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Fukushima baby milk formula seized in central China

24-1437744781-japan

Beijing, Jul 24: Border quarantine authorities in central China’s Hunan Province have seized more than 400 kg of baby milk formula produced in areas close to the site of Japan’s Fukushima nuclear plant.
Although no excessive radioactive material was found in the formula, it was still sent back to Japan as China has banned imports of food and agricultural products from regions affected by the nuclear leak, state-run Xinhua news agency reported.
 The quarantine authorities said today that they found the milk formula in parcels mailed to Hunan between July 1 and July 20. This was the province’s biggest seizure of banned Japanese food.

Source: OneIndia
 http://www.oneindia.com/international/fukushima-baby-milk-formula-seized-in-central-china-1816627.html

July 24, 2015 Posted by | China | | 6 Comments

Fukushima cattle producer’s beef with TEPCO, government leads to lawsuit

hkklKazuo Ueno points to a large pile of manure on his ranch in Tamura, Fukushima Prefecture, on July 14.

KORIYAMA, Fukushima Prefecture–A local cattle producer has sued Tokyo Electric Power Co. and the government to recover 500 million yen ($4 million) in losses it says it suffered as a result of the 2011 nuclear disaster.
In the suit filed with the Koriyama branch of the Fukushima District Court on July 16, the plaintiff, Ueno Bokujo, cited a drop in beef cattle prices. It also contends that it has been forced to spend more on the disposal of manure produced by its herds due to declining sales following the accident at TEPCO’s Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant.
The company, which raises nearly 2,900 heads of cattle on its ranches in Koriyama and Tamura, is one of the largest such producers in Fukushima Prefecture.
Ueno Bokujo says TEPCO has failed to pay it the 200 million yen that it says it lost due to a drop in beef cattle prices in fiscal 2014.
According to an arrangement made after the accident, TEPCO was to compensate farmers for losses incurred if they made a claim.
The cattle producer estimates it will cost 2 billion yen to dispose of the 17,000 tons of manure that have accumulated on its farms.
The suit is the first to seek compensation for lost sales of compost, according to the Fukushima Prefectural Central Union Agricultural Cooperatives.
“We will respond sincerely after listening carefully to what the plaintiff has to say in court,” a TEPCO official said.
A government official declined to comment, saying a written complaint has not yet been delivered.
Source : Asahi Shimbun
http://ajw.asahi.com/article/0311disaster/fukushima/AJ201507240084

July 24, 2015 Posted by | Japan | , | Leave a comment

Increasing low dose ionising radiation increases cancer risk in a linear way with no safe level

text ionisingThe prestigious Biological Effects of Ionising Radiatioan (BEIR) Report VII states: ‘A comprehensive review of available biological and biophysical data supports a “linear-no-threshold” (LNT) risk model—that the risk of cancer proceeds in a linear fashion at lower doses without a threshold and that the smallest dose has the potential to cause a small increase in risk to humans’ – http://dels.nas.edu/resources/static-assets/materials-based-on-reports/reports-in-brief/beir_vii_final.pdf

The BEIR report is based on huge epidemiological studies, especially on survivors of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombing.

By contrast, the USA Department of Energy has been funding poxy little studies such as one at Flinders University, South quackAustralia, on a small number of mice – to try to prove this quack science “hormesis” idea. http://antinuclear.net/2012/09/03/flinders-university-participates-in-usa-department-of-energys-pro-nuclear-propaganda/

July 24, 2015 Posted by | Christina's notes, radiation | Leave a comment

USA Nuclear Regulatory Commission seriously considering quack science of “radiation hormesis” !

Linear No-Threshold Model and Standards for Protection Against Radiation, Office of the Federal Register USA

A Proposed Rule by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission on 06/23/2015   This document has a comment period that ends in 46 days (09/08/2015)

ACTION

Petition For Rulemaking; Notice Of Docketing And Request For Comment.

