Nuclear waste: from Bure in the Meuse, France to Japan, opponents of the burial unite
In Bure, in the Meuse, the Cigéo project for the burial of long-lived nuclear waste has been recognized as being of public utility. Opponents are calling on the Japanese to mobilize against a similar project on the island of Hokkaido.
Opponents of the Bure nuclear waste burial project have lent their support to the inhabitants of Suttsu, Japan, where a similar project is under study.
Ouest-France Alan LE BLOA. Published on 03/11/2022
On the borders of the Meuse and Haute-Marne regions, the Cigéo project for a nuclear waste burial center in Bure has been declared to be in the public interest. The decree, published on Friday, July 8, authorizes the National Agency for Radioactive Waste Management (Andra) to acquire the land needed for the surface installations, as well as the land located above the galleries. This means about 3,500 hectares, which can be expropriated if necessary.
85,000 m3 of radioactive waste
The aim of the project is to bury 85,000 cubic meters of long-lived high-level and intermediate-level radioactive waste from France’s nuclear power plants 500 meters underground by at least 2080. This decisive step, since the launch of research on site twenty years ago, has rekindled tensions. Some thirty associations and residents have filed an appeal with the Council of State to challenge the decision. A message relayed to Japan
On September 16, EELV and LFI parliamentarians gave their political support to the opponents’ action… which is becoming international. In a message relayed to Japan, they have, in fact, sent their support to the inhabitants of the village of Suttsu, opposed to the project of burying radioactive waste in the subsoil of the island of Hokkaido, in the north of the archipelago. The burial projects “are devastating for our territories and represent economic brakes for their future. No one wants to live next to a radioactive repository. The promises of development are lies intended to make the projects acceptable”, they write, condemning “the lack of transparency of the authorities”.
In the meantime, in Bure, an observatory for the health of local residents is being set up. Its objective? To monitor the physical and psychological health of residents within a 25 km (6,000 people in 180 municipalities) and 50 km (340,000 people in 679 municipalities) perimeter. Some 900 people, selected at random, are to be interviewed to assess their health.
Nuclear waste: in Japan, a sensitive project in an earthquake-prone region
On the island of Hokkaido, a contested project plans to bury 19,000 tons of radioactive waste 300 m underground. In a region subject to the risk of earthquakes.
Yugo Ono, geologist and professor emeritus at the University of Hokkaido, considers that it is risky to bury radioactive waste in an area subject to seismic movements.
Ouest-France Johann FLEURI. Published on 03/11/2022 at 06h30
On the island of Hokkaido, Numo is carrying out stage 1 of the investigation, which began in 2020. The radioactive waste management company is studying the location, soils, seismic history of the area and calculating budgets. Residents and the city council will be asked to vote on whether to proceed with the project and move to Phase 2. The vote, scheduled for November, has been postponed.
Stored for over a thousand years
The 19,000 tons of nuclear waste that could eventually be buried on site, between 300 m and 3 km below the surface of the ground, are extracts of liquid waste, which after several treatments, remain highly radioactive and must be stored for more than a thousand years, to no longer present a danger to humans. The burial project, the first of its kind in the archipelago, consists of placing them in stainless steel tubes, so that they can be stored as vitrified waste. Numo plans to store 40,000 of these containers underground.
Soil and water table
An underground project that seems risky in a country subject to earthquakes. At Numo, we believe that “the degree of danger is under control”. In the event of a major earthquake, “the containers will follow the movement of the earth”. But Yugo Ono, a geologist and professor emeritus at Hokkaido University, does not share this opinion. “Buried, the waste could pollute the soil and groundwater in the event of a strong earthquake,” he says.
Risks
“The geology of the region, composed of volcanic rocks, is unsuitable for such a project, says the scientist. The soil is very affected by seismic activity. In the case of a major earthquake in Suttsu, “the radioactivity will spread into the water table,” he says. The waste would be stored at a depth of 300 meters, while “seismic activity can be felt up to 10 kilometers down.” Under pressure, the expert is certain: “The tanks will break.”
Another method
Rather than burial, “the only method of storing radioactive waste for Japan today is in steel containers, covered with 2 meters of concrete, within the walls of nuclear power plants. According to Yugo Uno, “this is the safest method, which we master best and it is not so expensive”. But this system requires that the containers be changed every fifty years at the most because the steel will be attacked by radioactivity. “Every twenty years would be better for maximum safety.”
REPORT. In Suttsu, Japan, the inhabitants do not want nuclear waste
At a time when Japan is announcing the restart of seventeen nuclear reactors by 2023, the question of radioactive waste management arises. In Suttsu, a landfill project is under study, to the great despair of the inhabitants.
Miki Nobuka, 50 years old, says she learned that the project of nuclear waste burial was validated while she was buying her bread.
Ouest-France Johann FLEURI. Published on 03/11/2022
“We don’t want our village to become a garbage dump,” say Kazuyuki Tsuchiya and his wife Kyoko. This couple of septuagenarians runs an inn in Suttsu, located on the island of Hokkaido, in northern Japan. This village of 2,800 souls, 78% of which is made up of forests, is picturesque and is located between mountains and the sea.
It is here that a nuclear waste storage project has been taking shape since 2020. Suttsu and the neighboring village of Kamoenai (800 inhabitants) were the only ones to apply to the Radioactive Waste Management Corporation (Numo), created by the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry and the electricity companies, and were selected to receive, within 20 years, the 19,000 tons of radioactive waste piling up in the country’s power plants, particularly in Fukushima Dai-chi and Rokassho in Aomori, where storage capacity is saturated.
In Japan, between the villages of Suttsu and Kamoenai, which have applied for the radioactive waste burial project, is the Tomari nuclear power plant. In Japan, between the villages of Suttsu and Kamoenai, which have applied for the radioactive waste disposal project, is the Tomari nuclear power plant.
Although Suttsu officially submitted its application, the inhabitants feel that they were not consulted and accuse the municipal council of having made the decision alone. Miki Nobuka, 50 years old, says she learned that the project was approved while she was buying her bread. This mother has been campaigning ever since to “stop it for our children”.
More than 50% of the inhabitants against
According to Kazuyuki Tsuchiya’s calculations, “more than 50% of the inhabitants of Suttsu are against”. Not having had access to the details of the project, “the council makes heavy decisions in plenary sessions”. The residents feel betrayed and angry. “The mayor wants to take advantage of the subsidies to develop the city, but we don’t want it,” he says.
