nuclear-news

Safecast monitors Japan’s radiation levels, and sees it as a global issue

Despite the alarm inside Japan and abroad, specific information about radiation levels and its range are still mostly unavailable. This lack of information is what Safecast is trying to overcome…..

Global debate The Japanese government does not consider non-government readings to be authentic, and has urged the public to only rely on government data on radiation.

Bonner said: “Getting into this has showed us there is a lack of data everywhere.

“We’re going to start getting devices to people around the US and Europe. We’re going to set up fixed sensors and we’re making a device that we’ll sell to the public.

“We’re hoping to continue to get lots of data from lots of sources.”

Bonner’s ambitions appear timely against the backdrop of a revitalised global debate on the dangers of nuclear energy, especially in Japan.

“………..In the months since the catastrophe, the Japanese government, its nuclear watchdogs and Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO), have provided differing, confusing, and at times contradictory, information on critical health issues.

Fed up with indefinite data, a group of 50 volunteers decided to take matters, and Geiger counters, into their own hands.

In April, an independent network of like-minded individuals in the Japan and United States banded together to formSafecast and began an ongoing crusade to record and publish accurate radiation levels around Japan.

The group handed out mobile radiation detectors and uploaded the readings to the internet to map out exposure levels.

Sean Bonner, director of Safecast, told Al Jazeera that volunteers have so far logged more than 500,000 radiation data points across Japan.

He said the group is the only organisation he knows that is tracking radiation on a local level. The findings, Bonner added, have been shocking.

“People keep asking how we are doing it, when the government isn’t,” he said.

Lack of information

Dr Yuko Yanagisawa, a 51-year-old physician at Funabashi Futawa Hospital in Chiba Prefecture, feels the government’s response to health concerns has been grossly inadequate.

n the area where Yanagisawa lives and works, approximately 200 km from Fukushima, unhealthy radiation levels have been recorded.

Even so, she said the only information the government has released was to raise the acceptable radiation exposure limit for children from one millisieverts (mSv) of radioactivity a year to 20.

“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.”

From the start, the government’s track record on public health announcements has been poor.

As early radiation readings from the disaster site emerged, Japan’s then-Minister for Internal Affairs, Haraguchi Kazuhiro, alleged that monitoring station data was actually three decimal places greater than the numbers released to the public.

In late March, the Japanese Nuclear Safety Commission conducted a survey that found an estimated 45 per cent of children in the Fukushima region had experienced thyroid exposure to radiation.

But the commission has not carried out any surveys since.

Contaminated food fears

Recent disclosures from government agencies and TEPCO, the operator of the Fukushima plant, suggest that public information has hardly improved.

Earlier this month, TEPCO said it detected 10,000 mSv of radioactivity at the heavily damaged plant.

A dose this high would be fatal to humans, and was 250 per cent more than the previous high levels at the plant in March soon after the disaster.

Authorities have also been vague about the extent of the radiation, and how the potential spread may be affecting vital food crops and livestock.

Jyunichi Tokuyama, a specialist with the Iwate Prefecture Agricultural and Fisheries Department, said he was shocked to find radioactive hot spots in his prefecture, more than 300km from the stricken Fukushima nuclear site……

Not getting the data’

Despite the alarm inside Japan and abroad, specific information about radiation levels and its range are still mostly unavailable. This lack of information is what Safecast is trying to overcome……

Global debate

The Japanese government does not consider non-government readings to be authentic, and has urged the public to only rely on government data on radiation.

Bonner said: “Getting into this has showed us there is a lack of data everywhere.

“We’re going to start getting devices to people around the US and Europe. We’re going to set up fixed sensors and we’re making a device that we’ll sell to the public.

“We’re hoping to continue to get lots of data from lots of sources.”

Bonner’s ambitions appear timely against the backdrop of a revitalised global debate on the dangers of nuclear energy, especially in Japan.

August 11, 2011 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | environment, Japan