SUMMARY

quackThe U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has received three petitions for rulemaking (PRM) requesting that the NRC amend its “Standards for Protection Against Radiation” regulations and change the basis of those regulations from the Linear No-Threshold (LNT) model of radiation protection to the radiation hormesis model.

The radiation hormesis model provides that exposure of the human body to low levels of ionizing radiation is beneficial and protects the human body against deleterious effects of high levels of radiation.

Whereas, the LNT model provides that radiation is always considered harmful, there is no safety threshold, and biological damage caused by ionizing radiation (essentially the cancer risk) is directly proportional to the amount of radiation exposure to the human body (response linearity). ………The NRC is examining the issues raised in these petitions to determine whether they should be considered in rulemaking.

The NRC is requesting public comments on these petitions for rulemaking………

Submit comments by September 8, 2015. Comments received after this date will be considered if it is practical to do so, but the NRC is able to assure consideration only for comments received on or before this date.

ADDRESSES:

You may submit comments by any of the following methods (unless this document describes a different method for submitting comments on a specific subject):……. https://www.federalregister.gov/articles/2015/06/23/2015-15441/linear-no-threshold-model-and-standards-for-protection-against-radiation

 

July 24, 2015 Posted by | politics, USA | 1 Comment

Are Fukushima’s mutant daisies a wonder or a warning?

  It is all a question of the quantity of such occuring….But as they also measured the ground around those daisies which was found to be contaminated 0.5 µSv there is a good chance that it is mutation caused indeed by radiation and just NOT fasciation, fact which is omitted in the Christian Science Monitor article but which is mentioned in the original article of Fukushima Diary on July 7, 2015.

http://fukushima-diary.com/2015/07/photo-deformed-shasta-daisy-in-nasushiobara-city-0-5-%CE%BCsvh-at-1m-above-the-ground/

This is the original picture of the Fukushima Diary article

Fuk Diary july 7, 2015

Which was somehow omitted and substituted by the Christian Science monitor for this one

923986_1_0723-world-gnb-japannukeflowers_standard

The Christian Monitor Science article:

Flowers near Japan’s Fukushima nuclear power plant, which suffered a meltdown four years ago, are producing some strangely wonderful blossoms.

Should you be more worried about environmental toxins when your garden’s daisies look like they’ve been run through a trippy Dreamscope inceptionist image filter, or if your tulip trees have stippled leaves?

Residents of Japan’s Nasushiobara City have been posting images of the deformed daisies that some believe may be linked to the 2011 meltdown of the Fukushima nuclear power plant.

Trees and flowers can act as Mother Nature’s version of a canary in a coal mine, an alarm system giving off warnings – ia size, shape, color, splitting, or stacking – that toxins are present in our immediate environment.

Or they could just have a hormone imbalance, says Todd Forrest, the New York Botanical Garden’s vice president for horticulture, says in an interview. The fairly common deformities showing up near Fukushima could easily have been caused by a random mutation, insects, diseases, or even physical injury to the plant, he says.

In other words, doubled flower heads are no reason to call the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), according to Mr. Forrest.

“Fasciation is a relatively common occurrence in the garden world,” he says. Fasciation is the technical term for banding or bundling, and can result in a flower stem that looks flattened, splayed, or fused – ranging from the grotesque to the sublimely interesting.

“Radiation being present in the environment is a plausible explanation,” says Forrest, “but not necessarily the only explanation for the phenomenon.”

Many of the daisy images are coming from& Fukushima Diary, a popular site on Pinterest showing images of doubled daisies, roses and sunflowers.

Sources:

The Christian Science Monitor

http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Global-News/2015/0723/Are-Fukushima-s-mutant-daisies-a-wonder-or-a-warning

Fukushima Diary

[Photo] Deformed “Shasta daisy” in Nasushiobara City / 0.5 μSv/h at 1m above the ground

July 24, 2015 Posted by | Japan | | Leave a comment

Fukushima nuclear disaster: ‘Radiation will wash down from mountains, forests into other lands’

Fuk july 23, 2015

It’s impossible to even slightly decontaminate the area damaged by the Fukushima nuclear disaster because of the mountains and dense forests in that region, says Mycle Schneider, independent analyst on energy and nuclear policy.