According to Kazuyuki Tsuchiya’s calculations, “more than 50 percent of the residents of Suttsu are against” the radioactive waste disposal project.
In the first phase of the project, which consists mainly of soil investigation, 15 million euros are paid to each of the two municipalities. Fifty-three million in the second phase, which is to be voted on by referendum. The city council can say stop at any time,” says a Numo spokesperson. A vote will validate the continuation of each phase.”
Lack of transparency
But “we want to have access to all the documents: it’s unacceptable,” says Kazuyuki Tsuchiya, who won his case in the Hakodate administrative court last March for lack of transparency on the part of local authorities. The court ruled that the city of Suttsu should publicly share all the minutes of the city council meeting during which the vote for the final storage project was held. The vote for the second phase, originally scheduled for November, has therefore been postponed to a later date.
When contacted, the mayor of Suttsu refused to answer our questions. The Kishida government has announced the restart of 17 of its reactors by 2023 and the probable construction of new ones in the future. The Prime Minister also declared that before each restart, the local population, who live near the said plants, would be consulted. A promise that makes the inhabitants of Suttsu smile bitterly.
The Fukushima Area Has Seen Better Days as Nobuhiko Ito Shows
October 30, 2022
“The level of the contamination is too high to be inhabitable,” says photographer Nobuhiko Ito about the ever-present danger around the vicinity of the former Fukushima nuclear plant. A decade-old event that Japan is still recovering from, the impact of the accident there and resulting economic fallout was felt around the world for quite some time. As with all nuclear plant incidents, questions remain over whether life will ever return to normal in the surrounding areas.
Dominating the news for many weeks that year, the Fukushima Daiichi Accident, as it’s officially known, occurred at the city’s nuclear plant following a tsunami caused by a major earthquake in March, 2011. Almost 14-meter-high waves lashed the plant, flooding and severe damaging its reactors. It was classified as the most severe nuclear accident since Chernobyl, and over 150,000 people were evacuated from the city. Radiation-contaminated water seep into the Pacific Ocean for many days after the incident, even as late as 2013. It was estimated then that decontamination efforts could last up to 40 years. Almost a decade from later, Japanese photographer Nobuhiko Ito has begun a project to safely photograph the areas surrounding Fukushima. Large parts of it are still off-limits to the public.
The Phoblographer: Hi Nobuhiko. Please tell us about yourself and how you got into photography.
Nobuhiko Ito: I was born in 1970 in Kanagawa prefecture, Japan. I started taking pictures when I was 15 years old and have been involved in photography ever since. In 1998, I studied under photographer Hiromi Tsuchida. I became an independent photographer in 2003, and since then, I have been an active freelancer. Although I was not aware of it when I was young, the fact that seeing things through a camera is an objective and critical act is the most important reason why I continue to express myself through photography.
Photography is basically a solo activity, and I think I have been able to continue to do it because I am suited to this kind of work.
The Phoblographer: Where were you when the Fukushima Daiichi Accident occured? What was the general feeling for the next few days in your vicinity?
Nobuhiko Ito: The earthquake occurred at 14:46 on March 11, 2011, and approximately one hour later, the nuclear reactor meltdown caused by the loss of power due to tsunami damage was a direct cause of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear accident. This was followed by three hydrogen explosions on March 12, 14, and 15, resulting in a serious situation in which a wide area of more than 30 km radius was contaminated by radioactive materials. I was in Tokyo when the earthquake hit, and I was scheduled to have a work meeting with a client at 3:00 p.m. I felt kind of silly because I was still meeting at the client’s office as scheduled, even with the numerous aftershocks that hit afterward. I drove myself home to my house in Yokohama, about 30 kilometers away, at around 5:00 p.m. All public transportation was stopped, the roads were jammed badly, and the sidewalks were full of people walking home, which was an unusual situation. It took me about 8 hours to get home, where it usually takes me about 45 minutes. It took me twice as long as it would have taken me to walk home.
I was in a car stuck in traffic, checking with relatives on my cell phone to make sure they were safe and listening to the news bulletins that came in one after another, but I was already worried about the meltdown at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant at that point. I spent the next week or so at home. I heard that some people were buying up water, food, and stockpiles, but I did not act rashly and stayed put.
The Phoblographer: How long have you been working on your book, A Decade of Fukushima? Typically how many images do you photograph of the surrounding areas of the nuclear plant site each year?
Nobuhiko Ito: I started taking pictures in April 2020, so as of now it has only been 2 years and 6 months. When I started filming, it had been 9 years since the Great East Japan Earthquake and the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant accident and the people of this country were beginning to have fading memories of it. I may be one of them, but one thing that sets me apart from the rest of the survivors is that I have been visiting companies based around the hard-to-return zone in Fukushima Prefecture several times a year for commercial photography assignments since 2009, before the accident.
During those nine years, I watched the transition of the area from a moving car window. Buildings destroyed by the tsunami and left abandoned, cars washed away and rusting in the middle of fields, natural scenery where the topsoil is being gouged away by the large-scale decontamination work started by the government sometime after the accident… As a person involved in photography, I felt frustrated that I could do nothing in the face of this serious problem.
What prompted me to start taking photos of the hard-to-return zones in Fukushima was the fact that the 2020 Olympics would be held in Tokyo, the capital of this country. The government had billed it as a “reconstruction Olympics,” but this was not accompanied by any substance. The Olympics were postponed for a year due to the coronavirus, but I decided to document the hard-to-return areas of Fukushima, which have been neglected as time passed. The number of photos I take in a year is between 1,000 and 2,000, but in my case, I combine three shots into one, so the actual number would be one-third of that number. As you can see, the number of locations I photograph from a fixed point has been increasing, and the more times I go to Fukushima to take photographs, the more I move from searching for shooting locations to aiming for locations where I have already taken photographs one after another.
The Phoblographer: With so much happening in the world, people tend to forget the recent past. Is this like a documentation project so that the memory of the Fukushima Daiichi Accident doesn’t fade too soon?
Nobuhiko Ito: Yes, it is.
The Phoblographer: What were some of the challenges you faced in order to gain access to the surrounding areas? What safety measures did you take while doing this project?
