Interim storage schedule set for contaminated soil
The Environment Ministry has compiled its first project schedule for the interim storage of soil and other matter contaminated by the 2011 disaster at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant, sources said.
The ministry estimates that by fiscal 2020, it will have acquired between 640 and 1,150 hectares of land, which could store 5 million to 12.5 million cubic meters of contaminated soil.
This is the first concrete schedule the government has created. It is expected to be presented to local government officials at a Sunday meeting in Fukushima Prefecture
.
If things go as planned, the government would acquire 40 percent to 70 percent of the land expected to be needed, which could store from 20 percent to slightly over 50 percent of the contaminated soil. However, it is unclear whether things will proceed as planned.
There is currently estimated to be about 10 million cubic meters of contaminated soil in Fukushima Prefecture, which could eventually rise to 22 million cubic meters.
The national government wants to purchase about 1,600 hectares straddling the municipalities of Okuma and Futaba in the prefecture as an interim storage facility.
However, as of the end of February only 18.5 hectares, or about 1 percent of the land, had been acquired.
Still, about 960 of the 2,365 landowners have given approval for the government to conduct surveys to estimate compensation. A ministry official said, “The pace of purchases is expected to pick up.”
If between 100 and 460 hectares are acquired every year starting in fiscal 2016, the ministry’s estimate of 640 to 1,150 hectares would be reached by the end of fiscal 2020.
As land is acquired, more contaminated soil can be brought to the interim storage facility.
The ministry estimates that if 2 million to 6 million cubic meters are brought to the facility in fiscal 2020, that would bring the total amount to 5 million to 12.5 million cubic meters by the end of that fiscal year,
http://www.the-japan-news.com/news/article/0002835558
These Fukushima residents are determined to reclaim their land from nuclear radiation
By G. Sundarrajan
Two years ago, when I visited Fukushima as part of a Greenpeace team, what deeply impressed me about the local residents was their resilience. They were ordinary citizens of a town devastated by a nuclear disaster, yet the bond they shared with their soil ran so deeply that they kept hoping to go back to Fukushima.
It was at once their dream and their challenge. They couldn’t stop talking about how good and simple life was back in Fukushima till the disaster struck. I was amazed by the fact that they wanted to go back to their homes though they knew the town would not be as they had left it.
It was from such a deep bond, from that sense of love, that the will to fight against nuclear energy emerged. “We are the lessons you need to learn” most of them told me.
It was the same kind of love, and bond, that I found in them when three survivors of Fukushima visited Chennai on March 23. Running around with them in Chennai I realized they still carry their love for their land and have now found ways to reconnect. Even if it means doing what is prohibited and what could endanger their lives.
For 62-year-old Masami Yoshizawa, it is about rearing 300-odd cows that are under a government kill order. As the manager of Ranch of Hope, Yoshizawa decided to defy government orders and rear the cattle so they ‘would be a living testimony to what Fukushima had undergone.’ The kill order was issued because after the radioactive contamination, the livestock was not a commercial success.
But rearing them in a no-entry zone, Yoshizawa feels the sight and sound of the cattle offers a ray of hope to an otherwise devastated land. “The government wants to kill them because it wants to erase what happened here, and lure Japan back to its pre-accident nuclear status quo. I am not going to let them,” he says.
The farm was started by his father four decades ago and Yoshizawa wouldn’t give it up easily – something that is in the residents of Fukushima. “I live 14 kms away from where the accident took place. There were four explosions on four days. I could have left like many of my neighbours. At least 80 people committed suicide in my town because they didn’t want to leave Fukushima. But I have decided to be a living lesson for the rest of my life” he says.
It is exactly the same emotion that guided 28-year-old Mizuho Sugeno to come back to Fukushima and resume her organic farming. Sugeno had just completed her studies and was practicing organic farming for about a year when the disaster struck.
“I lived 47 kms away from the power plant and evacuated for about a week. I came back and founded Seeds of hope. What else could I do?” she asks.
Besides distributing Sugeno’s organic produce, Seeds of Hope demonstrates successful methods to prevent crops from absorbing radiation. “Farms were abandoned and people were left behind. I was advised not to go back to Fukushima but I didn’t just come back. I began planting seeds. I felt the power of the soil could be restored by planting seeds.”
But deep down Sugeno had her own misgivings. She was not sure if it would really be possible to continue with agriculture.
“I spent a lot of time on it and finally found out that there was scientific proof (as well as measures and methods to take) about no soil-to-plant transfer of radio cesium in soil that has been cultivated organically over a long period of time. I was able to reduce the radiation level detected in crops down to a reading that falls below the minimum capability of the sensor,” Sugeno says.
She began to get certain results and ship crops with no radioactive contamination.
“This was our land and it was from here that we had reared cattle and cultivated fruits for several years. Now we are doing it as a form of protest. Our strawberry rice cake – a delicacy you will find only in Fukushima – has become a symbol of protest. Even now we are looked at with disbelief outside Fukushima. But again, like they say, we shall overcome”
Sugeno gets a complete body check-up once every six months, “just to be on the safer side”. For the moment, it is important that she is in good health to make Fukushima heard everywhere. “After all, we are the lessons you still need to learn,” she says again, with that wry smile.
G. Sundarrajan is an environmental and anti-nuclear activist and is a volunteer with Poovulagin Nanbargal.
“City” of Waste: Fukushima Cleanup Now Up to 10.7 Million 1-ton Bags of Radioactive Waste
By Matt Agorist
The fifth anniversary of the Fukushima disaster was on Friday, March 11. Since that fateful day in 2011, the Japanese government and the United States have continued to deny the lingering effects of this catastrophic event.
