‘Ice Wall’ Is Japan’s Last-Ditch Effort To Contain Fukushima Radiation
Tokyo Electric Power Co.’s (TEPCO) tsunami-crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant is illuminated for decommissioning operation in the dusk in Okuma town, Fukushima prefecture, Japan, in this aerial view photo taken by Kyodo March 10, 2016, a day before the five-year anniversary of the March 11, 2011 earthquake and tsunami disaster.
• The nearly mile-long structure consists of underground pipes designed to form a frozen barrier around the crippled reactors.
• The $312 million system was completed last month, more than a year behind schedule.
• Nearly 800,000 tons of radioactive water are already being stored onsite.
Japanese authorities have activated a large subterranean “ice wall” in a desperate attempt to stop radiation that’s been leaking from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant for five years.
The wall consists of a series of underground refrigeration pipes meant to form a frozen soil barrier around the four reactors that were crippled during the 2011 Tohoku earthquake and tsunami.
Construction of the $312 million government-funded structure was completed last month, more than a year behind schedule, the Associated Press reports. The nearly mile-long barrier is intended to block groundwater from entering the facility and becoming contaminated.
Tokyo Electric Power Co., or TEPCO, which owns the plant, activated the system Thursday, a day after obtaining approval from Japan’s Nuclear Regulation Authority.
In a video detailing the ice wall’s design, TEPCO said the technology has been successfully used to prevent water intrusion during the construction of tunnels, but this is the first time it has been used to block water from entering a nuclear facility.
“We will create an impermeable barrier,” the company said, “by freezing the soil itself all the way down to the bedrock that exists below the plant. When groundwater flowing downhill reaches this frozen barrier it will flow around the reactor buildings, reaching the sea just as it always has, but without contacting the contaminated water within the reactor buildings.”
TEPCO says the ice wall will be activated in stages over the next several months and is one of several measures the company is taking to reduce the amount of water being contaminated on the site.
Nearly 800,000 tons of radioactive water are already being stored in more than 1,000 industrial tanks at the nuclear plant, according to the AP.
While hopes are high that the ice wall will prove successful in stopping additional radioactive water from seeping into the Pacific Ocean, Shunichi Tanaka, chairman of the Nuclear Regulation Authority, urged caution.
“It would be best to think that natural phenomena don’t work the way you would expect,” he told reporters Wednesday, according to the AP report.
The activation of the ice wall comes just weeks after a TEPCO official reported that robots designed to access the dangerous interior of the plant and seek out the melted fuel rods were “dying” from the high levels of radiation.
The video below details how the ice wall is expected to work.
Telling the Story of Fukushima
Different Approaches to Remembering 3/11 at the Prefecture’s Museums
Five years after the March 11 earthquake and tsunami touched off a triple meltdown at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, the disaster is no longer just a current event—it is also a part of Japan’s history. But how should that history be told? Government and civil society groups have different answers, and they are starting to emerge in a battle of museums.
A Tale of Two Museums
In a flurry of caption writing and message tweaking, Fukushima prefectural government officials are currently putting the finishing touches on a major new exhibit about the disaster at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station. Starting this summer, the exhibit will be permanently displayed at the ¥20 billion Fukushima Prefectural Center for Environmental Creation in the town of Miharu. Plans are in the works to send every fifth-grade student in the prefecture on a field trip to view it. The goal, according to the organizers, is to “address the worries and concerns of Fukushima residents, further understanding of radiation and environmental problems, and deepen awareness of environmental recovery.”
Some 40 kilometers away, in a small post-and-beam hall in the city of Shirakawa, a group of local citizens are planning a very different kind of exhibit. Their displays focus on the ways in which the government exacerbated the disaster and disregarded the rights of Fukushima residents in its aftermath. They will be exhibited at the Nuclear Disaster Information Center, which was built in 2013 using ¥30 million yen in donations from the public, with the goal of ensuring Fukushima and its lessons are not forgotten.
These two projects represent divergent understandings of how the Fukushima nuclear disaster should be remembered. Given their vastly unequal resources and reach, they also raise questions about the appropriate role of government in memorializing the disaster that rocked Japan and the world five years ago.
“People who have suffered from the Fukushima disaster have doubts about whether a public facility like the Center for Environmental Creation can truly communicate the lessons of an accident for which the national and prefectural governments bear partial responsibility,” says Gotō Shinobu, an associate professor at Fukushima University, who is involved in planning the alternative exhibit in Shirakawa.
A Familiar Story
The quiet battle over historical interpretation that is playing out in Fukushima has a precedent in the seaside city of Minamata, Kumamoto Prefecture, the site of one of the most devastating industrial disasters in world history. Thousands of people living in the area were killed or severely sickened by mercury after Chisso Corporation dumped industrial waste from its chemical plant into the bay over the course of several decades, contaminating fish and shellfish and poisoning the people who ate them. Fifty years later, public and private museums in the area are still telling different versions of that history.
One version can be found at the Minamata Disease Municipal Museum, which was established in 1993 with the goal of “handing down the lessons and experiences of Minamata Disease,” according to its mission statement. Videos and panels in the ¥6 billion facility relate the history and science of the disaster, and victims are on hand to share their personal experiences. But Endō Kunio, a board member and employee of the nonprofit victims’ support organization Sōshisha, says the museum fails to communicate the disaster’s true lessons. “Simply lining up events does not equate to history,” he says. “The facts of what happened are there, but the museum doesn’t say much about their meaning.”
Since 1988, Sōshisha has run its own museum, which displays fishing gear, protest flags, and other artifacts in a converted mushroom-cultivation shed. Among its founding principles is the goal of recording the struggles of the victims and the culpability of government and industry. “Our starting point is the perspective that Minamata Disease resulted from criminal activities on the part of Chisso Corporation and the national government,” says Endō. That perspective has shaped the low-budget museum into a symbol of resistance against the sanitization of painful historical events.
Fukushima Fault Lines
The divide in Fukushima falls along similar lines. The exhibit at the prefectural center will include a timeline of events since the meltdowns, a “radiation lab” explaining the science of radiation and measures to reduce exposure, and a large display on efforts to increase renewable energy and sustainability in the prefecture, according to an overview released last year. Although the exhibit advocates for a “Fukushima that does not depend on nuclear power,” reporting by the Tokyo Shimbun has pointed out that its planning board included several members with close ties to the nuclear industry.
In 2014, shortly after planning began, a citizen’s group with antinuclear leanings called the Fukushima Action Project sent a letter to the prefectural authorities expressing concern over the exhibit. The group requested, among other things, that the center not minimize the health risks of radiation. Since then, FAP representatives have met eight times with prefectural officials to discuss the content of the exhibits. According to meeting transcripts posted on the group’s website, they expressed concerns this January that the exhibit still does not adequately address the severe and ongoing water pollution caused by the disaster or the huge amounts of radioactive waste generated by the cleanup.
Fukushima prefectural officials, meanwhile, note that the exhibit does not touch on government or industry culpability, the fact that radiation exposure limits were raised after the disaster, or the pollution and waste problems because “these issues are not pertinent to the goals of the exhibit.” The facility’s goal, they explain, is “supporting educational activities related to radiation and the environment”; in response to public concerns about the exhibit, they state only that the exhibit content was determined by a panel of experts.
Nagamine Takafumi, the director of the Nuclear Disaster Information Center, is also deeply skeptical about the public museum. “We believe the goal of the Fukushima Prefectural Center for Environmental Creation is to create a myth of radiation safety,” he said. He and his colleagues are currently planning two permanent exhibits for their center. One, designed by Fukushima University’s Gotō, will compare global teaching materials on nuclear power and highlight the Ministry of Education’s pronuclear bias before the disaster. The other will examine the failure of all but a few municipalities in Fukushima to distribute potassium iodide pills immediately after the accident, which would have lowered residents’ risk of developing thyroid cancer.
A Third Perspective
Another private, but less politically driven, museum operates from an outbuilding at an abandoned school in the village of Kawauchi, about 25 kilometers inland from the nuclear plant. Called the Kangaeru Shirōkan, which translates roughly to “a museum for feeling, thinking, and understanding,” the free facility displays protective bodysuits, radiation meters, photographs, town newsletters, and other artifacts of the meltdown.