Nobuhiko Ito: In my case, I do not go into areas that are forbidden to enter, and most of the time, I stay within their boundaries. However, the difficult-to-return zone does not mean that the entire area is sealed off. The roads that pass through the zone have gradually been open to anyone without permission since about the third year after the accident, and the area continues to expand. However, perhaps due to concerns about radiation exposure, in many cases, passage by car is permitted, but passage by foot or motorcycle is prohibited. Therefore, it is common to be questioned by police officers when you get out of your car and take pictures, as I did.
The Phoblographer: When visiting an area like this, which has been fenced off so much, how do you get images that are visually distinct from each other?
Nobuhiko Ito: Fences essentially restrict vehicular access, so it is easily possible to enter on foot. Some of the fences are such that the meaning of their installation is not clear. It may have been necessary to draw a line somewhere due to high or low radiation levels. However, considering what happened before the accident, we must be well aware of what this unusual view that is now spreading before our eyes means.
The Phoblographer: You’ve added the radiation level (μsv/h) alongside each photograph. Were there any sites where you noticed a dangerous level of radiation after arriving there?
Nobuhiko Ito: I try to record them at the same time because, unlike photographs, radiation levels are invisible. Most of the photo sites are on paved roads, and the measurements were taken at 1 meter above the ground.
Although there are regional differences, the mountains, forests, and former farmland on either side of the road have been left undisturbed since the accident and have not been decontaminated, so if you go into the area and take measurements, the radiation levels jump. The level of contamination is too high to be inhabitable.
The Phoblographer: why was panorama format chosen for this project?
Nobuhiko Ito: It is obvious, but we felt that the usual one shot was not enough to show the left and right sides of the area. When shooting with a fence in the center, it was necessary to capture a wide area in order to grasp the landscape at that point.
The Phoblographer: How long do you think it will take for life to return to normal in these areas (if ever)?
Nobuhiko Ito: Although it may not be well known internationally, government-led efforts are underway to intensively decontaminate parts of the hard-to-return zones to improve living infrastructure and promote re-housing there, and some people have returned this year. However, that is really a very small number.
Most of the areas within the zone are mountain forests, and it is practically impossible to remove the radioactive materials that have fallen on them to a complete level, let alone to make them safe, and it is meaningless to decontaminate only the areas with villages surrounded by these forests. Although it is very unfortunate, we have to assume that it is impossible for people to be able to live a normal life in these areas.
All images by Nobuhiko Ito. Used with permission. Visit his website as well as his Instagram and Facebook pages to stay up to date on this project. Want to be featured? Click here to find out how.
Bring voices from the coast into the Fukushima treated water debate
October 28, 2022
More than a decade has passed since the accident at the Fukushima Dai’ichi nuclear power plant in Japan—but the most contentious aspect of bringing the site under control is only just beginning. The Japanese Government has approved plant operator TEPCO’s plan to release treated water into the Pacific Ocean. That water is currently being stored onsite and retains some radioactive substances after treatment. The decision to release this water has provoked political contention and societal concern. South Korea, China, and Taiwan, as well as international environmental nongovernmental organizations, have expressed strong concern; and fisheries cooperatives in Japan remain opposed to the releases for fear of possible reputational impacts on Fukushima seafood. TEPCO are confirming specific details of the release process, and an International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) task force has made multiple visits to the Fukushima Dai’ichi site at the behest of the Japanese Government and TEPCO. The releases are scheduled to start in 2023 and run for many years.
A technical committee within Japan, formed by the Ministry of Economy, Trade, and Industry, made the recommendation to release the treated water; it’s unlikely that the Japanese Government or TEPCO will revisit their decision. And so, a key role for technical and policy communities, both within Japan and internationally, is to ensure that the concerns of affected stakeholders are identified and addressed as the releases proceed. However, despite significant global science–policy interest in the treated water situation at Fukushima Dai’ichi (1, 2), the concerns of local fishers and coastal communities in Fukushima, key stakeholders living in the shadow of the nuclear site who will live with the consequences of the releases on a daily basis, have had only limited visibility in the science–policy discourse surrounding the aftermath of the Fukushima disaster.
Even if TEPCO and the government minimize environmental impacts through careful management of the process, as some international experts believe possible (3), the indirect socioeconomic impacts of the treated water releases on Fukushima’s coastal fishing communities are likely to be experienced over the long term. Proposals made by the community of researchers and institutions working at the science–policy interface for Fukushima treated water must be informed by a deep understanding of the local community context—and they must be responsive to the concerns of local stakeholders. We believe local community concerns can be more fully incorporated into decision making for treated water at Fukushima Dai’ichi.
Local Influence
Within Japan, the government expert committees advising the management of treated water are dominated largely—albeit not exclusively—by engineering and physical science expertise (4). Despite fisheries cooperatives’ long-standing and vocal opposition to the releases, plant operator TEPCO explained in August 2021 that they had not at that point had direct consultations with fisheries representatives regarding the discharges (5). Formal dialogue between the operator and the fisheries sector in Fukushima on the topic of releases did not start until TEPCO and the Japanese Government had determined most of the technical details. This left little room for the plans to be adjusted in response to any concerns from Fukushima’s fishers or coastal residents.
Decisions over treated water at Fukushima Dai’ichi rest with the Japanese authorities and plant operator. However, the global community of researchers and organizations working at the interface of science and policy can influence local community engagement at Fukushima in at least three ways. The first is participation as experts in intergovernmental forums, such as the IAEA and United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation (UNSCEAR), which provide actors such as the Japanese Government with evidence-based guidelines and oversight on the management of environmental radioactivity. The second is peer-reviewed research into the marine environment in Fukushima and potential impacts of treated water releases (e.g., 6, 7), which often contains policy recommendations and forms part of the scientific record that’s drawn on to justify decisions taken about management of treated water. The third is reports and opinion pieces, grounded in scholarly evidence, on an individual or organizational basis with the intention of influencing government actions within Japan or initiating broader civil society action towards specific outcomes for the management of treated water (e.g., 8).
Both within Japan and internationally, Fukushima’s fishers and coastal residents, although not completely absent, have received limited consideration as stakeholders. Fishers and residents tend to be caricatured as being concerned over rumors and reputational damage to Fukushima seafood owing to the treated water releases (9, 10)—or as harboring “irrational” safety fears over the relatively small amounts of radioactivity from pollutants such as tritium that are contained in the tanks currently storing treated water onsite (e.g., 3). Many suggest that fishers and coastal residents can eventually be appeased with the right compensation strategies along with judicious use of language. This, they argue, would promote a precise understanding of the science behind the releases and avoid potentially stigmatizing or misleading language around radioactivity.
