Fukushima episode of Netflix’s Dark Tourist sparks offence in Japan
05 September, 2018,
Government unhappy after programme hints food in region is still contaminated with radiation and host enters clearly marked no-go zone
The recent Netflix series Dark Tourist is a grimy window into areas scarred by tragedy, providing a perspective as rare as it is compelling – but a controversial Japan-set entry in the series may have gone too far.
The country’s Reconstruction Agency is set to hold talks with the Fukushima prefectural government about a unified response to the second episode in the series, which looked at a tour for foreign visitors to some of the areas worst affected by the 2011 tsunami, earthquake and nuclear-plant disaster.
The episode raised hackles in Tokyo and Fukushima after David Farrier, the New Zealand journalist who hosts the series, was filmed eating at a restaurant in the town of Namie – a former nuclear ghost town which reopened its doors to visitors in April 2017 – and stating that he expected the food to be contaminated with radiation.
Farrier was also filmed aboard a tour bus nervously watching as the numbers on a Geiger counter continued to rise beyond levels members of the party had been told were considered safe.
At one point in the programme, which was released on July 20, a woman holding a Geiger counter says radiation levels “are higher than around Chernobyl”.
Farrier also slips away from the group without permission, and enters an abandoned game arcade within the no-go zone around the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant.
The prefectural government and the Reconstruction Agency, which was set up after the disaster to oversee the nuclear clean-up and rebuilding efforts in the region, are reported to be unhappy that Farrier entered a clearly marked no-go zone and the programme’s suggestion that food in northeast Japan was not safe to eat.
Authorities are also unhappy the programme failed to specify that the high levels of radiation initially reported in the area have fallen significantly, and only a relatively small area is still officially listed as “difficult to return to” for local residents.
“We are examining the content of the video,” a prefecture official told the Jiji news agency.
The Fukushima government declined to provide further comment on Dark Tourist or the action that it might take.
A spokesman for the Reconstruction Agency in Tokyo told the South China Morning Post a response would be prepared after consultations with the prefectural authorities.
“We would like to provide accurate knowledge and correct information about the situation surrounding radiation in Fukushima Prefecture to the domestic and international media,” the official said. “We cannot comment specifically on the Netflix case at this point.”
An estimated 100,000 foreign tourists have visited Fukushima last year, many attracted by the offer of trips described as “dark tourism”.
Authorities, however, have been working hard to get across the message that the vast majority of the Tohoku region of northeast Japan is perfectly safe to visit and that local food and produce is safe to consume.
Campaigns are also under way to rebuild export markets for local foodstuffs.
The condemnation from authorities comes as Japan acknowledges for the first time that a worker at the Fukushima plant died in 2016 from radiation exposure.
The country’s Health, Labour and Welfare Ministry ruled that compensation should be paid to the family of the man in his 50s who died from lung cancer, an official said.
The worker had spent his career working at nuclear plants around Japan and worked at the Fukushima plant at least twice after the March 2011 meltdowns. He was diagnosed with cancer in February 2016, the official said.
Fukushima government considers action over Dark Tourist episode
September 4, 2018
DARK Tourist has been a global hit, but officials in Japan are not happy with scenes in this episode.
ITS willingness to boldly take audiences to some of the most offbeat, off-putting and downright disturbing places on the planet has made the Netflix series Dark Tourist a global sensation.
The first season of the groundbreaking documentary series, which was released in July, follows host David Farrier’s excursions to grim locations, from a forbidden ghost city on Cyprus to the Milwaukee sites where serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer murdered his victims.
But the series has landed in hot water due to its second episode that was filmed in Japan.
There, government officials are considering taking action against Netflix over footage from inside Fukushima, which was devastated by an earthquake and tsunami in March 2011.
The second episode of Dark Tourist sees host David Farrier on a nuclear bus tour in Fukushima.
In the episode, Farrier, a New Zealand journalist, takes a bus tour with other foreign sightseers into areas affected by the catastrophic nuclear meltdown at the Fukushima Daiichi plant.
The bus passes radioactive exclusion zones and Farrier and the other tourists become increasingly nervous by the skyrocketing readings on their Geiger counters, which measure radiation.
At one point in the episode, the reading is 50 times higher than levels deemed to be safe.