The museum was founded in 2012 by Nishimaki Hiroshi, a local journalist who moved to the area from Saitama Prefecture nine years ago. He says that in the months following the disaster, he wanted to do something constructive, but felt immobilized by the scale and complexity of the meltdown’s aftermath. When novelist and longtime friend Taguchi Randy suggested he open a museum, he acted on the idea.
The displays include scant explanatory text, and Nishimaki is rarely on site to act as a guide. His says his goal is simply to present the reality as locals have experienced it so that it will not be forgotten. “The government does bear some responsibility for what happened, but I don’t think of the displays as a way to attack them,” he says. Still, he has avoided government funding in order to maintain complete freedom in what he exhibits.
An Inevitable but Unequal Divide
It is hardly surprising that views of environmental catastrophe differ in private and public museums. Government actors partially responsible for a disaster are unlikely to be objective in planning a museum to memorialize it, and civic organizations that include disaster victims are equally unlikely to put aside their own experiences when interpreting the same events. In the case of the Fukushima disaster, divergent views on nuclear power further shape the messages presented in museums.
Public and private projects of historical interpretation can in this sense complement one another. Yet there is little chance the majority of the public will be exposed to both perspectives. As Gotō points out, the budget of the public museum is over 600 times that of the private one he is involved with, and visits to the private museum are not a part of any official school curriculum.
Last year, national and local officials met to discuss another large, government-funded museum focused on the nuclear disaster, this one planned to open on the prefecture’s coast some time in the coming decade. Although they haven’t asked, Minamata’s Endō has a piece of advice for them.
“It is all-important that the story of what happened be told by the people who live in that place,” he says. “When government officials and civil society groups interpret for them, it becomes something different.”
Contaminated water, fuel extraction stand in way of decommissioning Fukushima plant
The Advanced Liquid Processing System (ALPS) is seen in September, 2012
With about five years having passed since the start of the Fukushima No. 1 Nuclear Power Plant disaster, nuclear workers still lack a method of treating the around 1,000 tanks of contaminated water stored on site, and the start of work to remove melted nuclear fuel from the plant remains at least five years away.
“Until the contaminated water issue is solved, decommissioning of the reactors remains far off. We have to stop the water,” says Tetsuo Ito, professor of nuclear energy safety engineering at the Kinki University Atomic Energy Research Institute. Akira Ono, chief of the Fukushima plant, says, “We’re still at step one” of the decommissioning process, which is estimated to take until 2041 to 2051.
Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO), the plant’s owner, is treating the contaminated water with its Advanced Liquid Processing System (ALPS), which can remove 62 varieties of radioactive material. However, ALPS cannot remove radioactive tritium, and because of this the treated water is stored in tanks. Tritium is extremely difficult to separate from water, because even if one of the hydrogen atoms in a water molecule is replaced by tritium, the chemical properties such as the boiling point barely change.
Pipes for an underground frozen wall to block contaminated water leakages are seen on the landward side of the Fukushima No. 1 Nuclear Power Plant, on Feb. 23, 2016.
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has advised that tritium-containing water be released into the ocean, because its effect on the human body is very limited. Tritium-containing water is created even during the normal operation of a nuclear power plant, and it is released into the ocean in accordance with waste-disposal standards. However, there is local opposition to doing this at the Fukushima plant because of worries about its effects on the reputation of the local fishing industry, and no decision has been made on what to do with the water.
Tritium has a half-life of 12.3 years, so storing the water until the radiation naturally lessens is another option, but there is the risk of leaks during that time if the tanks’ conditions deteriorate.
As for decommissioning the plant reactors, at the end of 2011 the national government put together a roadmap that estimated the decommission work would take 30 to 40 years. To decommission the No. 1 through 3 reactors at the plant, 1,573 units of spent fuel will have to be removed from the spent fuel pools of these reactors, and 1,496 units’ worth of fuel that melted from the reactors will have to be removed. Safe removal of the melted fuel represents the largest problem.
A wall constructed on the seaward side of the Fukushima No. 1 Nuclear Power Plant to prevent leakages is seen on Sept. 24, 2015.
The national government and TEPCO intend to decide on a plan for the fuel’s extraction in the first half of fiscal 2018, and start extraction efforts at one of the reactors within the year 2021. Toyoshi Fuketa, a member of the Nuclear Regulation Authority (NRA), argues that nuclear fuel that is too difficult to take out should be stored on-site, saying, “There is the option of just removing as much (of the melted fuel) as possible, and hardening the rest (to seal off its radiation).”
The cost for decommissioning the reactors is already estimated at 2 trillion yen, and this could grow if the decommissioning schedule is delayed.
While the No. 1 through 3 reactors at the plant were shut down at the time of the Great East Japan Earthquake on March 11, 2011, they lost all power due to the proceeding tsunami and, with no way to cool the nuclear reactors, they experienced a meltdown. The tsunami measured at up to 15.5 meters, and emergency underground power supplies were flooded and failed to function.
Tanks for holding contaminated water are seen on the grounds of the Fukushima No. 1 Nuclear Power Plant, on Nov. 5, 2015
The No. 1 reactor was equipped with a cooling system called Reactor Core Isolation Cooling (IC), but this didn’t activate, and on March 12 at 3:36 p.m. the No. 1 reactor suffered a hydrogen explosion. Then, on March 14 at 11:01 a.m. the No. 3 reactor also experienced a hydrogen explosion. The No. 4 reactor was already offline at the time of the disaster for a regular inspection, but hydrogen from the adjacent No. 3 reactor leaked in, and it suffered a hydrogen explosion as well at 6:14 a.m. on March 15. The No. 2 reactor was not hit by a hydrogen explosion, but among the No. 1 through 3 reactors it is thought to have leaked the most radiation. The disaster is rated a 7 on the International Nuclear Event Scale, the same as the Chernobyl disaster.
Masao Yoshida, the late chief of the Fukushima plant who headed up the frontline disaster-response efforts, testified to a government panel investigating the disaster, “We (who were on-site) imagined it as the destruction of eastern Japan. I really thought we were dead.”
Four reports on the disaster were put together, from the national government, the Diet, TEPCO and elsewhere in the private sector. They differ on points such as why the IC in the No. 1 reactor did not activate. The Diet probe raised the possibility that the IC system’s piping was damaged in the earthquake, but the national government’s investigative panel denied that earthquake damage was the cause. Due to the high radiation levels in the reactor buildings, there has not yet been an on-site investigation to better understand what happened.
http://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20160403/p2a/00m/0na/010000c
Plutonium from Japan to be disposed of underground in New Mexico
U.S.-bound plutonium that has recently been shipped out of Japan will be disposed of at a nuclear waste repository in New Mexico after being processed for “inertion” at the Savannah River Site atomic facility in South Carolina, according to an official of the National Nuclear Security Administration.
“The plutonium will be diluted into a less sensitive form at the SRS and then transported to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) for permanent disposal deep underground,” said Ross Matzkin-Bridger in charge of the operation at the NNSA, a nuclear wing of the Department of Energy.
“The dilution process involves mixing the plutonium with inert materials that reduce the concentration of plutonium and make it practically impossible to ever purify again,” he told Kyodo News in a recent phone interview.
The official made the remarks ahead of the latest Nuclear Security Summit, sponsored by President Barack Obama, which began Thursday in Washington.
The fourth such meeting of world leaders is focused on how to secure weapons-usable nuclear materials all over the globe. The summit started after Obama’s 2009 speech in Prague, in which he called for “a world without nuclear weapons” and for which he was awarded a Nobel Peace Prize later that year.
At the previous summit in the Netherlands in March 2014, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe agreed to return plutonium and highly enriched uranium upon request from the Obama administration, which is seeking to strengthen control of nuclear materials.
The removal of 331 kilograms of plutonium and hundreds of kilograms of HEU from the Fast Critical Assembly, a research facility located in the village of Tokai, Ibaraki Prefecture, was completed before the Nuclear Security Summit kicked off.
Japan received the plutonium and HEU fuels from the United States, Britain and France from the late 1960s to early 1970s for research purposes in the name of “Atoms for Peace.”
The nuclear fuel delivery, however, has generated controversy in South Carolina since it was reported that it was en route to the U.S. government-run SRS facility in the state.
South Carolina is “at risk of becoming a permanent dumping ground for nuclear materials,” Gov. Nikki Haley said in a recent letter to Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz, calling for the freight to be stopped or rerouted.
