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"Until early spring, produce was contaminated (on the surface with radioactive materials) that the No. 1 plant discharged into the atmosphere. But now, the major route of contamination is through plant roots," said Kunikazu Noguchi, a radiation protection expert at Nihon University. Whether absorption by plant roots can affect human health remains to be seen. Experts are warning that the region's soil and agricultural products will require close monitoring for many years.

At the moment, sampling data collected by the various prefectural governments indicate that no vegetables, except for those grown in Fukushima Prefecture, have been found to contain more than the government's provisional limit of 500 becquerels per kilogram since June. Likewise, as of Sept. 7, samples of pork, chicken, milk and fruit had also tested within the provisional radiation limit, apart from Fukushima products and tea from Chiba, Kanagawa, Gunma, Tochigi, Saitama and Ibaraki prefectures.

In fact, the amount of radioactive materials in most of the food sampled has been steadily declining over the past few months, except for produce from Fukushima. "The results of Fukushima's sampling tests show the amountof radioactive material contained in vegetables has dropped sharply in recent months, including those grown in areas with high radiation levels," Noguchi said. "People shouldn't worry about it much (for the time being)," he said. "But mushrooms and other vegetables grown in contaminated forests are likely tocontain high levels of radioactive materials."

Now that soil in a wide area of eastern Japan has been contaminated with cesium, experts are calling for close monitoring of soil and produce. The education ministry conducted soil surveys in June and July at 2,200 locations within 100 km of the crippled plant. At 34 locations in six municipalities in Fukushima Prefecture, including Minamisoma, Namie and Iitate, the data said cesium levels had exceeded 1.48 million becquerels per sq. meter — the same level that was used to define the exclusion zone around Chernobyl in 1986. Yasuyuki Muramatsu, a radiochemistry professor at Gakushuin University, said that agricultural contamination will likely peak this year because cesium binds more strongly with minerals in soil as time passes, making it more difficult to be absorbed by plant roots.

"Data from the Chernobyl disaster show that radioactive cesium in soil tends to become fixed more strongly to clay minerals as time passes. So agricultural contamination will lessen next year," he said. Muramatsu urged that special caution should be taken over products grown in soil rich in organic matter, such as in forested areas. "If the soil is rich in organic matter, it makes (cesium) more easily transferable to plants. . . . Forest soil is rich in organic matter, so people should be careful," he said.

his year, it's very important to conduct thorough surveys. The contamination will continue for a long time, so data collection is essential," Muramatsu said. "We need to be prepared for the following years by recording data this year and studying the rate at which cesium in the soil is absorbed by each kind of produce," Muramatsu said. In the meantime, the radioactivity itself will continue to weaken over the years. Cesium-134 has a half-life of 2 years and cesium-137 a half-life of 30 years, meaning the radiation they emit will drop by half in 2 years and 30 years.

The ratio of cesium-134 to cesium-137 in the Fukushima accident is estimated as 1-to-1, while the ratio during the 1986 Chernobyl disaster was 1-to-2. This indicates the radiation in Fukushima will weaken at a faster rate than at Chernobyl. Between April and early August, the farm ministry tested soil at some 580 locations in six prefectures, including Fukushima, Tochigi and Gunma, to get a better picture of the full extent of contamination.

According to the results, 40 locations in Fukushima Prefecture had an intensity exceeding 5,000 becquerels per kilogram — the government's maximum limit for growing rice. Many municipalities within 30 km of the Fukushima No. 1 plant were banned from planting rice based on similar tests conducted in April. In addition, the ministry has asked 17 prefectures in eastern Japan to conduct two-phase radiation tests on harvested rice.

So far, none of the tests performed on unmilled rice — including from Fukushima — exceeded the government's limit of 500 becquerels per kilogram. Masanori Nonaka, an agriculture professor at Niigata University who specializes in soil science, said rice grown in contaminated areas is likely to be tainted, but to what extent is anyone's guess. White rice, however, may prove to be safe, Nonaka said. Because most of the radioactive material will adhere to the bran — the part of the husk left behind after hulling — about 60 percent of the cesium can be removed just by polishing it, he explained. Other foods, such as marine produce, won't be as easy to handle, experts say. After the Chernobyl accident, for example, the radioactive contamination of fish peaked between 6 to 12 months after the disaster. The Fisheries Agency, meanwhile, has asked nine prefectures on the Pacific coast to increase their sampling rates to prevent contaminated fish from landing in supermarkets.