In another scene, the group visits a local restaurant where Farrier is concerned about eating locally sourced food that may be contaminated.
Farrier was unsure about eating local food.
In another, he comes close to being arrested after sneaking into an abandoned arcade that was deemed a no-go zone by the government.
Now, officials from the Fukushima Prefectural Government said they are investigating the Dark Tourist episode, concerned it would “fuel unreasonable fears related to the March 2011 disaster at Tokyo’s Electric’s tsunami-stricken Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant”.
A senior government official told The Japan Times they are working with the Reconstruction Agency in considering how to respond to the footage.
The camera followed Farrier as he broke away from the tour group and entered an off-limits arcade.
“We’re examining the video content,” the official said.
The three issues of apparent concern to officials were Farrier being worried about eating the restaurant’s food, his visit to the off-limits arcade, and the exact location of the bus not being specified when the high radiation readings alarmed the tourists.
Farrier previously said it was “super disconcerting” to visit the areas affected by the Fukushima nuclear disaster.
“Essentially, you’re in the middle of a microwave,” he told the New Zealand Herald.
“You can’t feel anything but this device is telling you that the radiation is way higher than is safe.”
In the episode, Farrier and the other tourists are concerned about the readings on their Geiger counters.
Hundreds of thousands of people fled for their lives when a tsunami swept through Fukushima and set off three nuclear meltdowns at the Daiichi power plant, exposing the region to radioactive material.
The Japanese government has deemed some of the affected areas to be safe to return to, but many remain abandoned. Other areas are still designated as off limits.
But Fukushima’s perceived nuclear danger and its eerie setting have made it one of the world’s most popular drawcards for “dark tourists” — travellers who seek out locations with disturbing histories and associations with death and tragedy.
Although dark tourism is booming, many area of Fukushima remain no-go zones.
So-called nuclear tourism attracted about 94,000 overseas visitors to Fukushima in 2017.
Similar nuclear tours operate in the Ukrainian ghost town of Pripyat, which has been a radioactive wasteland since the Chernobyl nuclear disaster in 1986.
The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade urges Australian travellers to exercise a high degree of caution in Areas 1 and 2 near the Fukushima Daiichi power plant and advises against all travel to Area 3 due to “very high” health and safety risks.
B.S. Propaganda Explaining that Radioactive Water Sea Dumping in Fukushima is Essential
As always the propaganda organs of the nuclear village and of the Japanese government are lying by omission, twisting the real facts, in order to justify their intention to dump the Fukushima daiichi’s 7 years accumulated radioactive water at Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant into the sea, to dump it into the Pacif Ocean would be criminal, plain ecocide.
As this 920 000 tons of radioactive water is not only tritium-laced water as the media would like the public to believe. It contains also other types of harmful radionuclides as Tepco has recently admitted:
TEPCO Admitted Almost 200 Billion Bq of Priorly Undeclared Radionuclides Water Contamination
Radioactive tritium and other types of radionuclides in Fukushima nuclear plant water, despite water treatment
‘Carefully explaining treated water discharge in Fukushima essential’
Sept. 4, 2018
How should “treated water,” which continues to accumulate at Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings, Inc.’s Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant, be disposed of? A plan must be quickly decided so this water does not cause delays in reactor decommissioning work.
Water is used to cool the reactor cores that melted down at the nuclear plant. Groundwater also flows into the plant, where it becomes contaminated by radioactive substances. Water collected at the site and passed through a purification facility is called “treated water.”
More than 900,000 tons of such water is being stored in tanks. This volume is said to be expected to increase by 50,000 tons to 80,000 tons each year.
About 900 tanks of various types already have been built on the plant’s premises. Finding space for additional tanks is becoming increasingly difficult, and plans to build more tanks run only until the end of 2020. If these tanks fill up the plant’s premises, there likely will not be enough room to perform the work needed to decommission the reactors.
The problem is that about 900 trillion becquerels of the radioactive substance tritium (an isotope known as hydrogen-3) remain in the treated water. In principle, removing tritium from water is difficult. The most promising option is releasing this water into the ocean. This would be done after dilution to bring the concentration of tritium to acceptable standards.
Tritium is generated daily at nuclear plants in Japan and overseas and then discharged into the sea in accordance with set standards. The volume released from Japanese nuclear power plants during the five years before the March 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake averaged about 380 trillion becquerels per year.