The final disposal at the WIPP, as described by Matzkin-Bridger, may defuse these local concerns in South Carolina.
The WIPP is a repository — about 660 meters underground — for permanently storing nuclear waste created by the U.S. government’s nuclear weapons program.
“The Department of Energy has signed a Record of Decision to implement our preferred option to prepare 6 metric tons of surplus plutonium from the SRS for permanent disposal at the WIPP near Carlsbad, New Mexico,” Matzkin-Bridger explained. “This includes all foreign plutonium that we bring to the United States under our nonproliferation programs.”
The HEU from Japan’s FCA will be “down-blended” to low enriched uranium at the Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, according to the official. In the future, LEU will be used for research purpose at research reactors both in the U.S. and Japan, possibly including the FCA.
“This project was accomplished on an accelerated timeline well ahead of schedule, thanks to the hard work and strong cooperation from both sides,” said a U.S.-Japan joint statement released Friday on the sidelines of the Nuclear Security Summit.
“It furthers our mutual goal of minimizing stocks of HEU and separated plutonium,” the document added, emphasizing the importance of the operation in strengthening nuclear security.
In the statement, the Japanese government made a new pledge to remove and transfer HEU fuels from the Kyoto University Critical Assembly (KUCA), another Japanese research institute, to the United States for down-blending and “permanent threat reduction.”
“If the KUCA’s HEU reactor is successfully converted to a LEU unit, it will have a significant meaning for other reactors in the U.S. and European nations, which are pursuing to convert reactors for LEU,” Hironobu Unesaki, a professor at Kyoto University, said. “The KUCA could provide academic outputs for future LEU conversion process worldwide.”
Officials and specialists in both nations have praised the bilateral cooperation, which aims to reduce the threat of nuclear terrorism through securing sensitive materials.
However, the materials recently transferred from Japan are only the tip of the iceberg. Currently, Japanese utilities possess over 47 metric tons of separated plutonium, which is equivalent to about 6,000 nuclear bombs.
At the last Nuclear Security Summit two years ago, Abe restated the nation’s international promise not to possess any plutonium that it has no use for. But the country’s stockpile of the nuclear material has since slightly increased.
A recent court injunction to suspend the operation of two plutonium-consuming reactors in Fukui Prefecture has made a solution for the plutonium problem more elusive.
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2016/04/02/national/politics-diplomacy/plutonium-japan-disposed-underground-new-mexico/#.Vv80Iiraw3k.facebook
Fukushima Daiichi Contaminated Waste to Be Recycled into Construction Materials
Japan to Recycle Waste Collected during Fukushima Decontamination
TOKYO – The Japanese government announced Wednesday it will recycle the material collected during the decontamination of the Fukushima nuclear plant for construction purposes if radiation levels are found to be sufficiently low.
The government plans to store the waste collected from the radiation-affected region and use it as construction material in places outside the prefecture in northeastern Japan, within 30 years, reported state broadcaster NHK.
According to the country’s environment ministry, residue showing less than 8,000 becquerel per kg could be used in future to pave roads, build anti-tsunami walls and in other public works.
Over 90 percent of the material, accumulated since the 2011 disaster, could be re-used if the contaminated elements are removed, according to the authorities, who are, however, yet to develop the technology to separate waste with high radiation levels.
Currently, Fukushima authorities store the radioactive waste at two depots close to the plant, which can store up to 30 million tons.
The waste will remain at these storage sites for the next 30 years, to be later transferred to a definitive storage place, whose location remains to be determined, and to be used in public works if cleared of high radiation levels.
The Fukushima crisis has been the worst nuclear accident in history after the 1986 Chernobyl disaster in Ukraine.
The nuclear plant, which suffered a meltdown in the aftermath of the earthquake and subsequent tsunami that struck the country on March 11, 2011, is now being dismantled, a task that will take at least four decades to complete.
http://www.laht.com/article.asp?ArticleId=2408901&CategoryId=12395
Manga convey realities of living in Tohoku disaster areas
Although words of praise poured in for Kazuto Tatsuta’s manga about the Fukushima nuclear disaster, some comments said he was a spy for Tokyo Electric Power Co.
The artist, who went to great lengths to show the true situation around TEPCO’s Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant, scoffed at the notion.
“As for nuclear power generation, I have never taken stances of ‘promotion,’ ‘opposition’ or ‘neutral.’ I just wanted to convey the changes of the place (at the nuclear plant) in real time,” he said.
His manga series, “Ichiefu Fukushima Daiichi Genshiryoku Hatsudensho Rodoki” (1F; Records of labor at Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant), was one of several that started after the triple disaster struck five years ago.
Some of them initially offered messages of encouragement to the disaster victims. But they gradually changed to depict the realities of the situation in the northeastern Tohoku region and the disaster victims’ extraordinary experiences.
Tatsuta’s series, carried in the weekly magazine Morning, was based around the sites of demolition work at the nuclear plant.
He was working at a company of an acquaintance near Tokyo when the Great East Japan Earthquake struck on March 11, 2011. Tatsuta looked for a job in areas affected by the disaster, and ended up working at a rest station of the nuclear plant as an employee of the sixth-layer subcontractor in June 2012.
In 2013, Tatsuta started “Ichiefu” to show the daily lives of workers at the plant.
His work drew much attention and acclaim. But some said the artist was underestimating the dangers of nuclear power generation. The series ended in October 2015.
Yoko Hano depicted the daily post-disaster lives of a different group–senior high school students in Fukushima Prefecture.
She started the serialized manga “Hajimari no Haru” (Spring as a beginning) because she also wanted to convey the truth. The comic is currently carried under the title of “Happy End?” in the Monthly Afternoon magazine.
Hano, who is from Nishigo in Fukushima Prefecture, now lives in Shirakawa, also in the prefecture.
“From the time immediately after the outbreak of the disaster, I saw false information from the media that was slipshod in confirming facts,” she said. “A person in my neighborhood was cornered by the situation caused by the disaster and committed suicide. I thought that unless accurate information is offered, our local communities will be destroyed.”
The protagonists in her manga learn about agriculture. They vow to reconstruct their hometowns and start taking action despite being shaken by nuclear accident.
“Here (in Fukushima Prefecture), there are many themes I should tackle throughout my life. I think that people who are making a living with jobs related to expression and speech should migrate to Fukushima,” Hano said.
In the serialized manga “Gogai! Iwate Chaguchagu Shinbunsha” (Extra edition! Iwate Chaguchagu newspaper company), the protagonist is a female reporter with a local newspaper in Iwate Prefecture.
Its creator, Aruto Asuka, who lives in Ichinoseki in the prefecture, began to carry the manga in the comic magazine Be Love, published twice a month, in 2009. Initially, it focused on the people, seasonal traditions and industries of the prefecture.
Then, the Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami struck in 2011.
The manga now features the reality of the prefecture that was hit hard by the disaster.
Ichinoseki, an inland area, escaped serious damage. However, “that produced big conflicted feelings in my mind,” Asuka recalled.
In a special edition titled “Sanriku no Umi” (Sea of Sanriku), which was carried in the third volume of the book version of the manga, the protagonist visits the coastal district of Koishihama in Ofunato, Iwate Prefecture, for news coverage, and meets a young fisherman and his wife again.
The wife is pregnant but hesitant to give birth because of her feelings for a relative who lost her child and other family members in the disaster.
“I also have feelings of guilt about the fact that I am alive without suffering from any damage,” Asuka said. “I will not forget the various feelings of people (in the affected areas).”
http://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/AJ201604010061.html
Tainted Fukushima towns stuck in time as decon crews plug away
Police and security officers keep watch along National Route 6 leading to the off-limits zone in Tomioka, Fukushima Prefecture, on March 9
FUKUSHIMA – Five years after the nuclear disaster triggered by the huge earthquake and tsunami, reconstruction has made little progress in parts of Fukushima Prefecture. A Kyodo News reporter drove National Route 6 northward to the crippled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant to witness the lingering effects of the calamity.
In the town of Hirono, in the southeast, many shops and buildings remain empty. North of Hirono is the town of Naraha, most of which lies within the 20-km-radius hot zone around Tokyo Electric Power Co.’s radiation-leaking power plant.
The nuclear disaster forced Hirono to move its operations to other municipalities in the prefecture, while Naraha was designated an evacuation zone.