An estimated $21 billion has been spent on cleanup efforts since 2011, including funding for a team of remote activated robots capable of going to high-dose radiation areas of the plant where humans cannot enter and survive.
However, it has now emerged that at least five of these robots have been lost to the dangers that lurk in Fukushima Daiichi’s severely damaged nuclear reactors and waste treatment buildings.
Authorities in Japan want locals to think “nothing happened,” documentary director Jeffrey Jousan told RT.
“The government prints the number of people who died as a result of the 2011 disaster in the newspapers every day. [In some other prefectures], the [death toll] amounts to 300-400 people in each prefecture, but in Fukushima it is over 8,000 people,” Jousan, a US director and producer who has been living and working in Japan since 1990, said.
“It is very telling about the situation in Fukushima. It is hard for everyone who is affected by the tsunami, who lost their homes and lost their families. But [in Fukushima], people are not able to go back home, they are unable to work because people won’t buy food from Fukushima, farmers cannot farm anymore. It is affecting people, and more people are dying because of that.
According to the Fukushima prefectural government, Japan Ministry of Internal Affairs, the Tokyo Electric Power Co., the Nuclear Regulation Authority, the Federation of Electric Power Companies and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, the numbers associated with this disaster are staggering.
- 164,865: Fukushima residents who fled their homes after the disaster.
- 97,320: Number who still haven’t returned.
- 49: Municipalities in Fukushima that have completed decontamination work.
- 45: Number that have not.
- 30: Percent of electricity generated by nuclear power before the disaster.
- 1.7: Percent of electricity generated by nuclear power after the disaster.
- 3: Reactors currently online, out of 43 now workable.
- 54: Reactors with safety permits before the disaster.
- 53: Percent of the 1,017 Japanese in a March 5-6 Mainichi Shimbun newspaper survey who opposed restarting nuclear power plants.
- 30: Percent who supported restarts. The remaining 17 percent were undecided.
- 760,000: Metric tons of contaminated water currently stored at the Fukushima nuclear plant.
- 1,000: Tanks at the plant storing radioactive water after treatment.
- 7,000: Workers decommissioning the Fukushima plant.
- 26,000: Laborers on decontamination work offsite.
- 200: Becquerels of radioactive cesium per cubic meter (264 gallons) in seawater immediately off the plant in 2015.
- 50 million: Becquerels of cesium per cubic meter in the same water in 2011.
- 7,400: Maximum number of becquerels of cesium per cubic meter allowed in drinking water by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
But perhaps the most staggering number of all of these statistics is the fact that the waste is being temporarily stored right next to the waterfront in a Wall-E style. The visual representation of the failure of this nuclear power plant is shocking.
Along the shore at the temporary storage site at Tomioka are 10.7 million 1-ton container bags containing radioactive debris and other waste collected in decontamination outside the plant.
Last year, a drone was flown over the ever-expanding city of waste. After watching the video, we know how ridiculous the government’s claims are that ‘we have nothing to worry about.’
650Bq/Kg of I-131 still measured from sewage sludge of Fukushima
Radioactive sewage sludge storaged at sewage plant. Posted by Fukushima prefectural government.
This proves for the xth time that something is still fissioning at Fukushima Daiichi, releasing unstoppingly Iodine 131, and that ongoing since 311…..And never mind the theory that it would come from some medical iodine, if it would be the case certainly it would then measure at a much lesser level….
High level of I-131 was measured for 11 days this January in dry sewage sludge, Fukushima prefectural government announced on 2/26/2016.
According to the prefectural government, the sewage plant is in Da-te District of Fukushima prefecture.
The highest density was 648.1 Bq/Kg. It was continuously detected from 1/21 to 1/31/2016. The data of February has not been published yet.
Along with I-131, Cs-134/137 density also increase and became the highest, which was 111 Bq/Kg on the same day when I-131 density became the highest.
Both of the highest densities were detected about 1 week after the rain (57.0 mm) to strongly implies the possibility that the discharged radioactive material is carried by the wind and fall with rain.
http://www.pref.fukushima.lg.jp/uploaded/attachment/153121.pdf
650Bq/Kg of I-131 still measured from sewage sludge of Fukushima
Tepco executives get a taste of citizens’ wrath
Three Tokyo Electric Power Co. executives are now facing criminal prosecution for negligence in failing to anticipate a monster tsunami that cut off electricity and inundated back-up emergency generators, causing a cessation of cooling in the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant reactors that precipitated three meltdowns in March 2011. How were they to know?
At the time, Tepco kept insisting that the 15-meter-high tsunami was sōteigai (inconceivable), an act of nature that absolved them of all responsibility. And, just in case the public was not buying this grand shirk, malicious rumors disingenuously scapegoated Prime Minister Naoto Kan, in a failed attempt to shift blame to him. Subsequently, Kan has been vindicated while Tepco remains guilty in the court of public opinion.
In mid-2012, Tepco released the results of its own investigation into the nuclear accident and, with unseemly chutzpah, absolved itself of all responsibility. It was so embarrassing in its exculpatory excesses, and thoroughly contradicted by all three of the other major investigations into the Fukushima debacle, that Tepco disavowed this whitewash in October 2012, conceding allegations of numerous failures; this mea culpa was at the insistence of a panel of international experts hired by the utility.
