nuclear-news

Japanese government’s double dealing on radiation data

Japan’s Radioactive Potemkin Village: The Government’s Double-Dealing Data, rense.com. By Richard Wilcox, PhD, 4-12-14 I stand to be corrected but what I recently witnessed first hand and face to face in the city of Nihonmatsu can be interpreted as nothing other than scientific fraud and blatant misrepresentation of the facts on the part of the Japanese government regarding gamma radiation levels, leading to the early deaths of tens of thousands of residents . I visited a large nuclear refugee camp in a beautiful location near Nihonmatsu, a modest sized city just outside the evacuation zone of the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant No. 1 (FNPP#1) disaster site .

Nihonmatsu is a typical mid-sized city in the near region of the FNPP#1 that was heavily doused with radiation from the triple meltdowns that occurred in March of 2011. Due to wind direction, the southern side of the plant did not receive nearly as much as in the northwest (3). Last summer I traveled within just a few kilometers of the FNPP#1 from the south, but readings never exceeded 0.5 microsieverts per hour (mcr sv pr hr). (Consider that 0.1 mcr sv pr hr is roughly an average dose received by a person in a normal environment).

0.5 mcr sv pr hr is an unsettlingly high dose but not nearly as high as what I experienced in Nihonmatsu where the average dose is over 2 mcr pr hr. Depending on how long one spends out of doors (farmers and children at play), that is as high as 19 millisieverts per year, barely under the official limit of 20 per year. Previous to the 3/11 nuclear disaster the Japanese government set the safe limit of exposure for the public at one millisievert per year.

The government-installed radiation detector is a large machine that stands in front of the main office of the temporary housing facility that our volunteer group visited.

In my case the reading I got near the official geiger counter was similar, but as the head of the facility, Mr. Honda explained to us, that is because the government decontaminates the area where the machine stands.

That said, the levels did fluctuate up and down quite a bit, but averaged 0.14 mcr sv pr hr during the few hours I was there.

Walking around the compound the air and ground readings I took varied wildly between 1 to over 2 mcr sv pr hr.

In the meantime, since the facility is considered “temporary housing” it has never been decontaminated. Permanent residencies in Nihommatsu are given priority due to the limited decontamination workforce and funding. How ironic given that Prime Minister Abe can afford to lavish taxpayer subsidies into the pockets of the extravagant Olympics boondogglers (4). I wonder how the luxurious quarters for the athletes who will spend just a few days in Tokyo in 2020 will compare to what Nihonmatsu residents have had to endure for years? These latter folks don’t matter because they are just Disposable Human Garbage (DHG) compared to the corporate cash-cow athletes. See: Lance Armstrong.

The Honda Interview

On March 29, 2014, my colleague, Chiho Takahashi, and I interviewed Mr. Honda, Chairman of the Adachi temporary housing facility, the largest such facility in Nihonmatsu………..

I think Mr. Honda and the residents should protest more loudly, but they are in a tricky situation and fear losing their housing allowance if they complain.

I talked to a decontamination worker who confirmed my hypothesis and told me that 2 mcr sv pr hr is the norm in the area this distance from FNPP#1. He told me Koriyama often has levels as high as 2 mcr sv pr hr and that decontamination only reduces levels of radiation by half.

Not only are residents in Fukushima enduring the legacy of the original accident, but significant amounts of radiation continue to be emitted into the atmosphere and ocean every day from the NFPP#1 disaster zone (5). In fact, the entire “decontamination process” is contentious given it simply pushes radiation from one place to another, but never really gets rid of it.

The government claims that levels in this region are vastly lower, so who is telling the truth– Mr. Honda and the decontamination worker I met– or the government? (6). The MEXT website claims levels at various locations inside the evacuation zone are 0.2 up to 0.5, but if they are measuring in the way I directly observed, by decontaminating the area directly surrounding the dosimeter, this would explain the low levels.

There is a history of tomfoolery involving radiation measurements including a recent scandal with the government (7; 8). Now they are trying to force residents back into the Death Zone by withholding crucial data (9; 10). Local governments are so worried about depopulation they are offering pregnant women free housing if they move back.As one expert noted, there is a “[n]ew residential support plan for evacuees from outside Fukushima — this mainly focuses on the pregnant women and the children. If the pregnant women or children decide to go back to Fukushima, Fukushima Prefecture will offer a new, very good house without payment. And this kind of policy they introduce means that the local government wants the people back to their area. So this is not a very good situation for the women’s and children’s health” (11).

Incredibly, “[t]he radiation dose limit of Fukushima schools and kindergartens is 3.8” mcr sv pr hr based on the assumption that children will not spend more than 8 hours per day out of doors (12). In one case a film crew reported in 2012 that they experienced 5 millisieverts per hour as they drove through the evacuation zone (13). That’s a lifetime dose in just one day and undoubtedly such hotspots abound in the area.

* Richard Wilcox is a Tokyo-based teacher and writer who holds a Ph.D. in environmental studies and is a regular contributor to the world’s leading website exposing the Fukushima nuclear disaster, Rense.com. He is also a contributor to Activist Post. His radio interviews and articles are archived at http://wilcoxrb99.wordpress.com and he can be reached by email for radio or internet podcast interviews to discuss the Fukushima crisis at wilcoxrb2013@gmail.com. http://www.rense.com/general96/jpsradioctv.html

April 15, 2014 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | Japan, radiation, secrets,lies and civil liberties