Now the towns have a radiation level below 1 millisievert per year — a level the government is trying to achieve in other areas via decontamination — and residence restrictions and evacuation orders have been lifted, with Hirono’s town office returning to its original place.
However, many residents are reluctant to go back to their homes. So far only 48 percent of Hirono’s population and 6 percent of Naraha’s have returned.
Yet hotels and other lodgings were busy accommodating out-of-prefecture workers seeking decontamination and construction work. All 275 rooms at a hotel in Hirono built for the reconstruction support scheme three years ago are “almost fully reserved for the next month,” the front desk clerk said.
A worker in his 50s who came from Tokyo to oversee decontamination work said he earns more than ¥16,000 ($145) per day. Another man staying at the hotel said he was on a three-week contract and received ¥25,000 a day. Their lodging was paid for by their employers.
At night, there was only one pub open in Hirono.
“The shopping area is deserted, although schools have resumed,” said a woman who works there. Still, the pub was full, mainly with visitors not from Fukushima.
In Tomioka, parts of which are still designated as in the “difficult to return” zone, most retail buildings on both sides of the main road have been abandoned and are decaying. Bags of contaminated soil sit piled up near the shore — now a huge makeshift storage site.
In a similar zone in the town of Okuma, which co-hosts the plant, three men in white protective suits were conducting decontamination in a field under a cloud of dust.
Nearby, a large boar suddenly crossed the road.
Soon after the nuclear disaster struck five years ago, untended cows and dogs were seen wandering around looking for food, but now boars are a frequent site, local people say.
In a residential part of Okuma, quake-damaged roads have been fixed but houses are being left as they are. The only sounds are chirping birds and the wind.
At a railway station, radiation over 10 microsieverts per hour is detected just above a covered drain. Although radiation in the “difficult to return” zones in Okuma and neighboring Futaba — the two towns hosting the nuclear plant — is much lower than it was immediately after the meltdowns, there are many hot spots measuring over 5 microsieverts — dozens of times higher than the government’s goal.
A Futaba resident who was showing the area to foreign journalists said, “The word ‘reconstruction’ has no relevance to this town.”
In Minamisoma — farther north of the Fukushima No. 1 complex — some areas are still designated as restricted residential zones.
“The number of jobs, such as decontamination work, has increased, but most of them are taken by people coming from outside the prefecture. We can hardly say this place has been enlivened again,” said Masayoshi Kariura, a Catholic priest.
“The pileup of contaminated soil that is clearly visible is weighing heavily on the residents,” he said.
Ryuichi Sakamoto offers his thoughts on politics, Japan and how his music will change ‘post-cancer’
“The Professor” is back in town. Last weekend, Ryuichi Sakamoto took the stage at Tokyo Opera City for the debut concert of the Tohoku Youth Orchestra, a 105-strong ensemble of young musicians from Iwate, Miyagi and Fukushima prefectures, which counts him as its musical director.
Though he isn’t inclined to make a fuss about these things, the occasion also had personal significance for the 64-year-old composer and musician, a longtime New York resident. It was the first concert Sakamoto had played since undergoing treatment for throat cancer in 2014, canceling all engagements in what must be one of the music industry’s busiest work schedules. As he later remarked, it was the first extensive time off he’d had for 40 years.
“It’s the closest I’ve come to death during my lifetime,” he tells The Japan Times, speaking the day after the Tohoku Youth Orchestra concert. “I feel differently since I came back from that place, compared to before. I want to capture the mood I have now, post-cancer, in my music.”
Sakamoto’s unobtrusive return to the limelight was heralded by the soundtracks that he composed for Yoji Yamada’s “Nagasaki: Memories of My Son” and, in collaboration with Carsten Nicolai (aka Alva Noto), for Alejandro G. Inarritu’s “The Revenant.” (The latter film, which earned him a Golden Globe nomination, opens in Japan on April 22.)
Now there’s also the prospect of a new album of original material, his first since 2009’s “Out of Noise.”
“I have a lot of sketches and ideas, but when you don’t use them they get stale,” he says. “You’re changing every day, right? Your curiosities and ambitions change, your ear changes, the music you like changes — and the music you want to make, too … I’m planning to begin work on an album when I get back to New York, but I think I’m probably going to start from scratch.”
Prior to that, Tokyo audiences can catch Sakamoto again next weekend, when he presides over a three-day festival at Yebisu Garden Place, to mark the 10th anniversary of his Commmons label. Rather than perform a headlining set himself, he’ll be playing support roles throughout the weekend: sitting in with some of the musicians, hosting discussions and providing piano accompaniment for communal rajio taisō (radio calisthenics) sessions with the crowd.
Sakamoto established Commmons in 2006 with the rather lofty goal of creating “a place where new relationships can be built between the music industry, the audience, artists and creators.” In addition to releasing music by artists such as Boredoms, Sotaisei Riron and Kotringo, the label has provided a platform for its founder’s prolific musical output, as well as a series of scholarly journals.
One of Sakamoto’s current areas of inquiry is traditional Japanese music, once a blind spot in his otherwise rich musical vocabulary. He studied composition and ethnomusicology at Tokyo University of the Arts, leading his Yellow Magic Orchestra bandmate Yukihiro Takahashi to nickname him “Professor” — a moniker that stuck. Yet the musical system employed by noh theater remains something of a mystery.
“I could understand Bach, but not noh,” he says with a laugh. “It has a 600-year history — it’s very deep.”
Sakamoto has been based in New York since 1990, and seems to value the perspective that life as an expatriate has given him on his native country; his increasing appreciation of Japanese performing arts such as noh, kabuki and gagaku is one example.
“When I lived in Japan, I only noticed the bad aspects of the country,” he says. “I didn’t really like Japan then, but when I moved overseas I was able to appreciate the good side more. The quality of the craftsmanship, the temples and Japanese gardens. … As I’ve got older, I’ve started to appreciate the precious parts of Japanese culture that you don’t find in other countries.”
When he first relocated to the States, Sakamoto was that rarest of things: a Japanese celebrity with global clout. Both in his solo work and with YMO, the techno-pop trio he formed with Takahashi and Haruomi Hosono in 1978, he had positioned himself at the vanguard of synthesizer- and sample-based music.
But it was his movie soundtracks that clinched his international renown, including for Nagisa Oshima’s “Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence” (in which he co-starred opposite the late David Bowie) and Bernardo Bertolucci’s “The Last Emperor,” which won him an Academy Award in 1988.
Sakamoto’s subsequent career may not have yielded such boundary-breaking music, but in other ways it has been awfully prescient. He began to use environmentally friendly packaging for his albums in the early 1990s, and was powering his tours on renewable energy long before Radiohead took up the idea. He was also an early adopter of Internet technology, staging his first live online broadcast of a concert in 1995.
“Internet speeds were still really slow then,” he recalls with a laugh. “We’d call it a concert, but you were basically watching static images that changed once every 10 seconds. The audio was all choppy, too.”
While Japanese labels were enjoying record-breaking CD sales during the late ’90s, Sakamoto had already anticipated how online distribution would upend the music industry. He lobbied for changes in the way that copyright licensing body JASRAC (Japanese Society for Rights of Authors, Composers and Publishers) handled music rights online, and cautioned the retail behemoths that their boom times were about to end.
“I was telling the Tower Records people in 1996 or 1997: ‘(CD shops) are going to disappear, you need to think about it,’ ” he says. “I thought they’d be able to get in early and make something like what we have with the iTunes Store now, but they couldn’t seem to do it.”
After spending his career championing technological innovation, Sakamoto is a little rueful about where things have ended up. In a world of YouTube, Spotify and Apple Music, few young people would think to pay to listen to music. Life isn’t much easier for session musicians: Why hire a band for a TV or film soundtrack when you can use sophisticated software synthesizers instead?
“There are still young people hoping to become professional musicians, but it’s so tough now, they’d be better off giving up,” he says. “I’d tell them to get a different job and play music as a hobby.”
“Everybody’s hurting now, whatever the genre,” he continues. “The only people making money are DJs.”
Sakamoto has a talent for statements like this. Famously outspoken, in recent years he’s lent his voice to campaigns on issues including the relocation of the U.S. Futenma air base in Okinawa, government restrictions on free speech, and the police crackdown on all-night dance clubs.