The court case will focus on what could have been done that Tepco knew about to better manage the risks inherent in the operation of nuclear reactors in a seismically active area with a history of devastating tsunami. As much as Tepco would like to paint this as a “black swan” once-in-a-thousand-year event — something of such low probability of occurrence that it would be a costly fool’s game to prepare for it — Tohoku’s tsunami coast was fairly recently battered in 1896 (8.5 magnitude with waves reaching 38.2 meters) and in 1933 (magnitude 8.4 with waves cresting at 28.7 meters). So it would seem that anyone operating a nuclear reactor on that coastline would have looked into the seismicity of the area and prepared accordingly.
In fact, Tepco did so in 2009 when it conducted in-house computer simulations suggesting the possibility of a 15.7-meter tsunami slamming the site of the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant. That information was actually provided to the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency (NISA) four days prior to the Great East Japan Earthquake, meaning that it was information considered vital enough to submit to the watchdog agency.
Interestingly, in February 2011 the Fukushima reactors were granted an extension to their 40-year operating license, passing a NISA safety review. But NISA was sharply critical of Tepco and called for the urgent replacement and relocation of backup diesel generators that had stress cracks and were located below, and between, the reactors and the ocean, leaving them vulnerable to inundation. In addition, NISA scolded Tepco for its lax safety practices, a clear reference to the 2002 scandal when a whistleblower revealed that the utility had falsified the repair and maintenance records for all of its nuclear reactors.
NISA, as part of the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, was implicated in the attempted cover-up of that scandal and stands accused of regulatory capture, meaning it was co-opted by the utilities — a watchdog with neither bark nor bite. By not conducting rigorous oversight to ensure safety, NISA is thus also complicit in Tepco’s lack of a culture of safety, pinpointed by three major investigations as a cause of what they declared was a man-made nuclear accident.
Thus one wonders why no bureaucrats are being prosecuted. Haruki Madarame, then chairman of the Nuclear Safety Commission, testified in the Diet on Feb. 15, 2012: “Though global safety standards kept on improving, we wasted our time coming up with excuses for why Japan didn’t need to bother meeting them.” He also pointed out that back in the early 1990s, Tepco was told about the risk of a station blackout that might lead to reactor meltdowns and was urged to develop a defense in depth, meaning more backup electricity sources just in case. Tepco stonewalled safety regulators, asserting that the current systems were adequate.
So the nuclear accident at Fukushima was precipitated by natural disaster, but poor risk management and institutionalized complacency about risk were major factors increasing the likelihood of an accident and fumbling crisis response. The myth of 100-percent safety propagated by the “nuclear village” of atomic energy advocates made it taboo to question safety standards and militated against sober risk assessment and robust disaster emergency preparedness.
Not everyone was surprised by the nuclear disaster. In 1975, nuclear chemist Jinzaburo Takagi and others established the Citizens’ Nuclear Information Center (CNIC), which ever since has issued regular reports on power plant safety issues. Fukushima was the nightmare scenario that CNIC had long been predicting. In a 1995 interview, Takagi spoke about the risks of a meltdown in the event of multiple failures, as happened in Fukushima in March 2011. He correctly warned about the possibility of large radioactive releases from a meltdown resulting from a breakdown in the emergency core cooling system and the failure of back-up diesel generators.
“It’s inexcusable that a nuclear accident couldn’t be managed because a major event such as the tsunami exceeded expectations,” said Yotaro Hatamura, chariman of the government’s Third Party Panel Investigation Committee, blasting Tepco’s hubris in 2012. He added that risk management means anticipating worst-case scenarios — not wishing risk away.
Hatamura pointed out that the utility was ill-prepared for the crisis, dismissing the possibility of a total loss of power, and that its workers made critical errors in shutting off automated emergency cooling systems and wrongly assumed part of the cooling system was working when it was not. These workers and their managers were inadequately trained to cope with an emergency situation and according to the panel, lacked basic knowledge concerning the emergency reactor cooling system. Their mishandling of emergency procedures contributed to the crisis.
Tepco chose to ignore centuries of geological evidence and failed to act on fresh and compelling evidence about tsunami risk, a blind spot that left the plant needlessly vulnerable. It also successfully lobbied the government’s Earthquake Research Committee on March 3, 2011, to soften a public advisory warning that a massive tsunami could hit the Tohoku coast because it might cause misunderstanding. This PR approach to risk management promoted an unjustified insouciance that cost Japan dearly. Alas, Tepco was also cutting corners, balking at the $1 billion price tag of building a higher seawall to cope with the higher tsunami projections — a bargain in retrospect.
While it is unlikely that the Tepco Three (former chairman Tsunehisa Katsumata and two former vice presidents, Sakae Muto and Ichiro Takekuro) will be convicted for irresponsibly minimizing risk in ways that endangered local residents or for cutting costs that compromised public safety, the trial will make the nuclear village squirm as the public revisits the folly of wishing risk away — and understands it is happening all over again.
Fukushima’s invisible victims
By
It’s been a while since we last discussed the Fukushima Daiichi triple meltdown. That is not for lack of issues; it is primarily for lack of any meaningful progress in the ongoingdisaster.
We have just passed the fifth observance of the first catastrophic day, March 11, 2011 and pretty much all of nuclear safety expert Arnie Gundersen’s grim predictions of what we would learn in the aftermath have come to pass.
What Arnie could not have predicted iin 2011 is how unwilling both TEPCO and Japan’s government officials have been to learn from this disaster, and how persistent the effort would be to suppress important radiological and epidemiological information.