Relieve locals’ concerns
Each year, cosmic rays create about 70 quadrillion becquerels of tritium. Japan’s annual rainfall naturally contains about 223 trillion becquerels. The Economy, Trade and Industry Ministry and the Nuclear Regulation Authority have explained that levels of tritium below a certain concentration have no negative impact on the environment, among other things.
Releasing tritiated water into the ocean, after the safety of this process has been thoroughly confirmed, is unavoidable.
At public hearings held by the ministry in a bid to turn this plan into reality, many attendees offered the opinion that assurances of the safety of discharging this water “couldn’t be trusted.”
Although this is a technically complex problem, the materials and explanations given at these hearings were very simple. As the explanations were made on the assumption that attendees had basic knowledge about topics such as radiation, attendees demanded the ministry “reexamine the plan from scratch.”
Criticism also focused on the fact that radioactive substances other than tritium remain in the treated water. This was triggered by some media reports on the issue just before the hearings.
Since four years ago, TEPCO has explained it attached great importance to efficiency in the purification process. This was to reduce the impact of radiation on workers at the plant and other people. TEPCO plans to remove the remaining radioactive substances when the water is discharged, but this process was not mentioned in the materials distributed at the hearings.
It appears the lack of explanation about possible risks has fueled the backlash to the discharge plan.
Locals, including people involved in the fishing industry, oppose releasing the water into the ocean because of possible damage and losses arising from negative public misperceptions. They are concerned that discharging treated water could once again have a negative impact on confidence in products from the area, which has been slowly recovering.
Of course, efforts must be made to call on local residents to get behind the plan. The government and TEPCO also should take stronger measures over wide areas to counter harmful misperceptions.
Japan’s Fukushima Considering Action Over Netflix’s ‘Dark Tourist’ Nuclear Episode
August 3, 2018
The local government and the Reconstruction Agency are not happy with portrayals of unspecified high-radiation locations and speculation over contaminated food.
Japan’s Reconstruction Agency and Fukushima Prefectural Government are considering legal action over the episode of Netflix’s Dark Tourist, which visited places still dealing with the aftermath of the March 2011 triple nuclear meltdown.
The episode, the second in the series released on the streaming giant July 20, sees New Zealand journalist David Farrier visit Japan, with just more than half of the program following him on an organized bus tour through areas near the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Plant.
Farrier and the other tourists become concerned as the readings on their Geiger counters showed radiation higher than they were told to expect and what is deemed to be safe levels. The group eventually decides to cut the tour short, but not before eating at a restaurant in the area and Farrier leaving the group to enter an off-limit gaming arcade. While at the restaurant, Farrier talks about his concerns about the food being unsafe, before finishing his meal.
“We’re examining the video content,” a senior official from the prefecture told news agency Jiji.
The parts of the video that the authorities have taken objection to are the section showing the high radiation levels, but not saying where they were filmed, the speculation about food contamination and Farrier’s excursion into the off-limits area.
Almost 100,000 foreign tourists are estimated to have visited Fukushima last year on what have been dubbed nuclear tourism tours.
Nearly 20,000 people died in March 2011, when a huge earthquake set off a devastating tsunami that knocked the cooling systems of the nuclear plant out of action, leading to three reactors at Daiichi melting down.
The local and national government have been working to have bans on food produces from the area rescinded, which they have been gradually achieving.
During the episode, Farrier also visits the Aokigahara forest, an area known for suicides. YouTuber Paul Logan faced a backlash at the beginning of the year after posting a video from the forest, where he had discovered a corpse. Farrier also stays in a robot-run hotel and takes a tour to the abandoned Hashima Island. Once a coal mine, the industrial wasteland of the island has attracted tourists and attention in recent years, appearing in the James Bond film Skyfall and the Japanese Attack on Titan live-action movies.
Other episodes feature tourism related to voodoo, drug barons, mass murderers and survivalists.
Fukushima mulls action against Netflix over Dark Tourist video of 3/11 hot zone
The crippled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant is seen from the sky in February.
Sep 1, 2018
FUKUSHIMA – The Fukushima Prefectural Government and the Reconstruction Agency are considering taking action against a video from the Dark Tourist series of U.S. online video streaming giant Netflix Inc., informed sources said Saturday.