Tokyo’s preparing to declare some parts of the evacuation zone around the crippled Fukushima nuclear plant, a safe place to live. However environmentalists warn many areas still show radiation levels 20 times the globally accepted limit.

RT: Do you think people will take the advice of the Japanese government and move back to the area? Do you personally think its safe?

Mycle Schneider: A number of opinion polls, surveys have shown that the percentage that is decided to go back might be around a fifth of all people evacuated, many people are still undecided and about half decided not to go back. People have to imagine – besides the radiation situation – what are they going back to. We should not forget that many of the homes in Japan are made of wood and they are basically in extremely bad shape and would have to be completely redone. There is not much to go back to and on top of it there is the radiation issue. There is also the issue of going back to their homes but what about their neighbors, what about collectivity, what about the services? So there are all kinds of other social issues besides the pure health issue.

RT: What could be the potential consequences of returning to the area? How long does it take to actually clean the area from nuclear contamination?

MS: I don’t think it is possible to clean up in the real sense of the word, meaning that you take away the added radioactivity that has been contaminating the soil, the roofs, everything. It’s impossible. So what you can do is you can reduce the radioactive contamination in some of the areas. You can take off soil; you can decontaminate what has been done by water sprayed. But keep in mind that 80 percent of Japan is mountains and in this area as well there is a lot of mountains, there is a lot of dense forest, there is absolutely no way even to slightly decontaminate that region. So you will not have a stable situation of contamination but it will move all the time and a new radiation will wash down from the mountains and forests into the other lands.

RT: Why do you think Tokyo wants people back in the area?

MS: It’s not very complicated. According to a partial estimate – there is no total public estimate of the cost of Fukushima disaster so far – but a partial estimate says it’s about $100 billion. Sixty percent of that has been spent for compensation measures. So compensating people for their loss of land and jobs is very expensive to the government and since the government has bailed out the company that ran the Fukushima reactors it’s basically now the government that is liable. So it’s a matter of reducing the overall cost of the disaster.

RT: Are there other cases where people have returned to the region of a nuclear disaster?

MS: Not really. Everybody knows about the Chernobyl disaster and the 30-kilometer exclusion zone remains. There are people that have returned to that zone, but without authorization. So it wasn’t a government measure of massively allowing people to go back. There are other areas that have been touched by nuclear disasters, but there is nothing really comparable of a densely populated area like in Japan.

Source: RT

http://www.rt.com/op-edge/310595-fukushima-nuclear-radiation-area/#.VbFcSy3oBmA.facebook

July 24, 2015 Posted by | Japan | , | Leave a comment

Map of the State of Reconstruction of Fukushima Prefecture

23 july 2015

Source: Japan Atomic Industrial Forum

Fukushima

July 24, 2015 Posted by | Japan | , | Leave a comment

Tepco finally admitted irregular sinking in Fukushima plant

Tepco-finally-admitted-irregular-sinking-in-Fukushima-plant 23 july 2015

On 7/21/2015, Tepco announced Fukushima plant area has irregularly sunk since 311.

It has been known that the reference point sank by 709 mm but Tepco has not reported the height above the sea level of each building.

The report reads Reactor 1 turbine building sank by 730 mm, Reactor 2 by 725 mm, Reactor 3 by 710 mm, Reactor 4 by 712 mm.

However the readings of reactor buildings were not published for some reason.

The buildings can be inclining due to this irregular sinking but the inclining degree has not been announced either.

http://www.tepco.co.jp/nu/fukushima-np/handouts/2015/images/handouts_150721_08-j.pdf

Source: Fukushima Diary

Tepco finally admitted irregular sinking in Fukushima plant

July 24, 2015 Posted by | Japan | | 2 Comments