Without accountability, deaths of citizens who lived near the doomed reactors following the triple meltdown have simply been attributed to the stress of evacuation, and supposedly no one has been harmed by radiation. In an unbelievable extrapolation of a convenient myth, there has been a major government effort, supported by the atomic power industry, to increase allowable levels of radiation exposure and dismiss the need for future costly evacuations as harmful and unnecessary.
It was only a little over a week ago, that anyone in an official position at TEPCO was finally held accountable under the law. I find it unbelievable that only three individuals can be held responsible for the cascade of unaddressed design flaws, corruption, lax regulation, human error and human arrogance that all contributed to making a bad situation much, much worse.
Now we are learning of an even more egregious breach of the public trust and social justice at Fukushima.
Individuals who have exhibited symptoms of radiation poisoning and other illnesses are apparently being shunned by some of their neighbors and dismissed by the medical establishment without appropriate care and without acknowledgment in their medical records.
This mistreatment specific to radiation victims is apparently not without precedent in Japanese history.
On his current speaking tour of Japan, Arnie Gundersen has had the privilege of speaking with a small group of survivors of the 1945 bombing at Hiroshima who share a unique perspective on what may lie ahead for the people of Fukushima
Hiroshima survivor, Tomiko Matsumoto, 85, recalls being a schoolgirl following that inhuman bombing. Of the 80 students at her school, only thirty survived the blast. Tomiko could be said to have been one of the “lucky” ones, but mere survival is a pretty poor kind of ‘luck.’
Still traumatized by the mental and physical horrors of the blast experience, she recalls that there was no proper care provided for the injured who were regarded with suspicion and hostility by their neighbors and callous indifference or unfeeling curiosity by their occupiers, upon whom they depended for any care that they could get.
The discrimination must have been the hardest for a young girl with no surviving family to bear:
“I was shocked because I was discriminated against by Hiroshima people. We lived together in the same place and Hiroshima people know what happened but they discriminated against each other. ..I was shocked.”
“There were so many different kinds of discrimination. People said that girls who survived the bomb shouldn’t get married. Also they refused to hire the survivors, not only because of the scars, but because they were so weak. Survivors did not have 100 percent energy.”
“There was a survivor’s certificate and medical treatment was free. But the other people were jealous. Jealous people, mentally discriminated. So, I didn’t want to show the health book sometimes, so I paid. Some of the people, even though they had the health book, were afraid of discrimination, so they didn’t even apply for the health book. They thought discrimination was worse than paying for health care.”
The mistreatment and insensitivity experienced by survivors continued into Tomiko’s adulthood. She was the victim of employment discrimination and personal shame.
Though she was lucky enough to bear children, both of her daughters are sterile and one suffers from anemia. Doctors have dismissed the possibility that the family’s health issues might be linked to her exposure to radiation from the atomic bomb blast.
It may be precisely because of their uniquely traumatic history of nuclear attack that modern Japanese society is ill-prepared to challenge the current meme being promoted by TEPCO and the Abe government, that no one was harmed by the triple meltdown at Fukushima and there is no cause for concern about using atomic power as an energy source.
Having emerged from beneath the cloud of WWII, they want to view themselves under the lens of success and progress, not to revisit the shameful legacy of nuclear radiation sickness that they had hoped to leave behind.
Sadly, neither TEPCO nor the Abe government and functionaries right down to the regional level can be trusted to reveal the truth about radiation from Fukushima Daiichi and how it’s shadow has now been irreversibly cast over the Prefecture, marring the future of Japan.
So survivors of Fukushima, like those of Hiroshima before them are left to face unfolding health issues and despair in the friendless vacuum of their own thoughts and care.
(I am pleased to be a non-technical member of the Fairewinds Energy Education crew, but my posts on GMD are mine alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of Fairewinds.)
TEPCO draws fire after apologizing to Niigata panel
Niigata Governor Hirohiko Izumida, right, and Naomi Hirose, president of Tokyo Electric Power Co., hold a meeting at the Niigata prefectural government building in January.
NIIGATA–Even when they apologize, executives of Tokyo Electric Power Co. can still manage to draw additional criticism.
The executives, who hope to restart one of the largest nuclear power plants in the world in Niigata Prefecture, held talks here March 23 with a nuclear technology committee set up at the prefectural government.
Takafumi Anegawa, chief nuclear officer of TEPCO, offered an apology for the utility’s misleading responses to the committee’s repeated inquiries about the meltdowns at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant.
Specifically, Anegawa acknowledged that TEPCO could have declared the triple meltdown at the plant a few days after the crisis unfolded following the Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami on March 11, 2011, instead of two months later.
TEPCO said late last month that it had found a passage detailing the criteria of a meltdown in its emergency response manual. Had the company known about that passage when the accident started, TEPCO said, it could have declared the meltdowns earlier.
When pressed by the Niigata committee on March 23 on why it took five years to find such an important passage in the emergency manual, the TEPCO executives did not give an explanation, saying the matter was still under investigation.
Committee members voiced their displeasure.
“Why did TEPCO turn it up now?” asked Masaaki Tateishi, professor emeritus of sedimentology at Niigata University. “It is out of the question for TEPCO to seek to restart its reactors, given its corporate culture.”
Mitsuhiko Tanaka, a journalist covering nuclear technology and a committee member, said TEPCO has again shown its slipshod approach toward dealing with an accident.
“TEPCO must have produced the manual but did not read it,” he said. “What it comes down to is that (its employees) had not been well trained.”