Professor Tazaki collected the soil from the rice paddies in Nagadoro District of Iitate-mura, area with very high radiation, when she visited Fukushima Prefecture in late June. At her home in Kanazawa City, she planted the seedlings of "Koshihikari" which were germinated in Tawara-machi in Kanazawa City on the soil from Iitate-mura.

She harvested the rice in mid September, had it analyzed at a laboratory in Fukui Prefecture for cesium-137 in various parts of the rice and calculated the radiation levels per kilogram. The highest cesium-137 concentration of 2,600 becquerels/kg was found in (unprocessed) rice, 2,200 becquerels/kg from the straw, and 1,500 becquerels/kg from the roots. 50,000 becquerels/kg was detected from the soil itself.

To compare, "Koshihikari" rice planted in the rice paddies in Tawara-machi was also analyzed but no radioactive materials were detected at all.

Professor Tazaki says, "I myself was very shocked to find that the edible part of the rice had the most radiation. The decontamination of the soil should be carried out as soon as possible". She will teach farmers in Minami Soma City in Fukushima on a decontamination method using diatomite unique to Ishikawa Prefecture.Professor Tazaki found a bacterium that absorbs radioactive materials like uranium and thorium in Tanzania earlier this year, where she taught geology after she retired from Kanazawa University in 2009.Her result makes me very suspicious of the results announced by Fukushima Prefecture. Iitate-mura does have high soil contamination but it is by no means the highest. Judging by the rice hay contamination there are many other locations within Fukushima that may have radiation levels just as high and still grow rice because they lie outside the 30 kilometer radius from the plant. And yet the prefectural government says it's found 500 becquerels/kg of radioactive cesium at most from one location, and the rest is below 200 becquerels/kg.

It is also possible that the professor scraped the top soil only, whereas farmers in Fukushima tilled deeper and thus mixing the highly contaminated soil in the top 5 centimeters with the uncontaminated soil below, lowering the overall radiation.Well, despite the official ban with the threat of fines, the rice grew in Iitate-mura after all as at least one farmer spread the seed rice directly in the rice paddies. And as this Iitate-mura villager tweets, the rice has grown better than ever with far less work and resources. Why not test that too for radiation, instead of cutting it down?

As for green tea, the tea producer was mixing the tea that passed the provisional safety limit but which still contained radioactive cesium with the tea made in Kyushu, far away from Fukushima I Nuke Plant. The blend was the radioactive tea 20%, the Kyushu tea 80%.Most water purification plants had voluntarily stopped shipping the radioactive sludge until the provisional safety limit was decided. However, the company who runs this particular water purification plant that continued to ship says, "The detection level was low. If the sludge was made into the garden soil it would be diluted further". The company blames the manufacturers who bought the radioactive sludge, saying "The ultimate responsibility rests with those who make [the sludge] into final products and sell them". The company is currently selling the radioactive sludge to the businesses that supply dirt for construction projects, as the national government has sent out an instruction that "the use of radioactive sludge in the garden soil had better be suspended".According to the green tea producer, there weren't enough of the tea leaves that passed the safety limit [but still contained radioactive cesium] to make it worthwhile to sell, so the company decided to mix it to make a "blend tea". The person in charge of the "blend tea" says "We made it clear in the package that it was a "blend tea", so there should be no problem. We just wanted to make the tea safer for the consumers".

SuspicionThese practices are not illegal, and when the contaminated products are mixed with non-contaminated products there should be less ill-effect on humans. However, if this "dilute and sell" model takes hold, it will only add to doubt and confusion for the consumers. Damage from "baseless rumors" may spread to milk and rice. It has been a standard practice to mix milk from different locations. The same goes for rice.The national consumer association federation chief proposes the detailed labeling of the place of manufacture on a prefectural level so that the consumers can choose safely.