Missing Local Context
The Japanese Government is unlikely to reverse their decision to release treated water. Even so, it’s important to recognize that fishing is both an economic activity and the subject of deep emotional investment on the Fukushima coast. When issues of value are at stake, the social sciences have long argued (11) that providing “more and better” technical information or economic compensation alone is unlikely to be an effective risk governance approach. The resilience of Fukushima’s fishing communities during the treated water releases depends on careful engagement with and deep understanding of fishers’ and residents’ concerns.
One aspect is the significant effort that has gone into revitalizing fisheries to date and concerns over these revitalization efforts being jeopardized by the treated water releases. Trial fishing operations commenced off the Fukushima coast in 2012, with the aim of restarting fisheries on a smaller-scale basis (about 10% of pre-disaster levels) once government fisheries scientists failed to detect radioactive cesium in different species.
In spring 2021, the trial phase ended and coastal fisheries moved to a new “expansion” phase, with an aspiration to return to pre-disaster capacity. Fishers have responded positively to the gradual recovery and expansion of fisheries in Fukushima, citing factors such as renewed opportunity for interaction with and mutual support from their peers, a chance to reduce down time spent in the family home with associated tensions, and the return of a sense of pride and purpose in being out fishing and doing “their” work (12).
The revitalization of fisheries has hence brought significant benefit to the Fukushima coast, both for sales of seafood and also fishers’ wellbeing, which cannot be offset through economic compensation alone. Moreover, the amount of effort that has gone into this revitalization, through re-engaging fishers and building trust with consumers and brokers, should not be underestimated, nor should the time taken to reach a stage where local seafood is once again part of daily life (13). When viewed through this lens, any actions that may jeopardize this recovery—such as releases of water perceived as “tainted” into the marine environment—are likely to be met with concern or opposition.
A second aspect receiving little explicit attention in the debates over Fukushima treated water centers around the social and cultural significance of fisheries to the Fukushima coast. The distinctive environmental characteristics of Fukushima waters—where the warm Kuroshio and cold Oyashio currents meet—have led to particular pride in the uniqueness and quality of Fukushima’s fish (14). Consumers and Fukushima residents have responded positively to the return of Fukushima seafood to menus and supermarket shelves, with events celebrating locally landed and seasonally caught fish. If Fukushima’s waters are again perceived as being degraded, fishers’ and residents’ attitudes towards the releases may stem at least in part from concerns over the implications for their livelihoods and sense of belonging and identity—it’s not simply about their incomes.
There are actions that can be taken to more fully understand coastal communities’ concerns and hence mitigate societal impacts in Fukushima. These action have implications both within Japan and internationally.
We recommend the establishment of a body to independently evaluate the effects of treated water releases on the marine environment and fish stocks. Right now, there are good indications that the Japanese public questions the competence of government and regulatory agencies to manage radioactive waste (15). To ensure that claims of Fukushima seafood remain credible, we must create institutions viewed as trustworthy and independent assessors of marine environmental quality.
A good model may be the Environmental Evaluation Group established to monitor the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico from 1978 to 2004. The group was federally funded, but the state did not control the issues the group researched, the staff it hired, or the reports it published (16). There are already independent groups in Fukushima that invite citizens to collaborate with researchers to assess marine and land-based environmental quality. It’s important that such groups receive long-term core funding to undertake environmental monitoring perceived as independent and trustworthy, while, at the same time, retaining a regulatory firewall to prevent government influence. This will help maintain societal trust in the quality of Fukushima waters and seafood during the releases.
We also recommend that there be a greater diversity of experiences and stakeholders participating in committees responsible for designing and implementing the treated water releases. As outlined earlier, local and experiential knowledge, and to a lesser extent social science and humanities expertise, are under-represented on the technical committees advising the Japanese Government on treated water.
A possible template is the partnership approach adopted as part of low- and intermediate waste management in Belgium in the late 1990s. Sundqvist (17) explains partnerships involving site operators, local governments, and potentially affected stakeholders were established in candidate host communities. The Belgian national waste agency handed the partnerships power to decide on all aspects of the project (with the operator retaining a veto on proposals that were technically unfeasible) and granted budget to commission additional studies or ask for second opinions on proposals. Social science researchers were embedded and tasked with developing ground rules for fair and equitable formation and operation of the partnerships.
Stakeholder engagement exercises can sometimes be more contentious than harmonious, and there is no guarantee that collaborative models of decision making will lead to more satisfactory outcomes. Fukushima represents an extreme case, but also one where there is opportunity for innovation and setting precedents. Fishers, citizens, and local governments could work with marine scientists and plant engineers to decide on timing, locations, and monitoring strategies for releases, by drawing on fishers’ and coastal dwellers’ own knowledge of how fish move around the coastal environment. Partnerships could collate anecdotal and narrative accounts from restaurants, fishmongers, and brokers of how consumers’ perceptions of Fukushima seafood change after the releases, and they can use these accounts in combination with market data to determine compensation levels and additional support requirements for fishing communities. Funding from the national government is needed to sustain these partnerships long-term. Periodic reviews every six months, led by partnership representatives, would give an opportunity for technical details of the releases or communication and compensation strategies to be altered in response to emerging concerns.
However, we need to ensure that committees and partnerships can initiate tangible change rather than “rubber stamping” predetermined recommendations. It is also important that the technical experts who advise on releases have a diversity of opinion among themselves and are able to participate in healthy and constructive disagreement on how the releases ought to proceed. To reduce the risk of “groupthink,” technical committees should also include overseas experts as advisors or observers, individuals who may have relevant experience effectively engaging stakeholders on radioactivity. This could involve government officials who have set up and run stakeholder partnerships for radioactive waste management, scientists who have engaged publics and stakeholders in the aftermath of nuclear accidents such as Chernobyl, or even citizens from other places globally who can share first-hand experience of living with environmental radioactivity.
Last, we believe that international institutions and the science-policy community have an important role to play in informing best practice within Japan. We challenge this community to expand their remits to more explicitly incorporate the societal dimensions of treated water and to engage more fully with local researchers within Japan. At present, social science perspectives have only a marginal role within the IAEA’s work on Fukushima and the sea (18, 19) and indeed lie largely outside the remit of UNSCEAR (20).