The video shows a tour organized for foreigners of areas affected by the March 2011 triple core meltdown in Fukushima. During the tour, a New Zealand journalist, the host of the video series, suspects a meal served at a restaurant in the town of Namie has been contaminated by radiation.
The prefecture and the agency are concerned the video could fuel unreasonable fears related to the March 2011 disaster at Tokyo Electric’s tsunami-stricken Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant, the sources said.
The video also shows the journalist entering the no-go zone around the crippled nuclear plant without permission and reporting from an abandoned game arcade there.
Furthermore, the video shows tour participants getting upset by rising radiation readings on their bus, although where the bus was traveling is not specified.
The video of the Fukushima tour attracted attention initially online and has been covered by overseas media.
Alarmed by the situation, the Fukushima Prefectural Government has decided to cooperate with the Reconstruction Agency in responding to the matter, the sources said. The defunct atomic plant is managed by Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings Inc.
“We’re examining the video content,” a senior official from the prefecture said.
Netflix offers unlimited access to online movies and TV dramas at flat rates. It has about 130 million subscribers in 190 countries.
In its Dark Tourist series, the New Zealand journalist travels to places associated with negative historical events around the world, including a former nuclear test site in Kazakhstan.
Fukushima water release into sea faces chorus of opposition
Sep 1, 2018
Citizens and environmental groups have expressed opposition to the idea of releasing into the ocean water tainted with tritium, a radioactive substance, from Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings Inc.’s disaster-stricken Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant.
“Long-term storage (of the tritium-containing water) is possible from technical and economic standpoints,” Komei Hosokawa, 63, an official of the Citizens’ Commission on Nuclear Energy, said at a public hearing held in Tokyo on Friday by a subcommittee of the Agency for Natural Resources and Energy. “The radiation levels in the water will decrease during the long-term storage,” he added.
At a similar hearing held the same day in Koriyama, Fukushima Prefecture, Aki Hashimoto, a housewife from the city, said, “I never want to see further worsening of ocean pollution from radiation.”
Opinions objecting to the release of the tritium-contaminated water into the ocean were also heard at a hearing held in the Fukushima town of Tomioka on Thursday.
After Friday’s hearings, Ichiro Yamamoto, who heads the subcommittee, told reporters that many participants in the hearings said the tainted water should continue to be held in storage tanks.
The subcommittee will study the option of keeping the water in the tanks, he added.
Tepco is lowering the radiation levels in contaminated water at the Fukushima No. 1 plant using special equipment, but the device cannot remove tritium.
The tritium-tainted water is stored in tanks within the premises of the power plant, which was heavily damaged in the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami.
In 2016, an expert panel of the Agency for Natural Resources and Energy discussed five methods to dispose of the tritium-tainted water —injection deep into the ground, release into the sea after dilution, release into the air through evaporation, conversion into hydrogen through electrolysis, and burying it after it is solidified.
The panel estimated that the ocean release is the cheapest option, costing up to about ¥3.4 billion.
Residents blast water-discharge method at Fukushima plant
Tanks containing radioactive water are seen in the compound of the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant that spans the towns of Okuma and Futaba in Fukushima Prefecture.
August 31, 2018
TOMIOKA, Fukushima Prefecture–Fishermen and local residents on Aug. 30 vehemently opposed the government’s plan to discharge radioactive water from the crippled Fukushima nuclear plant into the sea, saying the measure will damage a number of industries.
During a public hearing on the measure, they also blasted the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry and the plant’s operator, Tokyo Electric Power Co., for “misleading” the public by failing to disclose that radioactive substances, such as strontium, remained in the water to be discharged.
Although the ministry and TEPCO will likely have to repeat purification measures for the water to remove those substances, they gained little support for their plan to deal with the radioactive water accumulating at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant.
Thirteen of the 14 people who were allowed to express their opinions at the ministry-organized public hearing expressed opposition to the water-discharge plan.
“The (negative) influences of the measure will reach a wide range of fields, including not only the fishery industry but also tourism and restaurant businesses,” said Tatsuya Ito, a resident of Iwaki, Fukushima Prefecture, and a member of “Genpatsu-mondai Jumin-undo Zenkoku-renraku Center (National liaison center for residents’ movements on nuclear power generation issues).
