福島県いわき市四倉海岸 2012.10.04 Yotsukura Beach in Fukushima
The Yomiuri Shimbun
July 17, 2013
Children pick up white seashells at Yotsukura Beach in Iwaki, Fukushima Prefecture, on Monday, which was Marine Day. Located about 35 kilometers south of the crippled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant, the beach was opened for the first time since the March 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake, which triggered the nuclear crisis.
The operators of the beach gave away about 150 seashells that had been washed ashore, after polishing and putting stickers on them as a memento of visiting the beach. Before the disaster, the beach was visited by about 100,000 people a year.
We are pleased to announce the online publication of the English-language version of the “Proceedings of the Scientific and Citizen Forum on Radioprotection: from Chernobyl to Fukushima,” a conference which was organized on 12 and 13 May 2012 in Geneva by the Collective IndependentWHO – Health and Nuclear Energy. A printed version of the Proceedings will be available in mid-July.
The Forum brought together independent scientists and citizens from Belarus, Russia, France, Belgium, the United Kingdom, Switzerland and Japan, as well as politicians and journalists. As participants demonstrated, the scandal of the omerta on the effects of radiation on health continues, more than two years after the beginning of the Fukushima disaster on 11 March 2011.
There are more and more sick people in the affected areas, including children. Citizens, Japanese doctors and independent scientists are obliged to organize in the face of the shortcomings of the authorities and international organizations, including the World Health Organization (WHO), which is still subject to the agreement that it signed with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) on 28 May 1959.
With the publication of the “Proceedings” we remind all those concerned about the risks of atomic radiation, whether from civilian or military use.
There is no minimum acceptable radiation dose for health, contrary to what is claimed by the Japanese authorities and international organizations following the accident at the Fukushima Dai-Ichi nuclear power plant.
This 160-page report, profusely illustrated with graphics and photos, is an accurate and complete reflection of the presentations and discussions at the Forum. A French-language version was published earlier this year. It is now available in English as a PDF on our website. The print version will be available at mid-July 2013.
The video above is a recent brief talk on the failures in the design of the reactor at Daichi and those of the USA
Below is an article that was released 5 days after the Tsunami struck the nuclear power plant at Fukushima Daichi. The plant had suffered 3 meltdowns by this point with massive releases on radioactivity into the environment.
Fukushima Reactor Flaws Were Predicted – 35 Years Ago
The failings of the Fukushima nuclear reactor were so substantial that three General Electric scientists who helped design the now imperiled reactors resigned from the company.
Dale Bridenbaugh helped assess the design of the Mark 1 nuclear reactor upon its creation back in 1975. His findings portray an extreme lack of confidence in the reactor’s ability to contain pressure in case of a meltdown. Bridenbaugh and two engineering colleagues couldn’t handle the pressure themselves, leading them to drop out of the project and resign their positions with the company.
The Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant contains six total reactors, five of which are Mark 1s. And the problem the reactors are facing – a loss of power, leading to cooling uranium rods and rising pressure inside the core – is precisely the issue that drove Bridenbaugh’s resignation from General Electric. The reactors “did not take into account the dynamic loads that could be experienced with a loss of coolant,” Bridenbaugh told ABC News.
GE says the problems were rectified in the early 80s, but it may be weeks before the full extent of the quake damage to the reactors is determined.
In a distinct (though not entirely unexpected) change of heart, Bridenbaugh and his colleagues, after leaving GE, went to work for an antinuke campaign.
Regulators inspect fault under Monju reactor Japan’s nuclear regulator has asked the operator of a fast-breeder reactor on the Japan Sea coast to widen a fault survey site. The Nuclear Regulation Authority is checking the country’s six nuclear power plants built over faults.
Utility applies to restart 2 reactors Kyushu Electric Power Company has filed an application to restart 2 reactors in western Japan under new nuclear safety regulations. The utility handed in papers for 2 reactors of its Genkai plant in Saga Prefecture to the Nuclear Regulation Authority on Friday. The step brought the number of reactors under NRA review to 12, at 6 plants.