From a natural and physical science standpoint, research into the marine environment in the wake of the Fukushima disaster stands as a good example of international collaboration on a complex scientific issue, a collaboration whose activities are meant to inform decision making. This ethos of cooperation in Fukushima’s seas could be further enhanced by more international collaboration with the social sciences, especially with researchers based in Japan who have rich contextual knowledge, spanning research and practice, into how fishers and communities on the Fukushima coast have engaged with the treated water problem (see, e.g., 21, 22).
The treated water issue at Fukushima is a cautionary tale. Investigations into environmental controversies that have international implications and require global scientific cooperation can overlook impacts on local communities. The management of the treated water releases could prove to be an important case study for how local stakeholders, such as fishers, can be embedded into the decision-making for complex marine environmental issues with long-term implications. Yet, for this learning to be realized, local community “on the ground” experiences in Fukushima, related to treated water, need to be better connected to a national and global audience.
References
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18 IAEA. Review Report: IAEA Follow-up Review of Progress Made on Management of ALPS Treated Water and the Report of the Subcommittee on Handling of ALPS treated water at TEPCO’s Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station. (IAEA, 2020).
19 IAEA, International Conference on a Decade of Progress after Fukushima-Daiichi: Building on the Lessons Learned to Further Strengthen Nuclear Safety (IAEA, 2021).
20 UNSCEAR. UNSCEAR 2020 Report SCIENTIFIC ANNEX B: Levels and effects of radiation exposure due to the accident at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station: implications of information published since the UNSCEAR 2013 Report (UNSCEAR, 2020).
21 Y. Igarashi, H. Kainuma, Jobancentrism (Kawade, 2015) (in Japanese).
22 Y. Igarashi, Nuclear Accidents and Food: Market, Communication, Discrimination (Chuokoron-Shinsha, 2018) (in Japanese).
Long-lived radionuclides from the Fukushima nuclear power plant in Japan, and consequences for Pacific ecosystems and seafood consumers.
October 28, 2022
Nicholas Fisher
Distinguished Professor
School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences
Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, New York
Abstract: After the Fukushima accident in March 2011, marine organisms, seawater and sediment were contaminated with both 134Cs and 137Cs that was released into coastal waters. We analyzed radionuclides in Pacific biota, including plankton, diverse invertebrates, and pelagic and benthic fish. Field data (~41,000 data points) showed temporal declines of 137Cs levels were >10x lower in benthic than pelagic fish, reflecting 137Cs declines in sediments and seawater, consistent with lab studies showing benthic fish acquiring 137Cs from benthic invertebrate diets. Bluefin tuna that spawn near Japan and migrate to waters off California were contaminated with Fukushima-derived radiocesium that they obtained from Japanese waters. The consequent risk to seafood consumers was assessed and compared to that from naturally occurring radionuclides.
Bio: I am a marine biogeochemist who has focused on the bioaccumulation of diverse contaminants in marine organisms. This research has considered the impacts of this bioaccumulation on organisms and public health, and has also considered the influence of organisms on the cycling and fate of the contaminants. Most of this work has involved metals and long-lived radionuclides. I received a BA from Brandeis University, and a PhD from Stony Brook, I was a postdoctoral investigator at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, after which I worked for a government lab in Melbourne Australia, the IAEA Lab in Monaco, the Brookhaven National Lab, and Stony Brook University (since 1988).
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Fukushima District Court Submits Motion to Reopen Argument in Evacuee Removal Trial (October 21, 2022)
October 24, 2022
On July 26, the Fukushima District Court, which had forced the conclusion of the trial for eviction of evacuees from their homes without conducting any proper proceedings, notified us on October 17 that it would deliver the verdict at 11:40 a.m. on October 27.
In response to this notice, the defendant evacuees submitted a petition to the Fukushima District Court to reopen the trial to ensure that the defendant evacuees have the “right to a trial” guaranteed by the Constitution.
The full text of the petition can be found here.
The beginning and end of the motion are as follows
Introduction
Ms. Cecilia Jimenez Damary, the UN Special Rapporteur appointed by the UN Human Rights Council to investigate the human rights situation of evacuees (internally displaced persons) from the Fukushima nuclear power plant accident and report to the UN Human Rights Council, visited Japan from September 26 to October 7 to conduct an investigation. When she left Japan, she gave an interview to Kyodo News, in which she said, “I do not agree with the lawsuit filed by Fukushima Prefecture demanding the evacuation of voluntary evacuees who continue to live in public employee housing even after the end of support (this is exactly what this court case is about). I can’t agree with it. It could be a violation of the human rights of the evacuees,” she warned (see attachment for photos and details of the interview below).
This is the first full-scale investigation of evacuees from the nuclear power plant accident by the UN, and in the course of the investigation, the UN Special Rapporteur also warned that “I do not agree with this lawsuit. The UN Special Rapporteur stated for the first time, “I do not agree with this lawsuit. It could be a violation of the human rights of the evacuees. This reference is in line with the defendants’ consistent assertion throughout the trial that “this action violates the right of residence guaranteed to internally displaced persons by international human rights law and is therefore inadmissible. In other words, the defendants’ argument was shown to be in line with the common sense of the world.
The court, by the way, has ignored or rejected every one of the six defenses and the thorough clarification of the facts through the examination of six witnesses and other parties, despite the fact that the defendants have been seeking relief from the human rights violations committed by the plaintiffs. On July 26, the trial was terminated. However, the serious concerns expressed by UN Special Rapporteur Damarie about the trial have reminded the defendants that the trial is a serious test not only for us in Japan, but also for the people and common sense of the world, and that failure is not an option. Therefore, in order to show that this trial is worthy of the world’s common sense, the Court must listen carefully to the world’s attention and common sense, decide to reopen the arguments, and conduct a thorough and true examination of the six issues and six interrogatories to ensure that the defendants’ “right to a fair and impartial trial” is guaranteed. We are now convinced that we have no other choice but to strive for a thorough clarification of the truth through the examination of the six defendants.
Therefore, for the reasons stated below, the defendants request the court to reopen the oral argument pursuant to Article 153 of the Code of Civil Procedure.