Tetsu Nozaki, chairman of the Fukushima Prefectural Federation of Fisheries Cooperative Associations, emphasized that releasing the water into the sea would deal a “devastating blow” to the prefecture’s fisheries industry.
“If the water is discharged in large quantities, it will inevitably cause confusion in Japan and abroad and lead to damage from groundless rumors,” Nozaki said.
After the Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami caused the disaster at the Fukushima No. 1 plant in March 2011, coastal fishing in Fukushima Prefecture was suspended because of radioactive water flowing into the sea.
Fishing for three types of fish later resumed on a trial basis. Now, more than 170 types are permitted, and preparations are being made for a full-scale resumption of operations.
But at the plant, groundwater flowing into the damaged reactor buildings continues to pose a problem, even after underground frozen walls were completed to divert the clean water into the sea.
About 100 tons of groundwater still become contaminated every day after entering the buildings. TEPCO also injects 70 tons of water daily into each of the No. 1, No. 2 and No. 3 reactors to cool the melted fuel.
Water from the buildings is purified, and 100 tons are stored in large tanks in the compound of the plant per day. The remaining water is re-injected into the reactors.
The volume of water stored in those tanks has reached 920,000 tons in the seven-and-a-half years since the triple meltdown. About 900 tanks, including those for unpurified water, now stand at the plant.
The ministry says that increasing the number of tanks will become impossible in late 2020 due to the limited space. It believes that a method to dispose of radioactive water must be decided within this year at the earliest.
The facilities used to purify the water remove radioactive substances, such as cesium and strontium, but they cannot eliminate tritium, whose chemical nature is the same as hydrogen’s.
Discharging tritium into the sea is permitted if its radioactivity level is less than the statutory standard of 60,000 becquerels per liter of water.
But at the public hearing, the participants learned that traces of strontium also remained in the purified water.
“(The ministry and TEPCO) have misled the public,” said Kazuyoshi Sato, an Iwaki city assemblyman. “They made a serious mistake in the fair disclosure of a wide range of information.”
After the hearing, Ichiro Yamamoto, professor emeritus of nuclear power at Nagoya University and chairman of a government subcommittee on disposing of radioactive water, admitted that the government failed to sufficiently explain the fact that radioactive substances other than tritium remained in the water.
“I think that it is necessary to purify the water again,” he said.
In May 2016, a ministry working group offered five methods to dispose of the radioactive water: putting it into geological layers; discharging it into the sea; releasing it as steam; discharging it as hydrogen; and burying it in the ground.
The group said if the radioactive water is diluted and released into the sea, it would cost 3.4 billion yen ($30 million) and take seven years and four months to complete. It concluded that this was cheapest and quickest of the five methods.
Toyoshi Fuketa, chairman of the Nuclear Regulation Authority, also supported the measure of releasing the water into the sea, saying, “It is the only feasible method.”
Gov’t, TEPCO plan to dump treated water in sea angers Fukushima fishermen
In this July 17, 2018 file photo, tanks containing water contaminated with radioactive materials are seen from a Mainichi Shimbun helicopter on the grounds of the Fukushima No. 1 Nuclear Power Plant in Okuma, Fukushima Prefecture.
August 30, 2018
TOKYO/IWAKI, Fukushima — In response to a Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO) and Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry plan to release water containing radioactive tritium even after being treated from the tsunami-stricken Fukushima No. 1 Nuclear Power Plant into the Pacific Ocean, Fukushima’s fishing industry is biting back.
A panel of experts from the economy ministry is holding the first public meetings in Tokyo and Fukushima Prefecture on Aug. 30 and 31 concerning the future of the growing number of tanks of treated water around the power plant in the northeastern Japanese prefecture.
The ministry and TEPCO have expressed intentions to make a final decision sometime this year on whether to dump the treated water into the sea, saying that they are approaching the limit of the amount of water that the facilities can accommodate. However, fishermen and others involved in the marine product industry in Fukushima Prefecture, who have conducted numerous safety tests of their products, say that such a move would only undermine the trust they have been trying to build concerning safety, building up a sense of crisis.