But he’s most closely associated with environmental causes, notably his advocacy of renewable energy and staunch opposition to nuclear power. Following the triple meltdown at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant in March 2011, Sakamoto quickly emerged as an influential figurehead in the anti-nuclear movement. In 2012, he organized the No Nukes festival at Makuhari Messe in Chiba, inviting Kraftwerk and a roster of well-known Japanese artists.
As a veteran of Japan’s late-1960s student protest movement, which he joined when he was still a high-school student, he was comfortable amid the demonstrations that galvanized the country during 2011 and 2012.
“With the demos we held in the ’60s, everyone was wearing helmets and masks, holding poles and fighting with riot police — it was totally different,” he says. “I think the way we do it now is better. Anyone can take part.”
He expresses regret about the political retrenchment that has occurred since the election of Shinzo Abe’s LDP administration in December 2012: “For a couple of years there, I hoped that genuine democracy might take root in Japan … I felt there were more people who were openly speaking their minds, without being influenced by others.”
Does he worry a lot about Japan’s future?
“I do, I do. One of the unfortunate things that’s happened in the three or so years since Abe came to power is that Japanese people are going on about how brilliant Japan is: ‘This is great! This place is amazing!’ There are too many TV programs and campaigns like that, and I’m getting a little sick of it. It’s fine if people from outside the country praise you like that, but to say it yourself — things like ‘Cool Japan’ — I don’t think that’s ‘cool.’ ”
Being one of the country’s most internationally renowned cultural icons, Sakamoto may seem like an obvious ambassador for the government’s campaign to promote Japanese soft power overseas. So it’s surprising when he says that he hasn’t even been approached by the apparatchiks behind Cool Japan.
Maybe it’s because the campaign originates within the halls of the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry — the main cheerleader for Japan’s nuclear power industry.
“I hate them, and I think the feeling’s mutual,” he says.
The organizers of the 2020 Tokyo Olympics can also strike Sakamoto’s name from their invitation list. Although he composed and conducted the music for the opening ceremony at the Barcelona Games in 1992, he says that he wouldn’t be interested in taking part when the event returns to Japan.
Asked why, he reels off a list of the problems that continue to afflict the Tohoku region: the tens of thousands of people still living in temporary housing, the nuclear disaster evacuees unable to return home, the ongoing problems with cleanup efforts at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant.
“It’s not ‘under control’ at all, is it?” he says, echoing the words used by Abe in his speech to the International Olympic Committee in 2013. “They should be making that their first priority.”
For Sakamoto, the way to end Japan’s current malaise is through encouraging fresh thinking — though he concedes that this is difficult in “a society where it’s hard to say things that others don’t agree with.”
“You won’t get original thinking in an environment like that. The ideas won’t come, and the talented people will just end up going overseas,” he says as we wrap things up.
“I’ve been saying this for a long time,” he concludes, “but if you take Sony, which is a company that really represents Japan, and compare it to Akira Kurosawa — just one person — Kurosawa is probably worth more worldwide. A lot of people don’t seem to get that.”
Radioactive sediment found in Fukushima rivers
Tokyo: Japanese researchers have detected relatively high levels of radioactive substances in sediment in multiple rivers running through Fukushima prefecture, the media reported on Friday.
The prefectural government in January surveyed the density of radioactive materials in soil and other sediment that has accumulated on the bottoms and banks of 72 rivers in the prefecture, public broadcaster NHK reported.
The study came in response to the 2011 nuclear accident at the Fukushima Daiichi power plant.
The researchers found up to 54,500 becquerels per kg of radioactive substances in the Maeda river in Futaba town, where the plant is situated, and 39,600 becquerels in the Hiru river in Fukushima city. They also detected more than 10,000 becquerels at five other locations in four municipalities.
The prefectural government plans to study restricting access to rivers with high concentrations of radioactive materials.
It also plans to urge the central government to remove contaminated soil and other sediment.
http://www.thejapannews.net/index.php/sid/242732285
Past References
Overview of active cesium contamination of freshwater fish in Fukushima and Eastern Japan
- Received: 13 March 2012
- Accepted: 05 April 2013
- Published online: 29 April 2013
Abstract
This paper focuses on an overview of radioactive cesium 137 (quasi-Cs137 included Cs134) contamination of freshwater fish in Fukushima and eastern Japan based on the data published by the Fisheries Agency of the Japanese Government in 2011. In the area north and west of the Fukushima Nuclear plant, freshwater fish have been highly contaminated. For example, the mean of active cesium (quasi-Cs137) contamination of Ayu (Plecoglossus altivelis) is 2,657 Bq/kg at Mano River, 20–40 km north-west from the plant. Bioaccumulation is observed in the Agano river basin in Aizu sub-region, 70–150 km west from the plant. The active cesium (quasi-Cs137) contamination of carnivorous Salmondae is around 2 times higher than herbivorous Ayu. The extent of active cesium (quasi-Cs137) contamination of Ayu is observed in the entire eastern Japan. The some level of the contamination is recognized even in Shizuoka prefecture, 400 km south-west from the plant.
Introduction
The serious accidents of the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant have been contaminating a vast area in eastern Japan1, home of 60 million people. Consumption of freshwater fish is an important part of the aquatic pathway for the transfer of radionuclides to the freshwater ecosystem creatures including humans2. Therefore the contamination of freshwater fish of aquatic bioaccumulation is an important problem3,4. In the case of the Chernobyl Accident, the transfer of radionuclides to fish has been studied in European countries5,6,7. Most attention was focused on Belarus, the Russian Federation and Ukraine, because of the higher contamination of water bodies in these areas8,9. However, in the case of Fukushima, there is little information about freshwater ecosystem contamination in 2011. Therefore, this paper focuses on an overview of active cesium 137 (quasi-Cs137) contaminations of freshwater fish in Fukushima and eastern Japan based on 2011 data published by the Fisheries Agency of the Japanese Government10.
Results
Highest contaminated area in fukushima prefecture
Fukushima Prefecture is located in the northeastern part of the Main Island of Japan (Fig. 1). It is divided into three sub-regions by its mountainous topography, i.e., Hamadori, Nakadori and Aizu (from east to west). Hamadori is the coastal region facing the Pacific Ocean and separated from Nakadori (central basin) by the Abukuma Highlands. The westernmost Aizu is mountainous with the Aizu Basin in the center. There still is a rich natural environment maintained throughout the prefecture with three national parks, one quasi-national park and eleven prefectural parks present. The mountain ranges form headwaters and basins of many rivers such as the Abukuma River and the Aga River. The Abukuma Highlands is designated as one of the prefectural parks and rich in endemic wildlife including the indigenous forest green tree frog (Rhacophorus arboreus) and salamanders (Hynobius lichenatus, Hynobius nigrescens). There the Ayu (Plecoglossidae: Plecoglossus altivelis altivelis), Salmon (Salmonidae: Oncorhynchus masou, Salvelinus leucomaenis) and carp (Cyprinidae: Tribolodon hakonensis, Cyprinus carpio, Carassius.sp) are very popular freshwater fish for fishing and angling.
Blue is water system: Aga river basin is west area of Fukushima, Abkuma river basin is center of Fukushima. Green is mountain chain or highland where heights is more 1,000 m. Yellow is high contaminated area by nuclear accidents.
The Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant is located in Hamadori. Due to the topography with the Pacific Ocean in the east and the Abukuma Highlands in the west, the areas in the north to the west of the plant are highly contaminated. Such areas include Iidate Village and Date City. The Mano River which flows through Iidate Village in the upstream and Minami-souma City. Two months after the accident, the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport surveyed the Mano River11. The survey results of the contamination level of the bottom soil are Cs134: 6,900 Bq/kg and Cs137: 7,800 Bq/kg in Mano River of Minamisouma city at Majima bridge on 29/5/2011. While the area downstream and the Abukuma River in Date City found higher contamination. Two months after the accident, the Ministry of Environment surveyed the Abukuma River of Date city. The survey results of the contamination level of the bottom soil are Cs134: 11,000 Bq/kg and Cs137: 12,000 Bq/kg in Abukuma River of Date city at Taisho bridge on 24/5/2011.