Conclusion
As stated above, if, despite the defendants’ earnest request, the court does not reopen oral argument and conduct the examination of witnesses requested by the defendants for the purpose of clarifying the truth, and if the court does not exercise its right of proper explanation to the plaintiff, and if the plaintiff continues to refuse to admit or deny or refute the defendants’ defense facts above, such plaintiff’s Not only does the boycott itself constitute an illegal act under the National CALI Act, but the root cause of this situation is the court’s negligence in not actively working to correct the plaintiff’s dishonest and illegal boycott of the issue. Therefore, if the court had not resolved this boycott and had denied all of the defendants’ applications for examination of witnesses and themselves without allowing the defendants to fully argue and prove the above defense facts, the court would have concluded the trial and issued a judgment, which would have been inevitable because of “the illegality of non-exhaustion of trial due to failure to exercise the right of explanation” and the judgment would have been reversed. The reversal of the judgment is inevitable.
Not only that, despite the fact that the defendants have repeatedly and strongly demanded that the illegal state of affairs be corrected, it is unacceptable for the court to continue to turn its back on them and refuse to exercise its right of explanation to the plaintiffs for the purpose of clarifying the issues. In this case, we strongly request the court’s decision to resume oral arguments.
Judge Masayuki Fujiyama, who once distinguished himself in the Administrative Division of the Tokyo District Court, said, “A jurist’s work must be able to withstand not only contemporaneous but also historical evaluation. These words literally apply to this trial. Moreover, it is an evaluation of world history, not merely Japanese history. The words of the UN Special Rapporteur Damarie at the beginning of this article demonstrate this point. This trial must not become a stain on world history.
https://seoul-tokyoolympic.blogspot.com/2022/10/11027.html?fbclid=IwAR2uRP2Cg8TKTUTNzn09xrqceBBsC_Gh0cYjKSOcxbZSGLYcOXmz-ccVzFA
Return to Fukushima: Decontaminated town reopens to residents, but is anybody living there?
October 24, 2022
If you ever wanted to live in a post-apocalyptic zombie film, now’s your chance.
Back in 2020, our Japanese-language reporter Tasuku Egawa visited two towns in Fukushima Prefecture that were affected by the accident at Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant, which occurred at the time of the March 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake.
▼ Tasuku visited Futaba and Tomioka, which are five kilometres (three miles) and 11 kilometres, respectively, from the nuclear power plant.
Being within the 20-kilometre exclusion zone, both towns were evacuated after the accident, turning them into ghost towns for two years. In 2013, the government opened some areas of the towns for daytime access only, with other areas remaining closed off due to elevated radiation levels, right up to 2020 when Tasuku visited.
At the time of Tasuku’s previous visit, new decontaminated areas around both stations had opened up, with old blockades being removed as a sign of the land becoming habitable once again.
▼ The decontaminated Prefectural Route 165 and National Route 6 outside Tomioka’s Yonomori Station, as it looked in March 2020.
The west exit side of the station had returned to normal while the east side remained blocked. However, side streets on both sides remained cordoned off from the public, with permission required for anyone entering the other side of the blockade, including journalists like Tasuku.
Like all visitors, Tasuku was required to wear special protective wear due to the high radiation levels.
Back in 2020, nothing but the main roads and station buildings could be entered, and the only sign of life in the area was that of security guards at empty intersections and reconstruction-related vehicles and workers.
Both towns had their work cut out for them in terms of cleanup and redevelopment, especially as the local governments planned to repopulate the areas with thousands of residents in the next seven years.
Tasuku had high hopes they would achieve this goal, so when resettlement of the towns began in earnest earlier this year, he made a return trip to Tomioka and Yonomori Station to see what developments had taken place in the two years since he last visited.
So let’s take a look at his collection of photos chronicling the difference between 2020 and now, starting with Prefectural Route 165 and National Route 6 mentioned earlier.
Now, the barricades have totally disappeared, and the intersection looks like any other, complete with a cluster of vending machines on one street corner.
Continuing straight down this road, we come to a branch of the Yamazaki convenience store chain, located on the ground floor of a residential building.
Today, the barricades have gone, but the shutters remain closed and the curtains drawn, making it look like a scary house in a ghost town.
Heading south down National Route 6, Tasuku recalled a brightly coloured apartment block he’d photographed on his last visit.
Sure enough, the building was still there, and though the weeds and barricades had been cleared, the road, and the blinds on the store window on the left, looked a little worse for wear.
The more Tasuku walked around, the more he felt as if he were walking through a post-apocalyptic world, like the character of Jim in the British zombie flick 28 Days Later. Only this was no film set, it was a real-world town that once housed around 4,000 people.
With curtains drawn on the windows of so many buildings he walked past, the place looked like it was inhabited…but it was eerily quiet, and deep down inside, Tasuku knew there was nobody behind those curtains, as these residences had been abandoned as a matter of emergency eleven years ago.
▼ Still he kept up hope that he would see signs of life somewhere, other than this road where he spotted a wild boar and a plump male pheasant.
After walking for a while, Tasuku finally breathed a sigh of relief when he came across this new apartment building, which was advertising for tenants, where he saw fresh laundry hanging on a balcony, suggesting that someone had already moved in.
Close by, there was a demountable building which looked to be the prefabricated office of a construction company, and it too appeared to be inhabited by people, likely here on temporary assignment for reconstruction-related work.
While the two main roads had been cleared and were open to traffic, Tasuku came across some salient reminders that the entire town wasn’t yet back to normal, with other areas like the local park blocked off as a restricted location.
Yonomoritsutsumi Park , as it’s known, is closed for good reason — according to the dosimeter on the other side of the fence, radiation levels here are 0.413 microSieverts per hour. The Ministry of the Environment’s requirements for decontaminated areas is 0.23 microSieverts per hour.
The high radiation levels in the park would put the public at risk of health problems, which is a great shame, seeing as it looks like it would’ve been a nice place to unwind and relax before the disaster.
It’s a vast space, though, which would make decontamination work difficult, and looking at the expanse from a nearby hill shows it’s become wild and overgrown, with what once must’ve been a lake (marked in blue below) now covered in grass and weeds.
Before coming to the town, Tasuku had been hoping to meet up with the owner of a beauty salon who used to live here but was moved to nearby Koriyama after the earthquake. She had joined Tasuku on his previous visit to Yonomori and once she’d heard the evacuation orders were being lifted this year, she said she was looking forward to moving back here.