However, there is no law requiring the place of manufacture for the garden soil, and there is no voluntary guideline by the industry either. The national standard for food labeling only requires the label "Made in Japan" in the case of "blended" produce like rice and tea and processed foods; there is no requirement to show the name of prefecture where the product is made. The Consumer Affairs Agency of Japan [which is supposed to regulate the industries with the welfare of consumers in mind] is not going to do anything at this point, saying "Places of manufacture for the blended goods may change, so it is not practical to require detailed labels".

On the other hand, the head of the Worldwide Agricultural Policy Information Center is critical. He says "The role of the national government is to stop the spread of radioactive materials. To allow goods with radioactive materials to be diluted and and sold widely would be considered as approval by the national government to spread the contamination [all over Japan]". JA agricultural co-op Fukushima is also distrustful of the government policy [or lack thereof], saying "There will be no "baseless rumors" if the produce that is found with radioactive materials is not sold".However, for now, we can only count on the voluntary effort by the industries. A new national policy would be necessary, just like when there was a problem of labeling "made in Japan" and "imported" goods.

Now six months after the disaster, the smoking gun has finally surfaced, not on a Japanese paddy field but inside a pile of steer manure from a pasture near Sacramento, California

The sample of cattle dung and underlying soil was sent to the nuclear engineering lab of the University of California, Berkeley, which reported on September 6:

We tested a topsoil sample and a dried manure sample from the Sacramento area. The manure was produced by a cow long before Fukushima and left outside to dry; it was rained on back in March and April. Both samples showed detectable levels of Cs-134 and Cs-137, with the manure showing higher levels than the soil probably because of its different chemical properties and/or lower density. One interesting feature of t the Sacramento and Sonoma soil samples is that the ratio of Cesium-137 to Cesium-134 is very large - approximately 17.6 and 5.5, respectively. All of our other soil samples until now had shown ratios of between 1 and 2. We know from our air and rainwater measurements that material from Fukushima has a cesium ratio in the range of approximately 1.0 to 1.5, meaning that there is extra Cs-137 in these two soil samples. The best explanation is that in addition to Fukushima fallout, we have also detected atmospheric nuclear weapons testing fallout in these soils. Weapons fallout contains only Cs-137 (no Cs-134) and is known to be present in older soils ..Both of these samples come from older soils, while our samples until this point had come from newer soils.

The last atmospheric nuclear blast at the Nevada Test Site occurred in 1962, whereas the manure was presumably dropped less than 49 years ago. Over the past year, the approximate life-span of a cow patty, the rain that fell on the plain came not from a former province of Spain. Within that short time-frame, the only possible origin of radioactive fallout was Fukushima.To think otherwise would be lame.

Sun-dried manure is more absorbent than the rocky ground of Northern California, which explains the higher level in Sacramento dung than in the Sonoma soil. As a rule of thumb, the accuracy of radiation readings tends to improve with higher concentration of the test material.The manure acted like a sponge for the collection of radioactive rainfall. Its ratio of Cs-137 (resulting from enriched uranium) to Cs-134 (from a civilian fuel rod) is more than 17-to-1. Larger by 1,700 percent, this figure indicates fission of large amounts of weapons-grade material at Fukushima.

The recent higher readings were probably based on either late releases from a fire-destroyed extraction facility or the venting of reactor No.3, a Toshiba-designed unit that used plutonium and uranium mixed oxide or MOX fuel. Unannounced nighttime airborne releases in early May caused radiation burns in many people, as happened to my forearms. Those plumes then drifted toward North America.

Enrichment of uranium for nuclear warheads is prohibited under constitutional law in Japan and by terms of the Non-Proliferation Treaty. Since no suspects have been charged by prosecutors, this cannot be a plot by a few individuals but stands as the crime of a national entity.