TEPCO plans to bring online two of the seven reactors at the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear plant in Niigata Prefecture and has submitted a safety screening application to the Nuclear Regulation Authority.
The Kashiwazaki-Kariwa plant has a capacity of 8.21 gigawatts.
However, Niigata Governor Hirohiko Izumida remains cautious toward restarting the nuclear plant, even if the reactors meet the NRA’s stricter safety regulations that were set following the Fukushima nuclear disaster.
The governor believes the full picture of the Fukushima disaster has not been unveiled.
The Niigata nuclear technology committee has been looking into what went wrong at the Fukushima plant, even after the Diet and the government wrapped up their investigations into the nation’s worst nuclear accident.
In autumn 2013, the committee set up an investigative panel to determine why TEPCO’s official acknowledgment of the meltdowns was delayed.
The panel demanded explanations from the company. TEPCO said in a reply in November 2015 that what constitutes a meltdown “had not been defined” within the company.
The panel kept pressing TEPCO, and in late February, TEPCO admitted that the manual used at the time of the Fukushima disaster had a passage defining a meltdown.
Anegawa told the committee on March 23 that the passage was uncovered during an investigation conducted “with the utmost care” to determine whether the delay in reporting to the government the meltdowns and other aspects of the Fukushima accident violated the law.
However, he declined to discuss details of how the company came across the passage, saying a third-party panel comprising lawyers and other experts were studying the issue.
After the meeting, Anegawa told reporters that he regretted the company’s probe “was not thorough.” He did not say when the third-party panel will release its findings.
Committee chief Ken Nakajima, professor of reactor safety at Kyoto University’s Research Reactor Institute, said the committee will continue to demand explanations from TEPCO.
“Humans are the ones who must ensure the safety (of nuclear facilities),” he told reporters. “Trust in TEPCO has been eroding. We cannot move ahead unless we are convinced of the veracity of what the company says.”
Governor Izumida, who has long questioned TEPCO’s credibility, declined an offer from TEPCO President Naomi Hirose in January to collaborate in drawing up an evacuation plan for a possible emergency at the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa plant.
“We cannot evacuate if you hide a meltdown,” the governor told Hirose during the meeting at the prefectural government building.
Izumida’s distrust of the utility runs deep.
After the Fukushima accident unfolded, Izumida confronted TEPCO officials over their previous denials over the phone that meltdowns had occurred at the plant.
The governor insisted that nuclear fuel rods must have melted, but the TEPCO officials repeated their denials by drawing a diagram of the reactors.
http://ajw.asahi.com/article/behind_news/social_affairs/AJ201603240072
TEPCO apologizes for meltdown announcement delay
Tokyo Electric Power Company has apologized to a Niigata Prefectural Government panel for not realizing sooner that 3 reactors at its Fukushima Daiichi plant had melted down in March 2011.
The panel is studying the safety of the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear plant in the prefecture. Niigata has made verification of the details of the Fukushima accident a prerequisite for the plant’s restart.
TEPCO waited 2 months after the Fukushima accident to announce the meltdowns. The panel had questioned the delay. But TEPCO insisted it had no basis for making the determination.
Last month, nearly 5 years after the disaster, the utility revealed it could have declared the reactors had melted down 3 days after the accident if it had adhered to an in-house manual.
On Wednesday, Managing Executive Officer Takafumi Anegawa apologized to the panel. He said the utility should have realized and reported the existence of the manual sooner.
Panel members asked the utility why the manual went unnoticed for 5 years. They said the utility’s longstanding and false claim that it had no standards for determining a meltdown makes it an untrustworthy nuclear plant operator.
The prefectural panel says it will resume discussions after a panel of outside experts set up by TEPCO submits a report on the cause of the delay.
http://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/news/20160323_30/
TEPCO says 5.3 tons of tainted water leaked at nuclear plant
An estimated 5.3 tons of water contaminated with radiation leaked from a pipe in a building housing cesium removal equipment at the stricken Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant, the facility’s operator said.
The leaked water contained 383,000 becquerels of radioactive cesium per liter and 480,000 becquerels of beta ray-emitting radioactive substances per liter.
Tokyo Electric Power Co. said March 23 the water has not flowed outside the high temperature incinerator building. TEPCO said it was in the process of pumping up the water for storage.
The utility said workers doing remodeling work earlier in the day cut off a pipe inside the incinerator building. When workers subsequently operated radioactive material removal equipment in another building, contaminated water leaked from the cut section of the pipe to the floor of the incinerator building.
TEPCO said it is trying to determine the cause of the incident, adding that workers had confirmed that they closed a valve before cutting off the pipe to prevent water leakage
http://ajw.asahi.com/article/0311disaster/fukushima/AJ201603240048
FIVE YEARS AFTER: Fukushima thyroid cancer patients’ families join forces
The grandmother, left, and mother of a female high school student
who underwent thyroid surgery talk about their concerns
in Fukushima Prefecture on March 5
Families of young thyroid cancer patients from Fukushima Prefecture diagnosed after the 3/11 disaster have formed a support group that also aims to pressure doctors and authorities for better policies.
The 311 Thyroid Cancer Family Group hopes to share the concerns people have felt over the health of their loved ones in the five years since the onset of the nuclear crisis.
“We want the Fukushima prefectural government and doctors to demonstrate a better understanding of patients,” one member said.
The group was established by seven parents and relatives of five young people from the prefecture’s central Nakadori and eastern Hamadori areas who underwent thyroid surgery following the triple meltdown at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant.