Tokaimura Criticality Accident In 1999 three workers received high doses of radiation in a small Japanese plant preparing fuel for an experimental reactor. The accident was caused by bringing together too much uranium enriched to a relatively high level, causing a “criticality” (a limited uncontrolled nuclear chain reaction), which continued intermittently for 20 hours. http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/Saf…
Published on by Birdhairjp Jul 16, 2013 A spider with yellow & black caution stripe was being swayed by wind on his web. ————————————– Cesium have a low boiling point. Aprox.700 degrees Celsius, 1300 degree Fahrenheit. Garbage incineration easily make Cesium gasification. Gasification; Cesium cannot be caught by bag filters of the incineration facilities. Chimney discharges radioactive Cesium. In wet days, cesium is cooled by rain and fallen immediately beneath. Serious polutions are brought to the surround of the incineration facilities. —————————————- ———– On 15th of July 2013, I measured radiation around “Fukuyama clean center”, Koriyama city, Fukushima pref. Japan I monitored 0.39 or 0.46 micro Sievert per ain air at chest hight, 10.73 on the ground level, on road side mud. The monitorinig place is 60 km from Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear power plant. Measuring instrument is made of Ukraine, ECOTEST MKS-05. 10.72μSv/h 郡山市富久山 ごみ焼却場近く歩道の泥 2013.7.15
Fukushima – Mr. K Published on by AlternativeNews4U4 Jul 16, 2013 Fukushima – Mr. K Subscribe to unseenrecordings birdhairjp chan http://youtu.be/YV0R6WmyRUg I do not own this video. Creative Commons Attribution license (reuse allowed) Please “like”, subscribe and share if you would like to see more videos like this uploaded. Thank you in advance. source video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jrOMx…
New water leak found at nuclear plant Allegan County — The Palisades Nuclear Power Plant had a small water leak last week, about a month after the facility went back in service after a 43-day outage. Read more: http://www.hollandsentinel.com/news/x…
Trimming Exposure Data, Putting Radiation Workers at Risk: Improving Disclosure and Consent Through a National Radiation Dose-Registry http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/artic…
The body of Michael Hastings, the journalist who was killed in suspicious circumstances in a car crash last month, has reportedly been returned to his family after being cremated without their permission. The reports raise fresh questions about the crash and whether it was really an accident.
Truthloader is a channel dedicated to citizen journalism. We find the best examples of crowd-sourced video and independent content, then use our expertise to add context and analysis. We respond to the stories you’re interested in, so if you’ve got a story you’d love us to get to the bottom of, tweet us, Facebook us, or respond to our videos with a comment – and perhaps check out our reddit.
“The international council of 13 Indigenous Grandmothers” is in Stockholm to share their wisdom and community. They were formed in the U.S. in 2004. They meet a few times each year to gather for council. Now it’s time for a conference in Stockholm. They recently came from Almedalen where they invited to discuss a sustainable community that is built through respect for future generations and natural rights. We must protect our planet, and on “Mother Earth” they say.
During the day they will call the council and protect the lives of future generations. A number of workshops will be held on medicinal plants, indigenous languages and prophecies. There will also be a youth conference called “Burning opinions.”
“13 indigenous grandmothers’ struggle against injustice and committed to the environment.
They discuss mining, water and air pollution and human rights. Our planet will be enough for seven generations ahead, they say. They cherish the knowledge that mothers, grandmothers transmitted through the ages to the next generations. These “Grandmothers” is between 60 and 90 years, and carries over a thousand years of women’s wisdom.
Rita Pitka Blumenstein Yup’ik, “grandmother”, born on a fishing boat and raised in Tununuk Alaska celebrates his 90th birthday on the day I visit the conference. There will be singing with and Grandmother Mona Polacca at the ceremony site. The atmosphere is warm and caring.
Later that evening, I get the opportunity to do an interview with Mona Polacca from Hopi-Havasupai/Tewa from Arizona. She is also the spokesperson of the UN for indigenous peoples.
i have been attacked by hacking and finacial manipulation rendering me homeless and jobless.. was it worth it? HELL YES!! Can we do something about it? HELL YES!!