The contamination level of radioactive cesium (quasi-Cs137) of the Ayu, annual and herbivorous species, captured in these rivers or their tributaries between May and September 2011 was measured. The cesium bioaccumulation of those captured in the Mano River was mean 2,657 Bq/kg (n = 3, median 2,900 Bq/kg, range 1,770–3,300 Bq/kg) and the Abukuma River at Date city was mean 1,770 Bq/kg, (n = 11, median 1,170 Bq/kg, range 650–2,080 Bq/kg ).
The bioaccumulations of Aga river basin (West Fukushima)
The Aga River Basin encompasses the entire Aizu region in west Fukushima. The river water flows through from the Aizu region to the Sea of Japan. As it lies over 70 km to the west of the nuclear power plant and both the Abukuma Highlands and Oou montain chain are in between, the Cs137 contamination level here was lower than Mano river and the Abukuma river basin. Two months after the accident, Fukushima prefecture surveyed the Agano River (Aga river Basin) of Aizu and South Aizu region12. The survey results of the contamination level of bottom soil were Cs134: 29 Bq/kg and Cs137: 33 Bq/kg in Agano River of Aizu region at Miyako bridge on 27/5/2011, Cs134: 29 Bq/kg and Cs137: 34 Bq/kg in Agano river of Minami-Aizu region at Tajima bridge on 27/5/2011.
In the aga river basin, the bioaccumulation of fish are well recognized. Fig. 2 shows the quasi-Cs137 contamination and bioaccumulation levels of three fish families captured in the basin, i.e., Plecoglossidae (Plecoglossus altivelis n = 18), Cyprinidae (Tribolodon hakonensis n = 25, Cyprinus carpio n = 5, Carassius sp. n = 11)and Salmonidae(Oncorhynchus masou n = 12, Salvelinus leucomaenis n = 13) between April and December 2011. Since p-value = 0.008 ≤ 0.05 of Kruskal-Wallis Test, at the p = 0.05 level of significance, there exists enough evidence to conclude that there is a difference among the three families based on the active cesium contamination level. The median of herbivorous Plecoglossidae shows the lowest level among the three families (n = 18, mean 50.64 Bq/kg, median = 46.00 Bq/kg, range 12.00–90.00 Bq/kg). Then the median of omnivorous Cyprinidae shows about 1.6 times (n = 41, mean 79.80 Bq/kg, median 72.00 Bq/kg, range 15.00–210.00 Bq/kg) and the mean of carnivorous Salmonidae about 1.9 times higher (n = 25, mean 96.24 Bq/kg, median 89.00 Bq/kg, 17–200 Bq/kg) than Plecoglossidae.
The box plots indicate inter-quartile ranges of these data. Bars are into the each box indicate the each median.
The widespread contamination in eastern Japan
To the south west of Fukushima prefecture, there lies the Kanto region which as well as containing the metropolitan prefecture of Tokyo also comprises Ibaraki prefecture, Tochigi prefecture, Gunma prefecture, Saitama prefecture, and Chiba prefecture. In the area, there is the Tone river basin that is the one of biggest river basins (16,840 km2) in Japan. Therefore, there are not only many source points of water springs and many rivers and streams but also high density water network systems of irrigation canals and urban water systems. Freshwater fish inhabit all types of water systems. As a result, the level of freshwater contamination can be taken as an index of the environmental contamination of the freshwater ecosystem. The isogram map (Fig. 3) shows an average of quasi-Cs137 for each prefecture about contamination levels of the Ayu (Plecoglossus) captured in between May and September 2011.
Each isogram center points are each prefecture’s capital city.
The relation between distance from power plant and contamination level
We found a relation between the distance from the power plant and the quasi-Cs137 contamination level of freshwater fish. According to the result of inverse regression analysis about quasi-Cs137 contamination levels related to the distance from the nuclear power plants of each prefectural capital city, the equation is: Y = 27339.82−1 × −75.13 (Y = Cesium, X = The Distance from the plants to each prefecture’s capital city, Signif F = 0.009 < 0.05, Adjusted R Square 0.50). In areas within a radius of 100 km from the nuclear plant, active cesium contamination levels of the Ayu are more than 200 Bq/kg. In those between a radius of 100 km and 200 km, it is around 60–200 Bq/kg. In those between a radius of 200 km and 300 km in which Tokyo is included, it is 20–60 Bq/kg. Therefore, it is estimated that contamination of freshwater fish is extended to all prefectures in eastern Japan. The contamination is recognized as far as Shizuoka prefecture, 400 km south-west from the plant.
Discussion
The Japanese freshwater system is very high density as developed rice water paddy field, irrigation canal, urban water-system network. Therefore, we have to think that the contamination of freshwater fish is widespread not only in river basins but also all over the ground included all types of water-systems, for example, agricultural and urban water systems. The isogram map shows the contamination tendency quite well. The contamination levels of the freshwater fish provide insufficient data and the knowledge of the path about bioaccumulation. So, we will have to survey a more wide spread area and monitor bioaccumulation in each species level.
In this paper we show the relation between distance and contamination levels by inverse regression analysis. The results indicate the effects of quasi radioactive cesium 137 by the Fukushima accident look like less serious than those of the Chernobyl accident. However, contamination levels are possibly higher than the Chernobyl as the cesium is concentrated by the water systems in limitation region. Water paddy field look like shallow pond saved mud included cesium 137. Moreover, the cesium137 will distribute and concentrate by high density irrigation canal and urban water-system. For example, the highly contaminated Taisho river bottom soil Cs134: 4,335 Bq/kg, Cs137: 5,456 Bq/kg was found at 1/11/2011 at Kitakashiwa bridge of Kashiwa city in Tokyo metropolitan area, 200 km south-west from the plant13. Therefore we must carefully and continuously monitor the contamination to the freshwater ecosystem and human health.
Methods
Data 2011 of radioactive cesium of freshwater fish was analyzed by each local government according to the emergency food survey manual of radioactive substance14. The purpose of this manual is they avoid feeding high contaminated food it was defined by food security of emergency condition. Therefore, it is not aimed at collecting accurate data. As a result, this data did not distinguish between cesium137 and cesium134. Therefore, the analysis of this paper calculated by quasi-Cs137 included Cs134. They used germanium semiconductor machine when they measured the radioactive cesium contamination of freshwater fish. The measure time is from 10 minute to 1 hour. The calibration is only Cs137 in per week. The range of radioactive cesium applied only Cs137 regression equation. The result, when the case included Cs134 is relatively much, the numerical value become over estimation. The sample of freshwater fish was collected by each prefectural government by emergency policy of food security. In the survey, the fish sample collected 5–10 kg in one survey station. The measure is using wet condition fish. Ayu and small fish was measured hole body, while big fish measured the part of food portion.
References
1.
Monitoring information of environmental radioactivity level, MEXT and DOE Airborne Monitoring, Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science & Technology in Japan, http://radioactivity.mext.go.jp/en/list/203/list-1.html (2013).
2.
Joanna, B. et al. Radiocesium in Fish from the Savannah River and Steel Creek: Potential Food Chain Exposure to the Public. Risk Analysis Vol. 21, No.3, 545–559 (2001).
3.
McCreedy, C. D., Jagoe, C. H., Glickman, L. T. & Brisbin Jr, I. L. Bioaccumulation of cesium-137 in yellow bullhead catfish (Ameiurus natalis) in habiting an abandoned nuclear reactor reservoir. Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry 16, 328–335 (1997).
4.
Rowan, J. R. & Rasmussen, J. B. Bioaccumulation of radiocesium by fish: The influence of physicochemical factors and trophic structure. Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Science 51, 2388–2410 (1994).
5.
Hakanson, L., Anderson, T. & Nilsson, A. Caesium-137 in perch in Swedish lakes after Chernobyl-present situation, relationships and trends. Environmental Pollution 58, 195–212 (1989).
6.
Ugedal, O., Forseth, T., Jonsson, B. & Njastad, O. Sources of variation in radiocesium levels between individual fish from a Chernobyl contaminated Norwegian lake. Journal of Applied Ecology 32, 352–361 (1995).
7.
Elliott, J. M. et al. Sources of variation in post-Chernobyl radiocesium in fish from two Cumbrian lakes (north-west England). Journal of Applied Ecology 29, 108–119 (1992).
8.
Long-Term Observation of Radioactivity Contamination in Fish around Chernobyl. RYABOV I N Vol 79, 112–122 (2002).
9.