Yellow-Cake Factory 608   Fukushima Province has a history of involvement in atomic weapons development, according to a New York Times article by Martin Fackler titled "Fukushima's Long Link to a Dark Nuclear Past" (Sept. 6). Following the lead of Japanese news reports, the correspondent visited the town of Ishikawa, less than an hour's drive south of the Fukushima No.1 nuclear plant. There he interviewed Kiwamu Ariga who as a student during the war was forced to mine uranium ore from a local foothill to supply the military-run Factory 608, which refined the ore into yellow-cake.

Several research groups worked on building a super-weapon for militarist Japan. The Naval Technology Research Institute was best-positioned due to its secret cooperation with the German Navy. Submarine U-234 was captured in the Atlantic after Germany's surrender with a cargo of uranium along with two dead passengers - Japanese military officers .Soon after departing Norway, U-864 was bombed and sunk, carrying a load of two tons of processed uranium..

In the article for the Atlanta Constitution, dated, Oct. 2, 1946, David Snell reported that the Japanese military had successfully tested a nuclear weapon off Konan on Aug. 12, 1945. There are detractors who dispute the account by a decommissioned Japanese intelligence officer to the American journalist, stationed in occupied Korea with the 24th Criminal Investigation Detachment of the U.S. Army. A cursory check on his background shows Snell to have been a credible reporter for Life magazine, who also contributed to the Smithsonian and The New Yorker magazines. A new book is being written by American and Russian co-authors on the Soviet shoot-down of the Hog Wild, a B-29 that flew over Konan island soon after the war's end..

Due to its endemic paranoia about all things nuclear, the U.S. government had a strong interest in suppressing the story of Japan's atomic bomb program during the war, just as Washington now maintains the tightest secrecy over the actual situation at Fukushima.

The emerging picture shows that nuclear-weapons development, initiated in 1954 by Prime Minister Nobusuke Kishi and supervised by Yasuhiro Nakasone, was centered inside civilian nuclear plants, since the Self-Defense Forces were bound by strict Constitutional rules against war-making and the Defense Agency is practically under the direct supervision of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff. Funding came from the near-limitless budget of the Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO), which today claims financial insolvency without explanation of how its vast cash holdings disappeared. A clandestine nuclear program must be expensive, since it would include the cost of buying the silence of parliament, the bureaucracy and foreign dignitaries.

Following the March 11 disaster, TEPCO sent a team of 250 emergency personnel into the plant, yet only 50 men were assigned to cooling the reactors. The other 200 personnel stayed out of sight, possibly to dismantle an underground plutonium-extraction facility. No foreign nuclear engineers or Japanese journalists were ever permitted entry into the reactor structures.   Radiation leakage from Fukushima No.1 prevented local police from rescuing hundreds of tsunami survivors in South Soma, many of whom consequently went unaided and died of wounds or exposure. Tens of thousands of farmers have lost their ancestral lands, while much of Japan's agriculture and natural areas are contaminated for several generations and possibly longer, for the remaining duration of the human species wherever uranium and plutonium particles have seeped into the aquifers.

TEPCO executives, state bureaucrats and physicists in charge of the secret nuclear program are evading justice in contempt of the Constitution. As in World War II, the Japanese conservatives in their maniacal campaign to eliminate their imagined enemies succeeded only in perpetrating crimes against humanity and annihilating their own nation. If history does repeat itself, Tokyo once again needs a tribunal to send another generation of Class-A criminals to the gallows.

It stands to reason that at some point the Ukrainian government would like to be able to use that land again, but the scientists have calculated that what they call cesium’s “ecological half-life” — the time for half the cesium to disappear from the local environment — is between 180 and 320 years.

“Normally you’d say that every 30 years, it’s half as bad as it was. But it’s not,” said Tim Jannik, nuclear scientist at Savannah River National Laboratory and a collaborator on the work. “It’s going to be longer before they repopulate the area.”

In 1986, after the Chernobyl accident, a series of test sites was established along paths that scientists expected the fallout to take. Soil samples were taken at different depths to gauge how the radioactive isotopes of strontium, cesium and plutonium migrated in the ground. They’ve been taking these measurements for more than 20 years, providing a unique experiment in the long-term environmental repercussions of a near worst-case nuclear accident.