However, the government ban on living in the area is still in effect over a large portion of the town, with only one designated zone on one side of the station open to residents from April this year. With only around a dozen or so people applying to live in the town so far, it would be a long while yet before Tasuku’s friend would be able to re-open her hair salon here.
▼ The former site of the hair salon is now an empty lot.
It’s hard to live in a ghost town, let alone run a business there, so the government hopes to make a larger area inhabitable by spring next year, in an effort to entice more residents to support local businesses.
Business owners will need a lot of support from the government, though, as a lot of them will be starting from scratch. This York-Benimaru supermarket, for instance, has since been totally demolished in the two years since 2020, and is now an empty parking lot.
If he’s being honest, the town hadn’t progressed as far as Tasuku had hoped in the past two years. Despite reopening part of the town, the place still had a real ghost-town feel to it, and the waiting room at the unstaffed station was particularly eerie, with nothing inside but a bathroom and chairs.
By comparison, the waiting room at Futaba Station, where Tasuku visited next, was a lot more inviting, with a sense of vibrancy and life to it.
Yonomori is famous for its cherry blossom trees, which line one particularly beautiful street, and while there were fears the trees would die out in the decade that humans were prohibited access to the area, the street was finally opened to visitors this year, who were able to enjoy them for the first time since 2011.
▼ The local “standard tree” by which the Meteorological Agency declares the official start of the cherry blossom season, is still alive and well.
At the moment, Yonomori is mostly home to ruins, wild boars and fat pheasants, which makes it less than appealing to potential residents. However, with the cherry blossoms still blooming, there’s hopes that the the area will soon bloom too.
Now with the station open and trains operating, it’s the start the town needs to get back on its feet, and we look forward to visiting in another two years’ time, when hopefully Tasuku’s friend’s hair salon will be open, along with other blossoming businesses.
Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant, method to remove debris by submerging the buildings in water: Symbolic of project difficulties after repeated changes, with no prospects for feasibility
October 24, 2022
In order to remove melted nuclear fuel (debris), which is considered the most difficult part of the restoration work at TEPCO’s Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant, a method has emerged to submerge the entire reactor building, including its basement, under water. This would require unprecedented large-scale construction work, and there are doubts about its feasibility. The fact that the debris removal plan has been repeatedly changed and a proposal that seems to be grasping at a cloud has emerged is symbolic of the difficulties involved. （The fact that a proposal that seems to be grasping at a cloud has emerged is symbolic of the difficulties that lie ahead.)
Even the experts are not confident.
The first of its kind in the world,” “Technically quite difficult,”
◆”Not confident” even experts are bearish
At a press conference held on November 11 to explain the proposal that includes a new construction method for the Unit 3 reactor, Mr. Mitsuroku Ikegami, executive director of the Nuclear Damage Liability and Decommissioning Support Organization, who is in charge of providing technical support to help bring about a restoration from the accident, repeated his bearish comments.
The new construction method is based on the “hull construction method” used for tanker hull construction. The new method is characterized by enclosing the building with a structure that is resistant to water pressure, and ETIC is considering digging a tunnel under the building and enclosing the entire building with a structure consisting of a series of square rooms made of steel.
If this is realized, water filled with the building will be used to shield it from radiation, thereby increasing the safety of the work. On the other hand, submerging the building in water is expected to generate about 150,000 tons of highly contaminated water that has come into contact with debris. This is equivalent to about 150 tanks storing treated water on the site, and the risk of a leakage accident is immeasurable.
◆”Flooding” first, stop once, flood again.
At the beginning of the accident in 2011, the government and TEPCO planned to use the “flooding method” to fill the containment vessel with water and remove debris underwater. However, the containment vessels of Units 1 through 3, where debris was located, were all damaged, and even if water was filled, it would leak out of the vessels. The high radiation dose makes it inaccessible to humans, and it is still difficult to determine which parts of the containment vessels are damaged.
In 2005, they switched to the “in-air” method of removing debris without water, and are aiming to begin trial removal of debris from Unit 2 in the latter half of FY2011. However, since the method prioritizes easy access to the debris and uses a robot arm in a confined space, only about 1 gram of debris can be removed in a single operation. It is estimated that there is a total of 880 tons of debris in the three reactors, making it almost impossible to complete the removal using this method.
Therefore, JAEA has switched to a method to remove a large amount of debris from the Unit 3 reactor. The work is expected to involve the scattering of enormous amounts of radioactive materials, such as by cutting the debris into chunks, and if the debris is not shielded by water, it will be very dangerous. Since the containment vessel cannot be filled with water, the idea of submerging the entire building outside of it has emerged. In other words, it is a flooding method that has been reshaped on a large scale.
◆Even after 11 years, it remains unrealistic.
Debris from the Unit 1 reactor is believed to be scattered over a wide area of the containment vessel, and there is no way to remove the debris. Eleven and a half years after the accident, debris removal remains unrealistic.
A spokesperson for TEPCO has refused to go into the feasibility of the proposed new method, saying, “It is still in the idea stage. Even the OIST’s proposal suggests a bleak outlook, concluding with the following words: “If the criteria are not met, we will be forced to take out the debris. If the criteria are not met, we will have to start over from the identification of issues.
https://www.tokyo-np.co.jp/article/209821
The mishandling of scientifically flawed articles about radiation exposure, retracted for ethical reasons, impedes understanding of the scientific issues pointed out by Letters to the Editor
October 23, 2022
Tanimoto Y, Hamaoka Y, Kageura K, Kurokawa S, Makino J, Oshikawa M. The mishandling of scientifically flawed articles about radiation exposure, retracted for ethical reasons, impedes understanding of the scientific issues pointed out by Letters to the Editor. JoSPI. Published online October 23, 2022. doi:10.35122/001c.38474
Abstract
We discuss the editorial handling of two papers that were published in and then retracted from the Journal of Radiological Protection (JRP).1,2 The papers, which dealt with radiation exposure in Date City, were retracted because “ethically inappropriate data were used.”3,4 Before retraction, four Letters to the Editor pointing out scientific issues in the papers had been submitted to JRP. The Letters were all accepted or provisionally accepted through peer review. Nevertheless, JRP later refused to publish them. We examine the handling by JRP of the Letters, and show that it left the reader unapprised of a) the extent of the issues in the papers, which went far beyond the use of unconsented data, and b) the problems in the way the journal handled the matter. By its actions in this case, JRP has enabled unscientific, unfounded and erroneous claims to remain unacknowledged. We propose some countermeasures to prevent such inappropriate actions by academic journals in future.