Environmental consequences of the Chernobyl accident and their remediation : twenty years of experience report of the Chernobyl Forum Expert Group ‘Environment’. Vienna: International Atomic Energy Agency (2006).
10.
Results of the inspection on radioactivity materials in fisheries products, Fisheries Agency, http://www.jfa.maff.go.jp/e/inspection/index.html. (2012).
11.
Urgent radionuclides monitoring report in public water system area of Fukushima prefecture (in Japanese), Ministry of Environment, http://www.env.go.jp/water/suiiki/urgent/result201106.pdf. (2011).
12.
Urgent environmental radionuclides monitoring report in public water system area of Fukushima prefecture at 4/6/2011(in Japanese), Fukushima Prefecture, http://www.pref.fukushima.jp/j/koukyouyousuiikimonitaring.pdf. (2011).
13.
Final report of the highly contamination spot in Kashiwa city (in Japanese), Ministry of Environment, http://www.env.go.jp/press/press.php?serial=14647. (2012).
14.
The survey manual “Guide: Emergency Preparedness for Nuclear Facilities”, Nuclear Safety Commission, June, 1980-final revised in 2010. (2010).
Sources :
- Received: 13 March 2012
- Published online: 29 April 2013
Overview of active cesium contamination of freshwater fish in Fukushima and Eastern Japan
http://www.nature.com/articles/srep01742
- Received: 21 November 2013
- Published online: 16 January 2014
Initial flux of sediment-associated radiocesium to the ocean from the largest river impacted by Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant
http://www.nature.com/articles/srep03714
- Received: 15 May 2014
- Published online: 12 February 2015
Future projection of radiocesium flux to the ocean from the largest river impacted by Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant
http://www.nature.com/articles/srep08408
Map of the Abukuma river basin showing monitoring locations and the total radiocesium inventory
Ice wall at Fukushima plant switched on, but will it work?
by MARI YAMAGUCHI Mar. 31, 2016
TOKYO (AP) — The operator of Japan’s destroyed Fukushima nuclear plant switched on a giant refrigeration system on Thursday to create an unprecedented underground ice wall around its damaged reactors. Radioactive water has been flowing from the reactors, and other methods have failed to fully control it. The decontamination and decommissioning of the plant, damaged by a massive earthquake and tsunami in 2011, hinge of the success of the wall.
Q. WHAT IS AN ICE WALL?
A. Engineers installed 1,550 underground refrigeration pipes designed to create a 1.5-kilometer (0.9-mile) barrier of frozen soil around four damaged reactor buildings and their turbines to control groundwater flowing into the area and prevent radioactive water from seeping out. The pipes are 30 meters (100 feet) deep, the equivalent of a 10-story building. Engineers say coolant in the pipes will freeze the surrounding soil to minus 30 degrees Celsius (minus 22 Fahrenheit), creating the wall over several months.
Q. WHY IS AN ICE WALL NEEDED?
A. The cores of three of the damaged reactors melted during the accident and must be cooled constantly with water to keep them from overheating again. The cooling water becomes radioactive and leaks out through damaged areas into the building basements, where it mixes with groundwater, increasing the volume of contaminated water. Nearly 800,000 tons of radioactive water have been pumped out, treated and stored in 1,000 tanks that now occupy virtually every corner of the Fukushima plant, interfering with its decontamination and decommissioning and adding to the risk of further leaks of water into the nearby ocean.
Q. ARE THERE RISKS?
A. Construction officials say the coolant is environmentally safe. There were doubts that the huge refrigeration system could effectively freeze the soil while groundwater continues to flow in the area. The operator, Tokyo Electric Power Co., says results from a test of part of the wall last summer were mixed but suggest the system has sufficient capability. Experts are also concerned that an ice wall cannot be adjusted quickly in an emergency situation, such as a sudden increase in the flow of contaminated water, because it takes several weeks to freeze or melt. Electrical costs for running the refrigeration system could be steep. TEPCO says the wall, once formed, can remain frozen for up to two months in the event of a power failure.
Q. WHO MADE THE ICE WALL?
A. The 35 billion yen ($312 million) project was funded by the government and built by Kajima Corp., which has used similar technology in smaller projects such as subway construction. The wall was delayed by technical uncertainties and was finished last month, a year behind schedule.
Tepco starts freezing soil around Fukushima plant reactors
Tokyo Electric Power Co. said Thursday it has started freezing soil around damaged nuclear reactor buildings at the disaster-hit Fukushima plant, aiming to reduce the flow of groundwater into the highly contaminated facilities.
The Nuclear Regulation Authority on Wednesday gave Tepco permission to create a coolant-filled ice wall and start freezing soil on the east sea-facing side of the plant followed by 95 percent of the west side facing the mountains.
The work is expected to take more than three months to complete.
The plant was crippled by a massive earthquake and tsunami in March 2011.
In June 2014, Tepco installing equipment needed to establish the ice wall around the No. 1 to No. 4 reactors.
The work was completed in February, with the government funding some ¥35 billion ($309 million) of the project.
The utility plans to seek permission to extend the wall to cover the entire west side as well as the south and north sides of the plant after collecting data.
The 1.5-kilometer-long and 30-meter-deep wall is designed to stem a massive flow of groundwater from entering the basements of the reactor buildings and mixing with leaked toxic water.
The complete freezing is expected to take eight months if all goes smoothly.
Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said the government “hopes the ice wall will stem the flow of groundwater into the facilities at an early date.”
Tepco and the government initially aimed to complete freezing the entire wall by the end of fiscal 2015, but the schedule was delayed due to prolonged discussions on safety measures.
The wall is expected to reduce the amount of groundwater flowing into the facilities every day to about 50 tons from more than 100 tons currently.
Still, the effectiveness of the ice wall, which would be the world’s largest ground freezing project, remains unclear.
The NRA warned earlier that if the groundwater level within the wall is reduced excessively by stemming the flow from outside, highly contaminated water within the buildings could seep out.
Tepco said it will stop the freezing work or inject water into wells around the reactor buildings if the groundwater level inside the wall is likely to become too low.
Increased Strontium in Sardines since Fukushima Accident?
Dogs fed sardines show high Strontium levels
by Dr. Peter Dobias, DVM
Why you might want to cut out small fish from your dog’s diet
I have had two dog patients with severely elevated levels of the element strontium. The interesting part is that these two dogs were fed a high amount of sardines and I highly suspect that strontium is coming from this source.
Strontium acts in the body the same way as calcium and deposits in bones. Sardines and other small fish are eaten whole with the bones and that is why they are more likely a source of this toxic element.
The reason why I am concerned is that the radioactive isotope strontium 90 is a toxic carcinogen and it has been released in Japan’s Fukushima disaster.
Here is an example of the results:
As a veterinarian, I source from almost three decades of experience, but still I like to see the proof. Hair testing for minerals and toxic elements has been really helpful because it is highly accurate and shows what is happening in different groups of dogs.
In the course of many years of testing, I have learned that dogs who eat fish-based foods have elevated mercury levels and sardines appear to be the cause of increased strontium. Since the Fukushima nuclear accident strontium is continuously being released into the oceans and not much is being done to inform the general public.
Sadly, I have noticed that dogs who have epilepsy have higher than average levels of strontium and mercury, which made me recommend against feeding fish and sardines to dogs, despite their nutritional benefits. Fish is not what it used to be.
http://peterdobias.com/blogs/blog/11014105-dogs-fed-sardines-show-high-strontium-levels
Fukushima Daiichi is not Tepco’s first accident
Fukushima is not Tepco’s first big accident. Fukushima was not their first Prom. They had practice only 4 years earlier. And guess what? Even back then Tepco misrepresented the amount that leaked into the ocean.
Chuetsu Earthquake
The Kashiwazaki-Kariwa Nuclear Power Plant (KKNPP) in Japan’s Niigata Prefecture can generate more power than any other power plant in the world—when it’s running. Since it became fully operational in 1997, one scandal after another has repeatedly forced it to shut down some or all of its seven reactors. Examples include concealing evidence of stress cracks and covering up the fact that the plant was built near fault lines.
That last bit came to light after the Chuetsu earthquake occurred on July 16, 2007. The magnitude 6.8 quake’s epicenter was only 24 kilometers (15 mi) offshore from the plant. The shaking was greater than the plant was designed to withstand; it was built before Japan updated their earthquake standards in 2006.