In some ways, Chernobyl is easier to understand than DOE sites like Hanford, which have been contaminated by long-term processes. With Chernobyl, said Boris Faybishenko, a nuclear remediation expert at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, we have a definite date at which the contamination began and a series of measurements carried out from that time to today. “I have been involved in Chernobyl studies for many years and this particular study could be of great importance to many [Department of Energy] researchers,” said Faybishenko.

The results of this study came as a surprise. Scientists expected the ecological half-lives of radioactive isotopes to be shorter than their physical half-life as natural dispersion helped reduce the amount of material in any given soil sample. For strontium, that idea has held up. But for cesium the the opposite appears to be true. The physical properties of cesium haven’t changed, so scientists think there must be an environmental explanation. It could be that new cesium is blowing over the soil sites from closer to the Chernobyl site. Or perhaps cesium is migrating up through the soil from deeper in the ground. Jannik hopes more research will uncover the truth.

“There are a lot of unknowns that are probably causing this phenomenon,” he said. Beyond the societal impacts of the study, the work also emphasizes the uncertainties associated with radioactive contamination. Thankfully, Chernobyl-scale accidents have been rare, but that also means there is a paucity of places to study how radioactive contamination really behaves in the wild.

“The data from Chernobyl can be used for validating models,” said Faybishenko. “This is the most value that we can gain from it.” Update 12/28: The second paragraph of this story was updated after discussion with Tim Jannik to more accurately reflect the idea of ecological half-life.

Citation: “Long-Term Dynamics of Radionuclides Vertical Migration in Soils of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant Exclusion Zone” by Yu.A. Ivanov, V.A. Kashparov, S.E. Levchuk, Yu.V. Khomutinin, M.D. Bondarkov, A.M. Maximenko, E.B. Farfan, G.T. Jannik, and J.C. Marra. AGU 2009 poster session.

The soil contamination as the result of the Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant accident was reported on the August 29 meeting at the Ministry of Education and Science.

The survey found 34 locations in 6 municipalities exceeding the level of the confiscation/closed zone of the Chernobyl accident (1,480,000 becquerels/square meter of cesium-137 in soil). The purpose of the survey was to understand the radiation exposure of the residents. Prime Minister Kan said on August 27 that there might be locations where the residents wouldn't be able to return for a long time. The survey data validates the prime minister's comment.

According to the survey, the highest cesium-137 concentration in soil as of June 14 was in Okuma-machi in Fukushima Prefecture, within the no-entry evacuation zone, at 15,450,000 becquerels/square meter. If combined with cesium-134, the radioactive cesium concentration was 29,460,000 becquerels/square meter.

Total 16 location in 4 municipalities (Okuma-machi, Futaba-machi, Namie-machi, Tomioka-machi) exceeded 3,000,000 becquerels/square meter in cesium-137 concentration. The area with the high cesium-137 concentration extends northwest from the nuclear power plant. In total, 6 municipalities including Iitate-mura and Minami Soma City had the locations that exceeded the Chernobyl confiscation/closed zone level of cesium-137. The Ministry measured the soil samples from about 2,200 locations.Here's the map by Asahi Shinbun, including the locations with cesium-137 concentration of less than 1 million becquerels/square meter.

Hundreds of stacks throughout the laboratory released unfiltered gaseous waste directly from plutonium-processing hoods. The LAHDRA Project Team has developed a system of priority indices and determined that between 1944 and 1966, plutonium was the most significant contaminant released. LAHDRA estimated that the total amount of plutonium released by LANL throughout its history, even with the improved filtering systems in later years, exceeded 170 curies. [...]

The waste discharge at LANL began in 1944 during the development of the atomic bomb. Due to time pressures, secrecy of the project, and general lack of knowledge at the time about the dangers of radioactive materials, the laboratory took poor precautions in its disposal of radioactive and other hazardous wastes during its early years of operations. Initially, the waste, in the form of liquids, drums and cardboard boxes, was released into the canyons or deposited into unlined pits completely untreated; poor records were maintained about the volumes and activities of these releases. By the 1960s, the waste disposal practices significantly improved and better records were kept. [...]