Recent revelations about undercover policing have shown that a number of legal and political campaigns and organisations, including the Newham Monitoring Group, a partner organisation in Netpol, have been subject to covert surveillance operations.
While the police are keen to dismiss criticism as being merely an historic issue, applying to a bygone era, Netpol sees no reason to believe that things have improved in recent years. The covert policing of dissent still lacks any effective internal accountability mechanism or means of independent/public scrutiny.
UNESCO launches a call for research proposals in order to produce a qualitative picture of cases around the world linked to guaranteeing the safety of journalists using digital media. The research will analyse the role of governments, intergovernmental organizations, civil society and the media in the protection of online media actors. It will also provide guidelines, good practices and policy recommendations on how to respect the right to freedom of expression in the digital environment.
Interested researchers and organizations are invited to submit their proposals by 31 July 2013.
Parallel to unprecedented diffusion of online media and digital communication worldwide, there is a worrying trend that websites of news media, human rights organizations, critical bloggers, and other individuals or organizations disseminating information have increasingly become targets of illegitimate surveillance, hacking and attacks from various sources ranging from State-based actors to third parties.
More extremely, some media actors are being killed for their online journalism. According to the Committee to Protect Journalists out of 50 of those journalists who were killed in the first part 2012, a total of 17 were online journalists. In turn, Reporters without Borders has registered the killing of 39 netizens and citizen journalists by late 2012.
The UN Human Rights Committee in its general comment No. 34 has defined journalism as “a function shared by a wide range of actors, including professional full-time reporters and analysts, as well as bloggers and others who engage in forms of self-publication in print, on the Internet or elsewhere.” The term “journalists” in this envisaged research includes, therefore, all online media actors who do journalism while not ignoring differences amongst them.
UNESCO is concerned about the online safety of journalists and its significant human rights implication, particularly on freedom of expression and related privacy protection. This research fits within the Organization’s on-going efforts to implement the UN Inter-Agency Plan on the Safety of Journalists and the Issue of Impunity. At the same time, it is clear that there is only limited information available about the extent of online threats and the digital safety literacy of journalists. To that end, UNESCO perceives a need to collect more information on the safety situation of online journalists across the globe.
UNESCO, therefore, invites interested researchers and organizations to submit their proposals, according to the Terms of Reference, by email to MsXianhong Hu, before noon (CET), 31 July 2013. Proposals have to include detailed description of the research methodology, deliverables, timeline and requested funding.
Fukushima – Science Media Centres and their part in corrupting truth..
Posted by nuclear-news.net
11 July 2013
By arclight2011part2
I would like to bring to your attention the mechanism by which science journalism is being undermined.. It may explain George Monbiot`s conversion to the nuclear industry among other things. This mechanism is the Science Media Centers of the world and the nuclear industry driven PR machine
There is growing evidence that the existence of SMCs is also encouraging news organizations to downgrade science reporters. Recently the newspaper The Australian sacked its science reporter, Leigh Dayton. The reason she was given by the editors was..
“they could rely on the supply of press releases from the Australian SMC so that their general reporters could write the science news”.
A large empirical study carried out recently by Andy Williams of Cardiff University, UK also confirmed that..
Science PR was increasing and independent science journalism was decreasing.
Abby Martin takes a closer look at the death of award winning journalist Michael Hastings, featuring interviews with Michael’s close friend, Joe Biggs, who suspects his death was not an accident, and Kimberly Dvorak, an investigative journalist who has been conducting an investigation into the anomalies despite stonewalling from the LAPD.
Let America be America again.
Let it be the dream it used to be.
Let it be the pioneer on the plain
Seeking a home where he himself is free.
(America never was America to me.)
Let America be the dream the dreamers dreamed--
Let it be that great strong land of love
Where never kings connive nor tyrants scheme
That any man be crushed by one above.
(It never was America to me.)
O, let my land be a land where Liberty
Is crowned with no false patriotic wreath,
But opportunity is real, and life is free,
Equality is in the air we breathe.
