announcement on October 23, 2011 "Result of the investigation of Kashiwa City's location with high air radiation" (my translation, not the Ministry's):On receiving the result of the soil analysis on October 22 where maximum 276,000 becquerels/kg of radioactive cesium was detected, the Ministry sent two officials, along with three experts from Japan Atomic Energy Agency on October 23 to Kashiwa City to consult with the local officials in charge of radiation countermeasures.The Ministry's survey of the location included measuring air radiation levels at the location and nearby, and investigating the surroundings to figure out what caused the high radiation level.Survey result:Maximum 2.0 microsieverts/hour 1 meter off the groundMaximum 4.5 microsieverts/hour 50 centimeter off the groundMaximum 15 microsieverts/hour on the ground

Typical air radiation levels in the surrounding area at 1 meter off the ground was 0.3 microsievert/hour.A 50-centimeter wide breach was found in the side drain (30-centimeter deep) next to the location with the high air radiation. This breach was close to the spot where cesium-134 (half life 2 years) was detected. We therefore presume that the rainwater containing radioactive cesium that came from the Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant accident flowed in from the breach in the side drain, and radioactive cesium was condensed and accumulated in the soil at that particular location.Asahi Shinbun (10/23/2011) has the picture of the broken side drain.

The Department of Energy (DOE) has been trying to close the Yucca mountain storage site, but South Carolina and Washington, both facing the challenges of storing growing numbers of spent nuclear fuel rods, have tried almost everything to maintain access to the dump.

On Friday, the US Court of Appeals in Washington D.C. threw out their case, ruling that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) is the ultimate the authority on deciding the fate of the storage facility.

Like a recent Supreme Court decision about the role of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in implementing greenhouse gas emissions policies, the Friday ruling reaffirmed the role of federal regulators--in this case the NRC--to call the shots on energy policy. But, similar to the EPA case, the judicial ruling added that states do have the right to take federal agencies to court when they believe regulators there have failed to do their job. "We will not permit an agency to insulate itself from judicial review by refusing to act," the court said in its ruling.

The federal government did an analysis of the damage to determine if capping and sealing off the waste would stop more of it from getting out, and also, if more waste could be imported to the site to be buried along with the original waste. The analysis also shows that the U.S. energy department's plan to import low-level and midlevel radioactive waste from other sites to Hanford after 2022 poses "completely unacceptable" risks, [assistant director of the Oregon Department of Energy Ken] Niles said. Washington is also raising concerns about importing more waste. […] Health risks from Hanford's contamination are long-term, not immediate. They're expressed in terms of cancer cases after a lifetime of drinking well water from the site, with a one in 10,000 risk considered high. But many of the contaminant levels at the site exceed health benchmarks by wide margins.

There wasn't much of a Yucca Mountain-type plan here, as the Oregonian states, “Some of the waste was dumped directly into ditches, some was buried in drums and some was stored in 177 huge underground tanks, including 149 leak-prone single-walled tanks.”

Some radioactive contaminants at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation will threaten the Columbia River for thousands of years, a new analysis projects, despite the multibillion-dollar cleanup efforts by the federal government.

The U.S. Department of Energy projections come from a new analysis of how best to clean up leaking storage tanks and manage waste at Hanford, a former nuclear weapons production site on 586 square miles next to the Columbia in southeastern Washington.

Oregon officials say the results, including contamination projections for the next 10,000 years, indicate the federal government needs to clean up more of the waste that has already leaked and spilled at Hanford instead of capping and leaving it, a less-expensive alternative.

TEPCO has announced that as of today, the final additions to the enclosure structure at No. 1 reactor building have been made (air circulation and filtration equipment) and that the inspection of the structure and systems by NISA is completed satisfactorily. The structure itself has been completed for a while, but this might be considered as the official commissioning of the entire structure and ventilation system.-TEPCO has also announced that it will drastically increase the amount of water being injected to No. 1 reactor in order to cut down on evaporation inside the structure. It appears that the high humidity environment is hampering the ability to work inside, so TEPCO will increase the feed rate through the feed line (normal feedwater injection line) upward from 4 cubic meters per hour to 7.5 cubic meters per hour over four days. When the conditions of the plant are ascertained at that point TEPCO will further increase water flow. This will also reduce drastically any gaseous emissions to the enclosure from the damaged reactor.

TEPCO has discovered a nearly or else completely sheared axle shaft casing on the overhead crane at the common spent fuel building at Fukushima Daiichi. The cause is yet unknown, and no hazard is posed at this time. -TEPCO is almost ready to place the gas handling system (improvised arrangement) at No. 2 reactor plant (to handle gases in the primary containment) into operation. This system will filter out radioactive airborne contaminants. Similar systems will be employed eventually at all three reactors.

Finally, airborne releases from Fukushima Daiichi continue to decline .. contrary to many reports on anti-nuclear sites .. as shown by these two panels from a report issued by the Japanese Prime Minister's office.