Hiroyuki Kawai, a lawyer from the Daini Tokyo Bar Association, will lead the group as its representative. Others will help manage the association, including Motomi Ushiyama, a doctor who has served as a physician in Fukushima Prefecture and also conducted an investigation on residents of areas contaminated in the 1986 Chernobyl disaster.
“Our aim is to create a place where patients, who remain separated and are unable to even talk of their anxieties or doubts, can meet and talk to one another,” Kawai said. “By having the patients and their families unite and cry out as one, it makes it easier for us to make policy suggestions to the government.”
The group is considering filing lawsuits in the future against the central and prefectural governments, along with Tokyo Electric Power Co., the Fukushima plant’s operator, but at the moment, its main purpose is to provide direct help to the patients and their families.
The Fukushima prefectural government continues to examine the thyroid glands of residents who were 18 or under at the time of the 2011 nuclear disaster and those born following the event, which accounted for around 380,000 people. A total of 166 cases of thyroid cancer or suspected signs of the condition were found before the end of 2015.
However, the prefecture’s expert panel assessing the statistics deemed it was “unlikely the cases were caused by radiation.”
Unsurprisingly, members of the group viewed this official statement with unease and skepticism.
One high school student from Nakadori had her thyroid gland removed by a doctor at Fukushima Medical University Hospital last spring. But with the cancer cells having spread more than expected, she now has a large scar across her neck that she feels she must cover with a scarf even in summer.
Her mother, in her 40s, said: “My daughter became more prone to fatigue after the surgery. Falling asleep while playing her video games, which she loves to do, was something that never happened before.”
A nodule was found on the student’s thyroid about two years ago. At the hospital, her surgeon told her: “We will examine the tissue believed to be formed of cancer cells by sticking a needle in your neck. It’s very painful, so it’s up to you to decide. Make up your mind within a month.”
The student and mother talked it over and decided to opt for the test. But when they returned to the hospital to get the results, the mother was shocked, as the doctor just blurted out the results in front of the young patient, saying: “It was a malignant tumor.”
The doctor did, however, explain it was nothing to worry about and said: “It’s not a big deal. Thyroid cancers can be left as they are for six months or a year, and they still won’t be anything life-threatening.”
But when the student underwent surgery six months later, her mother was reprimanded by the same doctor who said: “The tumor was bigger than we had expected. Who in the world told you that you can leave it for six months?”
The doctor also warned her of the possibilities of recurrence.
After her daughter’s surgery, the mother joined an event organized by the hospital for thyroid cancer patients to meet one another. But it was nothing like what she had envisioned.
“We only heard one-sided stories, and it was not a forum that would answer any of the doubts I had,” she said. “It was completely useless.”
The father of a man who was a high school student in 2011 was disturbed by the attitude of the same doctor who also operated on his son’s thyroid.
The father said: “After the surgery, I repeatedly asked the doctor if the cancer had anything to do with the nuclear power plant, but he just flat-out rejected it saying, ‘There’s no correlation.’
Furthermore, the doctor told him: “Don’t say anything to the media even if they learn about your son’s surgery. You know there’s no necessity for you to answer them.”
“My son fears recurrence and metastasis every day,” the father said.
However, the doctor told The Asahi Shimbun through the institution’s public relations department that he had been misunderstood.
“We have been paying the utmost attention to establishing an environment where patients can talk about their worries and doubts, having mental health care specialists getting involved with them at an early stage of their treatments. Such efforts continue well into the post-surgery period,” he said in writing.
“The diagnosis of cancer is something we take extreme care when we are letting the patients know about it. But now having been confronted by interpretations that were not at all my intentions, I strongly realize the difficulty of conveying the message to patients. When we give the notice to patients who are minors, we consult their guardians and check with them before giving them the word.”
Meanwhile, the 311 Thyroid Cancer Family Group will be holding events to promote networking between patients’ families and where they can seek advice, encouraging more people to join the group.
The members said: “We first want to encourage the patients to meet each other, share information and demand improvement of their medical environments.”
http://ajw.asahi.com/article/0311disaster/fukushima/AJ201603240025
State ignored predictions 10 years before 3/11 tsunami, says seismologist
The March 2011 tsunami that crippled the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant was foreshadowed almost 10 years earlier, but government interference meant the threat was not acted on, seismologist Kunihiko Shimazaki has said.
Shimazaki said a July 2002 prediction by the Headquarters for Earthquake Research Promotion stated an earthquake as big as one in 1896 that caused monster tsunami had a 20 percent chance of occurring somewhere near the Japan Trench within 30 years.
The trench lies in the Pacific and stretches off the Sanriku area in the Tohoku region to the Boso Peninsula off Chiba Prefecture.
The 1896 tsunami triggered by the temblor that struck off Sanriku killed some 22,000 people.
The prediction by the government panel covered areas including waters off Fukushima Prefecture, home to the Fukushima No. 1 plant, which suffered a triple reactor meltdown due to damage from the tsunami unleashed by the March 11, 2011, magnitude-9.0 earthquake that hit Fukushima and other parts in the Tohoku region.
“Compared with earthquakes that occur in active faults once in thousands of years, the probability (of 20 percent in 30 years) is surprisingly high and cannot be ignored,” Shimazaki, who played a central role in drawing up the long-term tsunami prediction and is now professor emeritus at the University of Tokyo, said.
However, he said that just before the release of a report on the prediction, the secretariat of the research headquarters added a paragraph stressing the uncertainty of the forecast.