(There's never been equality for me,
Nor freedom in this "homeland of the free.")
Say, who are you that mumbles in the dark?
And who are you that draws your veil across the stars?
I am the poor white, fooled and pushed apart,
I am the Negro bearing slavery's scars.
I am the red man driven from the land,
I am the immigrant clutching the hope I seek--
And finding only the same old stupid plan
Of dog eat dog, of mighty crush the weak.
I am the young man, full of strength and hope,
Tangled in that ancient endless chain
Of profit, power, gain, of grab the land!
Of grab the gold! Of grab the ways of satisfying need!
Of work the men! Of take the pay!
Of owning everything for one's own greed!
I am the farmer, bondsman to the soil.
I am the worker sold to the machine.
I am the Negro, servant to you all.
I am the people, humble, hungry, mean--
Hungry yet today despite the dream.
Beaten yet today--O, Pioneers!
I am the man who never got ahead,
The poorest worker bartered through the years.
Yet I'm the one who dreamt our basic dream
In the Old World while still a serf of kings,
Who dreamt a dream so strong, so brave, so true,
That even yet its mighty daring sings
In every brick and stone, in every furrow turned
That's made America the land it has become.
O, I'm the man who sailed those early seas
In search of what I meant to be my home--
For I'm the one who left dark Ireland's shore,
And Poland's plain, and England's grassy lea,
And torn from Black Africa's strand I came
To build a "homeland of the free."
The free?
Who said the free? Not me?
Surely not me? The millions on relief today?
The millions shot down when we strike?
The millions who have nothing for our pay?
For all the dreams we've dreamed
And all the songs we've sung
And all the hopes we've held
And all the flags we've hung,
The millions who have nothing for our pay--
Except the dream that's almost dead today.
O, let America be America again--
The land that never has been yet--
And yet must be--the land where every man is free.
The land that's mine--the poor man's, Indian's, Negro's, ME--
Who made America,
Whose sweat and blood, whose faith and pain,
Whose hand at the foundry, whose plow in the rain,
Must bring back our mighty dream again.
Sure, call me any ugly name you choose--
The steel of freedom does not stain.
From those who live like leeches on the people's lives,
We must take back our land again,
America!
O, yes,
I say it plain,
America never was America to me,
And yet I swear this oath--
America will be!
Out of the rack and ruin of our gangster death,
The rape and rot of graft, and stealth, and lies,
We, the people, must redeem
The land, the mines, the plants, the rivers.
The mountains and the endless plain--
All, all the stretch of these great green states--
And make America again!
The Fukushima Health Survey team has been using a wholebody counter with high detection limit (more than 300Bq/kg) to measure the amount of ionizing radiation exposure in the residents in Fukushima prefecture.
Prof. Katsuhiko Yagasaki of Ryukyus University, Okinawa, Japan commented that Wholebody counter has been used to downplay the danger of internal exposure.
Prof. Yagasaki wrote an article, explaining the difference between the wholebody counter and the urine test in detail. In his article he commented that it’s wrong to say everybody is fine, using only the result of wholebody counter.
1. Detection limit of wholebody counter is usually set up between 250-300Bq/kg. But urine test is 50-60 times more accurate than wholebody counter. Detection limit is 0.1Bq/litter, equivalent to 6 Bq. The Length of time for measurement is 2-5 minutes which is not long enough to measure correctly.
2.Only gamma radiation can be detected. It can not detect alpha or beta radiation.
Prof. Yagasaki also commented that it would be difficult for the Fukushima fallout victims to claim compensation with the result of “No Detection” by wholebody counter.
(Editor’s note)
I can not possibly translate all of what he has to say. I hope somebody will, because Prof. Yagasaki’s opinion has been well respected.