“Scientists can simply say, ‘It’s fine to dump (the water) into the ocean,’ but will the citizens of Japan still buy fish from Fukushima (afterward) like they do now?” So asked 63-year-old Toru Takahashi, a fisherman from Soma, Fukushima Prefecture, who rebuilt his boat damaged in the 2011 tsunami and has participated in the testing of the fish off of Fukushima’s shores. Takahashi believes that the Nuclear Regulation Authority’s approval of the plan to dump the water containing tritium — which cannot be filtered using current technology — in the Pacific Ocean put forth by the economy ministry as the fastest and most low-cost method of disposal, lacks the perspective of fishermen and those in the marine product industry.
After high concentrations of radioactive materials were washed into the ocean in the nuclear disaster at the power plant in 2011, fishing along the coast of Fukushima was halted completely. From the following year, the Fukushima Prefectural Federation of Fisheries and Co-operative Associations began trial operations and other activities to test the safety of marine products, expanding the range of fishing areas and species. Since April 2015, there have been no cases of fish exceeding the government standard of 100 becquerels of radioactivity per kilogram. The catch has been only a little more than 10 percent that of before the accident, fishing of core species has begun again, and radiation below the minimum detection limit is found in over 99 percent of the products tested this year.
It is precisely for this reason that the notion of releasing the treated water into the ocean off Fukushima’s coast is causing concerns in the fishing industry.
“We don’t intend to protest on scientific grounds, but the problem is that the measure hasn’t gained the understanding of the citizens of Japan. It will be a huge blow to the Fukushima fishing industry,” said Fukushima prefectural fisheries federation chairman Tetsu Nozaki, who plans to make his opposition to the plan known at the forum in Tomioka, Fukushima Prefecture, on Aug. 30.
The contaminated water in question is that which has been used to cool the melted nuclear fuel rods in the reactor and the ground water around the plant, and each day, roughly 220 tons of such water is amassed, and is expected to amount to 55,000 tons per year in the future. Currently, there are 880 containment tanks on the grounds of the nuclear plant. Even after treating the water, tritium cannot be removed.
According to the Nuclear Regulation Authority, if an individual was to drink 2 liters of water containing the maximum standard amount of tritium every day, then they would be exposed to an additional roughly 1 millisievert of radiation annually, which is equal to the actual radiation exposure limit put forth by the International Commission on Radiological Protection.
After collecting the opinions of the participants in the public hearings, the government plans to make a final decision about processing the water in cooperation with TEPCO before the end of the year.
(Japanese original by Tatsushi Inui, Iwaki Local Bureau, and Riki Iwama, Science & Environment News Department)
Fukushima fisheries group opposes release of radioactive water into sea
Aug 30, 2018
TOMIOKA, FUKUSHIMA PREF. – The head of a fisheries industry group in Fukushima Prefecture expressed opposition on Thursday to the idea of releasing water containing radioactive tritium from a crippled nuclear plant in the prefecture into the ocean.
The tritium-tainted water is from Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings Inc.’s Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant, which was damaged heavily in the powerful earthquake and tsunami in March 2011.
“At a time when harmful rumors are still circulating in Japan and some countries continue to restrict imports (of Fukushima goods), releasing the tainted water into the sea will inevitably deliver a fatal blow to the Fukushima fishery industry,” Tetsu Nozaki, who leads the Fukushima Prefectural Federation of Fisheries Cooperative Associations, said.
His remarks came during a public hearing held by a subcommittee of the Agency for Natural Resources and Energy in the Fukushima town of Tomioka.
The hearing was for the canvassing of opinions on how to deal with the tritium-tainted water. Releasing it into the sea has been proposed as one option. Similar hearings will be held in the city of Koriyama, Fukushima, and Tokyo on Friday.
Using special equipment, Tepco is lowering the radiation levels in contaminated water at the plant, but the device cannot remove tritium.
While the processed water is kept in tanks within the premises of the nuclear power station, the amount of tainted water continues to increase as the plant’s damaged reactors need to be cooled continuously. Tepco is about to run out of suitable sites to construct new storage tanks, according to the government.
Discussions on ways to deal with the tritium-contaminated water are underway at the subcommittee of the government agency.
In a June 2016 report, an expert panel of the agency said that releasing the polluted water into the sea after it is diluted with fresh water would be relatively cheap and time-efficient.