Takahama Unit 4 postpones resumption of operation due to rising equipment temperatures
October 21, 2022
On October 21, KEPCO announced that it had postponed the restart of the Takahama Unit 4 reactor, which is currently shut down for routine inspections, due to a temperature rise in one of the devices inside the reactor containment vessel that is activated when there is a problem with the primary cooling system. The reactor startup scheduled for the 21st will be postponed due to a temperature rise in one of the devices that operates in the reactor containment vessel in the event of a primary cooling system problem.
After the reactor start-up on the 21st, the plant was scheduled to resume power delivery on the 24th and commercial operation on November 18. KEPCO was planning to resume commercial operation on November 18. KEPCO is investigating the impact on the process and the cause of the temperature rise.
According to KEPCO, the temperature rose because of one of the safety devices used to reduce the pressure that rose due to a problem in the primary cooling system. The temperature was 4.2 degrees Celsius at around 3:30 p.m. on March 21, but it rose to 77 degrees Celsius at around 4:35 p.m., triggering an alarm.
https://www.tokyo-np.co.jp/article/209502?fbclid=IwAR3dktnvsjEKFDfgo3U1N_aguXV53mX5X7AURPw_J7_XArDcUkMPgjIh-dk
Magnitude 5 earthquake jolts Fukushima; ‘no issues’ at nearby nuclear plants
‘No issues’ at nearby nuclear plants…. So they claim as usual, everything is always fine in Fukushima Daiichi….
Oct 21, 2022
A strong earthquake with an estimated magnitude of 5 jolted northeastern Japan on Friday afternoon.
The quake, which was revised downward from magnitude 5.1, occurred at a depth of about 30 kilometers off the coast of Fukushima Prefecture around 3:19 p.m., according to the Meteorological Agency.
The quake measured a lower 5 on Japan’s seismic intensity scale to 7 in the town of Naraha and 4 in the towns of Hirono, Tomioka, Okuma and Futaba.
According to the Secretariat of the Nuclear Regulation Authority, no issues have been reported at Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings’s Fukushima No. 1 and No. 2 nuclear plants in the prefecture.
The No. 2 plant straddles Naraha and Tomioka, while the No. 1 plant, the site of the 2011 meltdowns following the Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami, straddles Okuma and Futaba.
In a location close to the epicenter of Friday’s quake, a 7.4-magnitude temblor occurred at the depth of about 12 kilometers on Nov. 22, 2016, causing tsunami that reached up to 144 centimeters high at Sendai Port in the neighboring prefecture of Miyagi.
Unlike the 2016 temblor, which also registered up to lower 5 on the Japanese scale, Friday’s quake did not cause tsunami because it occurred at a greater depth and was smaller in scale.
https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2022/10/21/national/earthquake-jolts-fukushima/
PIF objects Japan’s proposal to dispose nuclear treated water
October 17, 2022
The Pacific Island Forum member-countries continue to object Japan’s proposal to dispose nuclear treated water at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station into the Pacific Ocean.
Secretary General Henry Puna reiterated their stance on this proposal, saying that this issue remains as one of the forum’s urgent priorities.
“This is one of the urgent priorities of the forum, because our leaders in July reiterated their objection to what Japan is proposing to do. A lot of our leaders actually spoke strongly on this Fukushima issue, the treated water issue.”
Puna says they have had the opportunity to raise their concern on this issue, with the Japanese Foreign Affairs Minister during his visit earlier this year.
He says they have asked to have an audience with the Prime Minister of Japan, to raise their concern on this issue.
Puna says there are indications that Japan is leaning in favour of this requested engagement, but they are moving in their own pace.
The Secretary-General says there is a possibility that they would be able to meet with the Japanese government, after COP27 – towards the end of November.
Radioactive releases from the nuclear power sector and implications for child health
- Cindy Folkers,
- Linda Pentz Gunter
- Correspondence to Ms Cindy Folkers; cindy@beyondnuclear.org
Review
Radioactive releases from the nuclear power sector and implications for child health
- http://orcid.org/0000-0002-8678-7443Cindy Folkers,
- Linda Pentz Gunter
- Correspondence to Ms Cindy Folkers; cindy@beyondnuclear.org
Abstract
Although radioactivity is released routinely at every stage of nuclear power generation, the regulation of these releases has never taken into account those potentially most sensitive—women, especially when pregnant, and children. From uranium mining and milling, to fuel manufacture, electricity generation and radioactive waste management, children in frontline and Indigenous communities can be disproportionately harmed due to often increased sensitivity of developing systems to toxic exposures, the lack of resources and racial and class discrimination. The reasons for the greater susceptibility of women and children to harm from radiation exposure is not fully understood. Regulatory practices, particularly in the establishment of protective exposure standards, have failed to take this difference into account. Anecdotal evidence within communities around nuclear facilities suggests an association between radiation exposure and increases in birth defects, miscarriages and childhood cancers. A significant number of academic studies tend to ascribe causality to other factors related to diet and lifestyle and dismiss these health indicators as statistically insignificant. In the case of a major release of radiation due to a serious nuclear accident, children are again on the frontlines, with a noted susceptibility to thyroid cancer, which has been found in significant numbers among children exposed both by the 1986 Chornobyl nuclear accident in Ukraine and the 2011 Fukushima-Daiichi nuclear disaster in Japan. The response among authorities in Japan is to blame increased testing or to reduce testing. More independent studies are needed focused on children, especially those in vulnerable frontline and Indigenous communities. In conducting such studies, greater consideration must be applied to culturally significant traditions and habits in these communities.
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
This is an open access article distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited, appropriate credit is given, any changes made indicated, and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/.
Reconstruction of hard-to-return zones from the perspective of structural violence
Symposium “Anthropology of Tribulation and Hope from Fukushima”
1 This Month
Petition to revoke the licensing of the Near Surface Nuclear Disposal Facility (NSDF) at Chalk River. https://www.ourcommons.ca/petitions/en/Petition/Details?Petition=e-7247
of the week – STOP SMALL MODULAR REACTORS IN CANADA
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