He is the one who helped the Hiroshima/Nagasaki bombs survivors to be able to receive compensation after long battles against Japanese government. He also wrote a statement of facts for The Fukushima Collective Evacuation Trial
*INCORPORATED RADIO CAESIUM AND CARDIOVASCULAR PATHOLOGY Bandazhevsky Yu I, Bandazhevskaia G. Inst. of Radiation Safety Minsk Be. “Clinical investigation of children showed satisfactory nutrition but chronic levels over 30 Bq/kg body weight were often associated with serious cardiovascular diseases. “
Doctors in Belarus recommend children with 20-50Bq/kg body weight to go to recuperation for a while. If it’s more than 50Bq/kg, and doing nothing about it, for sure those children will develop some radiation related illnesses in their future.
(Editor’s note)
Early detection is so important. It’s impossible to detect illness early, using wholebody counter. Now 27 children already developed thyroid cancer.
Come to think of it, as soon as Prof. Yamashita was appointed as a head of the Fukushima Health Survey Team, huge amount of money was allocated to build an extension of the area for thyroid operation as if they knew what would happen.
The Fukushima Health Survey has been doing the same thing what RERF, the Radiation Effects Research Foundation (=ABCC) did to Hiroshima/Nagasaki victims. “Measurement for scientific guinea pig.”
I just found that according to the official website of Fukushima Health Survey, they used even higher detection limit than 300Bq/kg in July 2011.
High levels of cesium found in fish off Ibaraki
Researchers have found high levels of radioactive cesium in fish caught early this month off Hitachi in Ibaraki Prefecture, northeast of Tokyo.
Prefectural officials said 1,037 becquerels of cesium were discovered per kilogram of Japanese sea bass. That’s more than 10 times the government safety limit.
They said it is the 3rd highest level found in marine products in the region. Higher levels were only previously detected in April 2011 — one month after the Fukushima nuclear accident. The contaminated fish then was sand lance.
Reconstruction from 2011 disaster way ahead
Reconstruction of disaster-hit northeastern Japan is being slowed by a lack of land and a shortage of labor, NHK has found.
The region was hit by a massive earthquake and tsunami exactly 2 years and 4 months ago.
In coastal areas in Miyagi and Iwate prefectures, households are relocating to higher ground. In some places, ground levels are being raised to avoid flooding by tsunami.
But work is likely to take much longer than expected, amid difficulties in buying up land and securing labour.
#Fukushima I Nuke Plant: TEPCO Seems to Say Cesium-Contaminated Dirt Contaminated Groundwater
…On Tuesday experts detected an increased concentration of radioactive cesium in juvenile fish that were caught off the northeastern coast of Honshu Island, which is where Fukushima-1 is located. The local authorities have urged the population to give up fishing and eating fish. … 6 April 2011
No one knows from where, or how, but ever since the higher levels of radioactive cesium started to get detected from the groundwater samples in the observation holes along the seawall at the plant 3 days ago (July 8), particularly in the hole No.1-2, TEPCO’s explanation up to that point became, obviously, invalid.
TEPCO had said that the high levels of tritium and all-beta in the groundwater samples were from the extremely highly contaminated water that leaked from a crack near the Reactor 2 water intake in early April of 2011, and that the soil had absorbed radioactive cesium and that was why the water samples were showing very low levels of radioactive cesium.
That explanation went out the door when 9,000 Bq/liter of cesium-134 and 18,000 Bq/liter of cesium-137 were detected from the hole No.1-2.
The Nuclear Regulatory Authority finally ran out of patience, and took up the subject in their regular press conference on July 10. Chairman Tanaka said it was now possible that the plant had been leaking contaminated water into the ocean for the past two years and 4 months. The same day, TEPCO’s PR tried its best not to commit to anything by avoiding explanation. (Here’s an article by NY Times’ Hiroko Tabuchi, an admirable effort to make sense of extremely confusing press conferences by both NRA and TEPCO.)
But now, TEPCO has come up with the new explanation: It is the dirt particles in the water that are highly radioactive with cesium, not the water itself.
To prove it, TEPCO filtered the water using 0.45μm filter, and measured the radioactivity. Lo and behold! The numbers for cesium went down, to 1/100 of the numbers before filtration! Sigh of relief at TEPCO, no doubt.
That still doesn’t explain the high levels of tritium and all-beta.