“An official of the Cabinet Office responsible for anti-disaster measures insisted on having a different committee discuss long-term tsunami prediction,” he said. “This was something that had never happened before, and I felt pressure.” He added, “It was puzzling and frightening.”
Shimazaki said the Central Disaster Prevention Council (CDPC) of the Cabinet Office ended up making tsunami assumptions that were far removed from the prediction by the Headquarters for Earthquake Research Promotion.
The CDPC assumed that only the northern part of the Tohoku region would be hit by tsunami, based on the premise that a recurrence of the 1896 Sanriku earthquake would occur in the same place, explained Shimazaki.
Huge tsunami around the same location near the Japan Trench have occurred at intervals of hundreds of years, and only about 100 years have passed since the 1896 earthquake, he noted.
The CDPC, which is tasked with devising anti-disaster measures based on the government-affiliated research body’s long-term predictions, chose to focus on the low probability and turned its eyes away from waters off the southern part of the Tohoku region, including Fukushima and Ibaraki Prefecture, just south of Fukushima, Shimazaki said.
He admitted that it is difficult for seismologists to predict earthquakes and tsunami with perfect accuracy, saying that while temblors do take place repeatedly in the same area they occur in somewhat different locations.
But Shimazaki added, “We can make assumptions about the location, timing and size to some extent, within certain ranges.
“Such assumptions were made, but were not utilized for the Fukushima No. 1 plant,” he said.
Shimazaki, 70, has also served as chairman of the Coordinating Committee for Earthquake Prediction and acting chairman of the Nuclear Regulation Authority. At the NRA, he played a major role in the work to create the country’s stricter nuclear plant safety standards based on lessons from the Fukushima No. 1 disaster.
Last July, he appeared in court as a witness for plaintiffs suing the central government and Tepco over the nuclear disaster.
“A lot of people died in the quake and tsunami,” Shimazaki said. “I’m also responsible for failing to reduce the damage.”
Stressing that such a disaster that claimed so many lives must never be repeated, Shimazaki said, “We must find out why it happened, but the causes are not being pursued.”
“The mistakes will be repeated if nothing is done,” he said as he explained why he decided to speak in court.
He also said assumptions of tsunami occurring on the Sea of Japan side of the country, announced by a land ministry working group in 2014, were not sufficient.
“If a catastrophic disaster happens again, they might again claim that it was beyond their assumptions,” he said. “That can’t be permitted.”
Although five years have passed since the nuclear meltdowns, Shimazaki said he doubts anything has changed.
“I see lack of clarity and responsibility in committees of experts organized by the state,” he said.
“In the world of science, we can together look for facts and can reach agreement to a certain extent. That is not the case when the state is involved, and mistakes will be repeated if we are not aware of the difference.”
Science is used for decision-making by the state, but scientists do not challenge how this is done, he said.
“They have to say ‘no’ if they think something is wrong, but they are not doing this,” Shimazaki said, adding that the lack of clarity around responsibility remains in five years.
2,029,900,000 Bq of Cs-134/137 leaked as contaminated water in Fukushima plant
According to Tepco, a leakage detector of waste incineration building went off around noon of 3/23/2016.
Tepco reports the leaked volume was 5.3 t. The leaked contaminated water was from the cesium absorption facility to contain extremely high density of Cs-134/137.
From Tepco’s announcement, Cs-134/137 density was 383,000,000 Bq/m3.
All β nuclides to include Sr-90 was 480,000,000 Bq/m3.
At the moment of the press release, Tepco had not completed removing the leaked water but they state the building is designed to retain contaminated water inside.
The pipe from the cesium absorption facility was cut off due to a construction however somebody turned on the facility to cause the large leakage.
http://www.tepco.co.jp/cc/press/2016/1270693_7738.html
http://www.tepco.co.jp/cc/press/2016/1270654_7738.html
2,029,900,000 Bq of Cs-134/137 leaked as contaminated water in Fukushima plant
FIVE YEARS AFTER: Asahi survey: 70% of evacuees report declined health since 3/11
Almost 70 percent of 3/11 evacuees that answered an Asahi Shimbun questionnaire said their health had worsened since the triple disasters struck five years ago.
Comparing their current health to before the Great East Japan Earthquake, tsunami and Fukushima nuclear disasters, 23 percent of respondents said it had worsened greatly, while 46 percent said it had worsened somewhat.
One 67-year-old man living in temporary housing in Otsuchi, Iwate Prefecture, wrote: “I cannot use a chair because the temporary housing unit is so cramped. The condition of my knees has worsened because I have to sit on the floor for a long time.”
Questionnaires were sent out to 944 evacuees from the three hardest-hit prefectures of Iwate, Miyagi and Fukushima in February and responses were received from 619. While all respondents in 2012 were evacuees living in temporary housing, some have since moved back home.
Respondents also showed signs of psychological stresses in their responses to a question with the option to give multiple responses.
Forty-eight percent said they had experienced an increase in the concerns they felt, 37 percent said they felt down or lonely, 28 percent said they were more irritated and 25 percent said they had difficulty sleeping.
Only 22 percent said they were in a calmful state unchanged from before the disasters.
A 55-year-old woman who runs her own business and lives in an apartment in Yamada, Iwate Prefecture, said: “Whenever I see tsunami footage, I remember relatives who died and I become lonelier. I am also worried because I have no idea when I will be able to rebuild my home.”