This report compiles the available information about the waste disposed of at each Material Disposal Area and into the three canyons, including any recent soil and water sampling results. Some of the sites with the highest deposits of radioactive contaminants include MDA’s C, G, and H with respective inventories of up to 49,679 curies, 1,383,700 curies, and 391 curies. Routine sampling of soil and water is regularly performed and radionuclide contamination above background levels is often found at the burial sites (e.g. TA-21). [...]

The potential for LANL-origin contaminants to reach the Rio Grande River may vary, depending on the underground formations and the types of waste disposed of at each disposal site. The potential may be quite large, as the 2006 Santa Fe Water Quality Report stated a “qualified detection of plutonium-238”was detected in Santa Fe drinking water supplies4. The US DOE has also reported the detection of LANL radionuclides in Santa Fe drinking water since the late 1990s5. Plutonium is the main ingredient in the core or trigger of the nuclear weapons that were developed and produced at LANL, and approximately 423,776 cubic feet (ft3) (12,000 cubic meters (m3)) of plutonium contaminated waste is buried in unlined disposal pits, trenches, and shafts at the LANL site. This early detection of plutonium in Santa Fe drinking water may be an indicator of an approaching plutonium contamination plume in Santa Fe groundwater. And of course, plutonium is only one of many LANL-origin contaminants. [...]

As previously discussed, information pertaining to the wastes disposed of by LANL is not always complete or fully available and so many of the types and quantities of waste disposed of at various LANL technical areas remain unknown.  [...]

Part 4 / Osaka Bay, Whangarei / Nippon December 29 Cesium 134 783Bq/kg Cesium-137 39Bq/Kg Strontium-90 ND

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.

Ministry of Education, approximately two primary – the first from the soil collected in the town Hukuzima Ookuma 3 km Fukushima, announced that it has detected trace amounts of radioactive curium. Outside the premises at the primary site has been detected for the first time. The ministry “has been released to the outside by accident. But internal exposure to radionuclides that need attention,” he explained. Curium was believed to be from this time with the operation of the reactor plutonium. Detected in soil collected on May 1 and April 29 at the point of the town Ookuma 2. On the other hand, even trace amounts of americium were detected from the soil, the ministry is “a small amount detected in the atmosphere by nuclear tests in the past” has said.

Via tsutsuji at the Physics Forum:

Low concentrations of curium were found in soil samplings in Okuma town 2 or 3 km away from the plant. This is the first time curium is found outside of the plant. It is a by-product of plutonium. The Education and Science ministry says it is a concern for internal exposure.

The national government restricted the cultivation of rice in the no-entry zone, planned evacuation zone, and evacuation-ready zone (which was abolished on September 30) based on the Special Measure for Nuclear Disaster Act.

he farmer planted "Koshihikari" rice in his 120-are rice paddies within the evacuation-ready zone, and he has already harvested 1.8 tonnes of rice.

According to the Food Control Law, the rice harvested in the restricted areas must be discarded. In response to the prefectural government's advice, the farmer answered, "I grow as I please. I want to sell the rice that I grow."

According to Fukushima Prefecture, there are 12 farmers who grew rice in the restricted areas. 11 farmers have followed the advice and discarded the harvested rice or given it up for research.

The prefectural government says, "If the consumers know that there is rice grown in the restricted areas, it may cause anxiety and confusion. We would like [the farmer] to consider such consequences."Ha. For this particular prefectural government to say that is too rich for me. Outside the restricted areas, they simply sample-tested the soil, ditto for the harvested rice. Locations that were found with highly contaminated rice hay were all allowed to grow rice. (Planting the rice came before the discovery of contaminated rice hay.) The rice from one particular location tested 500 becquerels/kg of radioactive cesium, and the rice was grown in the soil with only 3,000 becquerels/kg of cesium. There are other locations whose rice exceeded 100 becquerels/kg. They were all good to sell (though the prefectural government ended up buying all of 500 becquerels/kg cesium rice).They should measure the cesium content of the rice that this farmer grew. If it is no different from the rest of Fukushima rice that are being sold, they should allow it to be sold.