The plan is still on, by the way, to release groundwater that is being pumped into tanks upstream to the ocean. TEPCO/government is still trying to obtain consent from the fishery association of Fukushima Prefecture. Some of local fishermen are saying, according to Tokyo Shinbun, that it doesn’t matter anyway, as no one will buy fish caught off the coast of Fukushima anyway.
Lord Freud: ‘We’ve got the circumstances now where… people who are poorer should be prepared to take the biggest risks – they’ve got least to lose.’
Keith Lindsay-Cameron
The poorest people in Britain are being subjected to a state imposed apartheid as welfare rights, workers protections and legal aid, are stripped away, and through the persistent and malicious government and media demonisation of the poor, the imposition of the Bedroom Tax and the increasing use of welfare sanctions of up to three years loss of welfare income and ever more draconian state control.
This is social exclusion on a grand scale accompanied by the outright denial by government that their policies of attrition have anything to do with growing poverty and hardship. Lord Freud has said of the rising number of food banks, ‘It is difficult to know which came first – supply or demand.’ as if food bank usage was some kind of lifestyle choice. It is worth bearing in mind that it was also Freud who said, ‘We’ve got the circumstances now where… people who are poorer should be prepared to take the biggest risks – they’ve got least to lose.’ Quite how that kind of twisted logic works is hard to understand when the bottom line of poverty is the risk to life itself, but then, it is clear that any intrinsic value of life has no part to play in government policy.
In our modern technological nation and ever since the industrial revolution with the loss of traditional cottage/home produce, money is the means of our survival. As with gas and electricity, industrial monopoly has done away with localised, home, initiatives, to create a dependence that is entirely based on monetary exchange for goods and services. Money, therefore, has become a necessity and yet is maintained as a reward for labour, yet which is in no way linked to the actual cost of living. So today in Britain we have a virtually meaningless minimum wage and are as far away from a legislated living wage as ever.
The greater tragedy is that hate crime is on the increase including disability hate crime which is at its highest level since records began. It’s hardly surprising when the DWP and Iain Duncan Smith treat all disability as malingering and, as David Cameron puts it, Britain is for people who want to get on. This is no longer a country in which the poor are welcome and the disabled least of all. Government cuts continue to target the poorest members of society and with yet more cuts on the way, this apartheid against the poor is still, tragically, in its infancy. With the ever increasing privatisation of the state, including the NHS, it is predicted that the NHS could start charging for services within ten years with devastating consequences for the poor who will be least able afford them. July the 5th marked the 65 birthday of the NHS of which Aneurin (Nye) Bevan said, ‘The NHS will survive as long as there are folk with the faith to fight for it.’
Sad to say that not even the far sighted Nye Bevan could have foreseen the rise of the corporate state and the systematic robbery of the poor to pay for an austerity entirely imposed on us by the banks, stock markets and huge corporate interests. People of good faith are necessary as never before to fight this malicious growing apartheid.
….At Garlieston there was an increase in concentrations in mud from 1985 -1997, and at Carlingford in Northern Ireland the concentration of Am-241 in mud appears to be increasing still. This effect of the spread of activity away from Sellafield may continue, at least in the near future…..
Issue 2 (June 2013)
Received 9 May 2012, accepted for publication 19 December 2012, in final form 23 October 2012
Published 13 March 2013
G.J. Hunt, K.S. Leonard* and L M. Hughes*
The concentrations of Cs-137, tritium, Tc-99, Pu-239+240 and Am-241 in representative materials from the Irish Sea were investigated with reference to continuing remobilisation from sediments. Long time series of monitoring data since the 1960s were employed.
Cs-137 in sea water and fish show peaks in concentrations normalised to discharge rate (NACs) from 1985-1989. This is consistent with the time needed for dispersion in sea water following the preceding reductions in discharges; continuing enhancements of NACs above pre-1970s levels follow, consistent with the effect of activity remobilised from sediment. It is estimated that about 300 TBq of Cs-137 were remobilised from the immediate tidal area around Sellafield from 1989-2009. The enhancements in concentrations continue to this day, with the effect of remobilisation at present being ~6 TBq y-1, approximately doubling the effect of direct discharges. To provide an indication for the future, the rate of Cs-137 remobilisation is decreasing with a half-time of ~6 years.