A 77-year-old woman who was evacuated from Naraha, Fukushima Prefecture, to Aizu-Misato, also in the prefecture, said: “My life changed completely because of the nuclear accident, and I tend to feel more down. I also feel psychological uncertainty because I still do not have a settled residence.”
The respondents were also asked to list up to three policies they wanted the central and local governments to prioritize.
The most popular response for the second consecutive year was “subsidies for medical expenses” at 43 percent.
Other frequent responses were “improving elderly care services and rebuilding or expanding social welfare facilities” at 30 percent and “subsidies for monthly living expenses” at 28 percent.
The second most popular response last year was “financial support to rebuild own home.” This year that response came in fourth with 24 percent of respondents choosing it.
http://ajw.asahi.com/article/0311disaster/recovery/AJ201603220001
Incineration of radioactive waste begins at Fukushima nuclear plant
Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO) has begun incinerating radioactively contaminated clothing and other waste on the grounds of the disaster-hit Fukushima No. 1 Nuclear Power Plant in an effort to reduce the volume of waste.
A three-story incineration facility has been built on the north side of the plant grounds. Every day around 7,000 people work at the Fukushima plant, creating a massive amount of waste in the form of used radiation suits, gloves and boots. Pre-disaster incineration equipment was destroyed by the March 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami, which led to the construction of the new facility.
As of the end of last year some 70,000 metric tons of this kind of waste was being held in storage containers. TEPCO estimates that by the year 2028, 358,000 tons of such waste will have been produced, but claims it can reduce the volume of the waste to as little as about one-fiftieth of its original size by incinerating it.
Radioactive materials contained in the smoke from the incinerator will be removed by filters on the exhaust pipes. The resulting ash will be sealed in specialized barrels, and TEPCO says there will be little danger from radioactive exposure.
However, in addition to the aforementioned waste there were, as of July last year, around 83,000 tons of lumber from trees cut down to make way for tanks storing contaminated water and 155,000 tons of other waste such as power plant debris from the hydrogen explosions that occurred there. These additional kinds of waste are expected to grow to 695,000 tons by 2028, and will not be processed at the incineration facility.
While TEPCO plans to construct facilities to burn this lumber and to break down debris in the future, these are not expected to all be operational until around fiscal 2020.
http://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20160321/p2a/00m/0na/004000c
Japan urges China to lift import ban on farm products in place since March 2011
BEIJING – Japan urged China on Monday to scrap its import restrictions on agricultural, forestry and fisheries products and food that have been in place since the March 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster.
Kazuyoshi Honkawa, vice minister of agriculture, forestry and fisheries, made the request at a bilateral subcabinet-level dialogue in Beijing on agricultural issues.
The two countries reopened the dialogue for the first time in six years, after suspending talks due to deteriorated bilateral ties.
After the nuclear disaster at Tokyo Electric Power Co.’s crippled Fukushima No. 1 plant, China prohibited all imports of agricultural, forestry and fisheries products and food from 10 prefectures, including Fukushima, Miyagi and Ibaraki.
Honkawa asked Chinese Vice Agriculture Minister Qu Dongyu to urge authorities to lift the import ban. The embargo is administered by China’s General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine.
Honkawa said he did not receive a clear answer on the issue from the Chinese ministry.
After the dialogue, he told reporters that the rapidly growing Chinese market is very attractive for Japanese agriculture, forestry and fisheries industries, suggesting his ministry’s aim of expanding farm exports to China.
Economic relations between Japan and China have been on the mend in recent months.
At talks last November, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and Chinese Premier Li Keqiang agreed to restart a high-level economic dialogue that brings together the two countries’ key economic officials at an early date this year. In December, Japan and China held economic partnership talks led by vice ministerial officials for the first time in more than five years.
Razing of wrecked homes lagging badly as Fukushima residents ponder return
The central government is covering the demolition costs for disaster-hit homes in Fukushima Prefecture, but 70 percent of the razing requests have not been completed.
The Environment Ministry plans to revise the procedures for handling demolition requests because the situation could further prevent residents from returning to the radiation-tainted areas.
As of Jan. 8, 5,780 applications — or over 70 percent of the 7,670 demolition requests — had not been processed.
Minamisoma aims to have the central government lift evacuation orders in most of the city this spring. But only 30 percent of the 2,600 houses earmarked for demolition have been razed, leaving 1,780 to go.
The town of Kawamata and the village of Katsurao also want evacuation orders lifted from April, but the razing is only 17 percent complete in Kawamata and 6 percent in Katsurao. Tamura and the village of Kawauchi have meanwhile torn down all homes earmarked for demolition.
The ministry says the time-consuming nature of the work is one reason for the backlog, since it involves confirming ownership, inspecting properties and calculating costs.
The central government has expanded the program to cover not only houses damaged by the quake and tsunami, but also those damaged by leaky roofs during the prolonged evacuation. This raised applications to a level officials can’t keep up with, the ministry said.
Evacuees are calling for speedier action. Tomoya Suzuki, 67, who fled the Odaka district of Minamisoma to the town of Shinchi further north, applied to have his house demolished last August. His application is still pending.
“I would like to go back to Odaka as soon as the evacuation orders are lifted, but I can’t rebuild my house unless it’s demolished,” he said.
The government has said it will lift evacuation orders in Minamisoma by March 2017.
“The central government has decided to lift evacuation orders when the living environment for the residents is not prepared yet,” he said. “I find that contradictory.”
The ministry says it cannot drastically increase manpower, and will deal with the glut by giving priority to those who wish to return.
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
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