The ominous dry run for the later Fukushima Daiichi disaster damaged KKNPP and its reactors. The Tokyo Electric Power Company acknowledged that 1,200 liters of slightly radioactive water leaked into the sea and that dozens of barrels of low-level nuclear waste broke open during the quake. An exhaust pipe leaking radioactive iodine was also reported.
A report issued on July 19 by the Nuclear Information and Resource Service (NIRS) claimed the release of radioactive material to be much worse. According to NIRS, the water that leaked into the sea came from the irradiated fuel pool of one of the reactors. Another reactor had been releasing radioactive steam since the earthquake. The Associated Press also reported large amounts of damage to the plant’s infrastructure, with cracks and leaks seemingly everywhere. Liquefaction (formerly solid ground turning to mud) had occurred under parts of KKNPP.
Osaka governor says Japan should debate need for nuclear weapons
OSAKA – Osaka Gov. Ichiro Matsui, the head of Osaka Ishin no Kai, has voiced support for a national debate on whether or not Japan should possess nuclear weapons.
“With the perfect right to collective self-defense, we should debate whether our troops can completely cover the needs of our own country,” Matsui said during an informal meeting with reporters Tuesday at Osaka’s prefectural office. “If we possess weapons, the ultimate weapon will become necessary.”
The call for a national debate follows comments made by U.S. Republican presidential candidate and front-runner Donald Trump in an interview with The New York Times where he said he would be open to both Japan and South Korea possessing nuclear weapons and the U.S. withdrawing its forces from the two Asian countries.
Touching on Trump’s statement, Matsui said he thought it would be best if Japan did not possess a nuclear arsenal, as it had been bombed by such weapons.
But, in calling for debate on the issue, he added: “What do we do if America’s military strength (in Japan) disappears? Wishful thinking doesn’t get us anywhere.”
Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, the government’s top spokesman, has said in the past that Japan will maintain the three nonnuclear principles that prohibit it from owning, developing and transporting nuclear weapons.
Matsui’s comments also came the same day the nation’s new security laws — which are expected to bind the U.S. and Japanese militaries even closer together — came into effect. It was also just a few days after the party released its basic plan for constitutional revisions.
Osaka Ishin leaders are close to Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and Suga, who see Matsui and his party as potential allies on a number of issues, including amending the Constitution.
The Osaka governor’s comments are believed to reflect the sentiments of other right-leaning politicians as well.
NRA approves TEPCO’s plan to freeze underground walls of soil at Fukushima plant
NRA approves TEPCO’s plan to freeze underground walls of soil at Fukushima plant
The Nuclear Regulation Authority (NRA) decided on March 30 to approve Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO)’s plan to gradually freeze underground walls of soil around the crippled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant, starting with shields on the ocean side.
With the NRA’s approval, TEPCO, the operator of the crippled Fukushima nuclear complex, is to begin work as early as March 31 to freeze the walls built around the buildings of reactors Nos. 1 through 4 at the plant. The walls are designed to prevent underground water from flowing into the reactor buildings. But such a large-scale “wall of ice” has not been introduced anywhere in the world and it is unclear how much underground water the frozen shields will be able to prevent from flowing into the crippled nuclear complex.
Under the project to build the frozen soil walls, coolant chilled to a temperature of minus 30 degrees Celsius is to circulate through 1,568 pipes that are driven into the ground to a depth of around 30 meters, to create a “wall of ice.” The project is aimed at preventing underground water from entering the reactor buildings and reducing the amount of contaminated water being generated. If the project goes as planned, work to freeze the walls is expected to be completed in about eight months. TEPCO estimates that the walls will help the utility reduce the inflow of underground water to several dozen tons per day from the current 150 to 200 tons.
TEPCO is to gradually freeze the walls, starting with the one (about 690 meters) on the ocean side first, while leaving seven sections (a total of about 45 meters) on the mountain side unfrozen. TEPCO had initially planned to freeze all of the walls at once. But if the levels of underground water around the reactor buildings drop drastically, contaminated water remaining in the reactor buildings could flow out. So the NRA called for the gradual freezing of the walls. TEPCO then accepted the NRA’s suggestion.
The frozen-soil wall project is considered to be a key measure to deal with contaminated water along with the so-called “subdrain” project designed to reduce the amount of water being contaminated by removing underground water from wells around the reactor buildings. TEPCO started inserting pipes into the ground in June 2014 and completed its preparations to begin freezing the walls in February this year.
http://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20160330/p2a/00m/0na/012000c
TEPCO given OK on freezing soil at Fukushima plant
The Nuclear Regulation Authority gave the go-ahead to Tokyo Electric Power Co.’s plan to freeze the soil around the reactors at the crippled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant from the seaside on March 30.
The aim of the frozen soil wall is to block the flow of groundwater into the reactor buildings to prevent it from becoming contaminated with radioactive substances.
The utility has already inserted 1,568 pipes to a depth of 30 meters in the ground around the No. 1 to No. 4 reactor buildings. The plan is to circulate liquid with a temperature of minus 30 degrees through the pipes to freeze the surrounding soil.
TEPCO’s plan is to first freeze the entire wall on the seaside and about half of the wall on the mountain side.
The effects of completing the frozen wall on the seaside are expected to show after about six weeks with water being prevented from flowing through. Then, the frozen portions on the mountain side will be gradually increased. When 95 percent of the wall is frozen, TEPCO will suspend the freeze, leaving cracks in seven places to allow some water through.
The utility predicts that with 95 percent of the entire soil wall frozen, about half of the groundwater will be blocked.
To freeze the entire wall on the mountain side, TEPCO will have to gain further approval from the NRA.
Initially, the electric power company planned to freeze soil only on the mountain side. However, the NRA pointed out that if groundwater is totally blocked from the mountain side, the level of water within the frozen soil near the reactors could become too low and with nothing outside to stop it, highly contaminated water inside the reactor buildings could more rapidly flow out.
Because of that, TEPCO decided in February that it will freeze the soil mainly from the seaside and collect data on the level of groundwater and, after that, it will freeze the entire wall.
“It is important to collect sufficient data in a continuous manner and implement the freezing while keeping watch,” said NRA chairman Shunichi Tanaka.
The plan to create the frozen soil wall was developed by an economy ministry committee in May 2013 as an important part of measures to decrease the volume of contaminated water. The work to insert pipes into the ground was completed in February.
http://ajw.asahi.com/article/behind_news/social_affairs/AJ201603300074
1 This Month
4 May -West Suburban Peace Coalition to discuss Iran war at May Educational Forum
Monday, May 4, 7:00 – 8:00 PM Central Standard Time
Title: : How Trump’s Narrative Tries to Shape the Reality of the War on Iran.
Contact Walt Zlotow, zlotow@hotmail.com 630 442 3045 for further information
14 May – online event From Bombs to Data Centres: the Face of Nuclear Colonialism
To see nuclear-related stories in greater depth and intensity – go to https://nuclearinformation.wordpress.com
-
Archives
- May 2026 (37)
- April 2026 (356)
- March 2026 (251)
- February 2026 (268)
- January 2026 (308)
- December 2025 (358)
- November 2025 (359)
- October 2025 (376)
- September 2025 (257)
- August 2025 (319)
- July 2025 (230)
- June 2025 (348)
-
Categories
- 1
- 1 NUCLEAR ISSUES
- business and costs
- climate change
- culture and arts
- ENERGY
- environment
- health
- history
- indigenous issues
- Legal
- marketing of nuclear
- media
- opposition to nuclear
- PERSONAL STORIES
- politics
- politics international
- Religion and ethics
- safety
- secrets,lies and civil liberties
- spinbuster
- technology
- Uranium
- wastes
- weapons and war
- Women
- 2 WORLD
- ACTION
- AFRICA
- Atrocities
- AUSTRALIA
- Christina's notes
- Christina's themes
- culture and arts
- Events
- Fuk 2022
- Fuk 2023
- Fukushima 2017
- Fukushima 2018
- fukushima 2019
- Fukushima 2020
- Fukushima 2021
- general
- global warming
- Humour (God we need it)
- Nuclear
- RARE EARTHS
- Reference
- resources – print
- Resources -audiovicual
- Weekly Newsletter
- World
- World Nuclear
- YouTube
-
RSS
Entries RSS
Comments RSS
nuclear-news 