Data for tritium and Tc-99 were examined in view of the interest in these radionuclides. Concentrations broadly reflect the levels of discharges and the need for dispersion. As expected, there is no evidence of sustained remobilisation of tritium, due to its mobility (or low Kd). The same lack of evidence was found to apply for Tc-99 despite known sorption of a small proportion of the discharged activity by Irish Sea sediments.
Pu-239+240, by contrast, shows much evidence of the effect of remobilisation; concentrations in sea water near Sellafield have reduced much slower than the discharges. At Southerness, ~50 km away, there was no significant reduction in sea water concentrations from 1985-1996, and winkles showed an increase then decrease in concentrations over this period, consistent with a spreading of activity. This effect was replicated in mud at Garlieston, ~70 km from Sellafield.
For Am-241, the rate of grow-in from Pu-241 has dominated direct discharges since the late 1970s. Grow-in continues today in the Irish Sea at the rate of ~8 TBq y-1, ~200 times the rate of direct discharge. Winkles at Southerness show evidence of a spreading effect of Am-241, with an increase then decrease from 1985-1996.
At Garlieston there was an increase in concentrations in mud from 1985 -1997, and at Carlingford in Northern Ireland the concentration of Am-241 in mud appears to be increasing still. This effect of the spread of activity away from Sellafield may continue, at least in the near future.
Reference:
G.J. Hunt, K.S. Leonard* and L M. Hughes* (2013) Artificial radionuclides in the Irish Sea from Sellafield: remobilisation revisited. Journal of Radiological Protection 33 (2) p261
Gordon Brown is to lead a Commons debate to demand MoD ‘owns up’ its role in radioactive contamination at Dalgety Bay in Fife, Scotland. Photograph: Joel Ryan/AP
Former prime minister Gordon Brown is demanding the Ministry of Defence “owns up” and takes responsibility for radioactive contamination at a beach.
Brown will lead a Commons debate on Tuesday, highlighting a letter which he says proves the ministry had already accepted blame.
The memo shows the MoD was willing to take action as early as 1990 for contamination at Dalgety Bay in Fife.
Brown, who is the MP for the area, said: “This letter shows that the ministry must now own up, clean up, pay up and hurry up.
I would like to bring to your attention the mechanism by which science journalism is being undermined.. It may explain George Monbiot`s conversion to the nuclear industry among other things. This mechanism is the Science Media Centers of the world and the nuclear industry driven PR machine
There is growing evidence that the existence of SMCs is also encouraging news organizations to downgrade science reporters. Recently the newspaper The Australian sacked its science reporter, Leigh Dayton. The reason she was given by the editors was..
“they could rely on the supply of press releases from the Australian SMC so that their general reporters could write the science news”. [Ed: Leigh Dayton denies having said this and we are currently endeavouring to check with the author of the Columbia Journalism Review paper as to the veracity or otherwise of the above statement.]
A large empirical study carried out recently by Andy Williams of Cardiff University, UK also confirmed that..
Science PR was increasing and independent science journalism was decreasing.
In the UK for some time the independent scientist has been squeezed out of the media and a more pro- industry message is being given to journalists/media outlets, who do not have such a good grip of the full impact of a nuclear disaster.
The UK security services such as MI5 and MI6 have been targeting effective independent scientists and researchers such as Chris Busby, Richard Bramhall and John Large because of their negative reporting on certain aspects of the nuclear industry. the most vicious of which was directed at Chris Busby during the UK nuclear test veterans case where he was replaced with Prof Paddy Regan at the last minute who promptly lost the rest of the cases for the veterans. Richard Bramhall had his email blocked and John Larges web site was hacked.This is just a quick sample of security services interference and a book could be wrote on this subject alone.
With this as a backdrop to the Fukushima Daichi nuclear disaster and the way that it was handled by the media and PR companies. The SMC model was used to get a grip of the information. NGO`s such as CRIIRAD and ACRO did mange some testing of the environment but their role was limited by agreement, by the Japanese government. This can be seen in the way that Greenpeace was warned away very publicly from testing the surrounding waters to the Daichi nuclear site.
Any other scientists such as Chris Busby were stopped from setting up a laboratory to monitor the contamination efficiently and indeed in the case of Chris Busby, a smear campaign was begun by media outlets around the world. Other Japanese independent scientists and health professionals (with experience of Chernobyl) were sidelined by the press and academic worlds.
The Japanese government stopped a genetic test (a simple blood sample) that could tell if the person had damage from ionising radiation. This test needs to be done within three years (earlier for more accurate results) but the Japanese government has blocked it to mitigate the costs to the Insurance and nuclear industries. The Japanese government released only this year that they could not use this test because there needs to be a moral issues debate (the problem of finding illegitamate children was given as a reason why the tests were not done). The only reason that the Japanese government released that statement was because a Scientist had told everyone about the test on an NHK news broadcast (without consulting with the Japanese SMC)
At Fukushima, no physical health effects of radiation have been observed among the general public and effects on workers have been far lower than those at Chernobyl. The INES was meant to aid public understanding of nuclear safety but has, in fact, made it more confused. The INES should be substantially modified or scrapped.
Dr Higson feels he can give advise on health effects though he was wrong on that point but continues to say that the INES should be scrapped even though there is comparable if not more health issue effects being reported even though the Japanese health system is tightly controlled by the government. This shows how the system can be corrupted with bad science and bad viewpoints with no stop checks along the way.. This statement is the last post on the Japanese SMC site with no retraction of the inaccuracies and ommissions..
In fact the combined use of SMC`s throughout the globe has hugely helped the nuclear industry out and got Tepco and others out of paying huge compensation to those effected worst by the disaster. To prove a point on the use of the Japanese SMC to mitigate this disaster and nothing else, we can see that the last entry into the Japanese SMC was in 09/03/2012 . With no mention of the dire results of the Thyroid checks that had been carried out on 150,000 children out of approx 350,000 children who may have been hit by the initial plumes (This is denied in the world of the SMC stating not enough evidence)
A common theme is to concentrate on the psychological aspects of the disaster and make that the main concern. With some blatant lies of course…
On the Fukushima site today:
The four damaged reactors are in a stable cold shutdown state, cooled by water circulated through a treatment plant. Site clean-up, including removal of radioactive rubble, continues. A mid and long-term roadmap for the decommissioning of units 1-4 was issued in December 2011. Phase 1 prepares for the removal of spent fuel from the cooling ponds to commence by 2013. Phase 2 prepares for the removal of fuel debris from the reactor core to commence within 10 years. The final phase completes the decommissioning of the reactors in 30-40 years.
There are still over 100,000 people evacuated from Fukushima Prefecture. In the areas within the 20km evacuation zone with an annual radiation dose of <20mSv/year, it is expected that people will be allowed to return in March 2012. For higher radiation areas, remediation is required before restrictions are lifted by perhaps 2014.
Maybe one way for the SMCs to improve their service during such crises would be to ask the scientists offering comments to also make conflict of interest disclosures. It may, in fact, not be a bad idea to do that with all SMC activities.
I just wanted to introduce you to this side of the science “debate” and how the science is corrupted and biased without independent scientist to keep a check and balance. I was surprised to see the Australian SMC coming out in strength to ignore the plight of the children of Fukushima and save the nuclear industry from a well deserved collapse.
Here is an article i posted last year that might be relevent
Not to mention the extreme decades long MOX contracts that were signed that will force the Japanese government to re start the reactors.. imo [Arclight2011part2]
At Garlieston there was an increase in concentrations in mud from 1985 -1997, and at Carlingford in Northern Ireland the concentration of Am-241 in mud appears to be increasing still. This effect of the spread of activity away from Sellafield may continue, at least in the near future.
Reference:
nuclear-news 