Public hearing in Fukushima on tritium-laced water
Aug. 30, 2018
Many people at a public hearing have criticized a plan to release water containing radioactive tritium into the sea from the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant.
A government panel of experts held the meeting in the town of Tomioka in Fukushima Prefecture on Thursday to discuss how to deal with the contaminated water.
About 100 people, including local residents, and heads of organizations were invited to take part.
Contaminated water is generated daily at the plant in the process of cooling the damaged reactors. The water is being treated to get rid of radioactive substances, but tritium is difficult to remove. About 920,000 tons of water containing tritium is currently being stored at the plant.
Among the possible options to dispose of the tritium-laced water, the government says diluting and releasing it into the sea is the quickest and most inexpensive way.
A local fisherman who attended Thursday’s hearing said he fears that releasing contaminated water will undo all the progress that has been made since fishing resumed on a trial basis. Other participants also stated negative views.
But a researcher from Osaka expressed support for releasing the water while monitoring radiation levels.
The panel will hold more public hearings on Friday in Koriyama City in Fukushima Prefecture and in Tokyo.
The experts will study the opinions expressed at the hearings before submitting their proposal to the government.
Fukushima city to remove statue clad in radiation protective gear
Children on Aug. 3 pose in front of Kenji Yanobe’s Sun Child statue in Fukushima city.
August 29, 2018
FUKUSHIMA–Fukushima city will remove a large statue of an injured child wearing a yellow hazmat suit after complaints rolled in that the artwork grossly exaggerates the damage from the Fukushima nuclear disaster.
“It is difficult to keep displaying a controversial work of art as a symbol of reconstruction,” Fukushima Mayor Hiroshi Kohata said on Aug. 28.
The 6.2-meter-tall Sun Child statue, weighing about 800 kilograms, was created by contemporary artist Kenji Yanobe, 52, a professor at the Kyoto University of Art and Design.
The statue, which was installed on Aug. 3, is supposed to represent hope for reconstruction from the disaster at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant that started after the Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami hit the Tohoku region on March 11, 2011.
The Sun Child, staring out toward the sky, holds a hazmat helmet in his left hand and has scars and bruises on his face. A Geiger counter embedded in the statue’s chest is set at zero.
A civic group donated the statue, which depicts the hopes of a “future free from the nuclear disaster,” to the city.
After the city government set up the statue at a facility that provides information about radiation and has playground equipment, it received nearly 60 complaints from residents.
One noted that a radiation counter reading of zero is impossible even in nature.
Another complaint said,” (City residents) didn’t have to wear radiation protective gear at the time of the disaster so that (hazmat suit) could lead to misunderstandings.”
From Aug. 18 to Aug. 27, the city conducted a questionnaire covering 110 visitors to the site of the statue. Seventy-five of the respondents demanded the removal or relocation of the statue, compared with 22 who wanted the statue to remain.
Kohata acknowledged a lack of consensus-building before the Sun Child was erected.
Sculptor Yanobe also accepted the city’s decision to remove his artwork.
“We came to the conclusion that we should stop displaying the statue if it torments people,” he said. “Even after the statue is removed, I want to talk to residents. I am currently coordinating my schedule (to visit Fukushima).”
Maki Sahara, 46, director of a Fukushima-based NPO that spreads information about protection against radiation, criticized the government’s handling of the statue.
“The city was too hasty in deciding to set up the statue and to remove it,” Sahara said. “The Sun Child could have triggered discussions on radiation among residents. What a shame that the city spoiled the chance.”
Yasuko Araki, chief curator at the prefectural museum, which displays a one-tenth scale model of the Sun Child, said it has received no complaints.
But she said the city government was ill-prepared.
“Viewers’ impressions of works of art at the museum differ from those that appear in public spaces,” she said. “The city should have devised ways to explain the process of creating the Sun Child.”
(This article was compiled from reports by Morikazu Kogen, Hikari Maruyama and Hiroshi Fukatsu.)
Free temporary housing for Fukushima evacuees to mostly end in March ’20
This file photo taken in April 2017 shows temporary housing in the city of Nihonmatsu in central Fukushima Prefecture in northeastern Japan for evacuees from the 2011 disaster at the Tokyo Electric Power Co.’s Fukushima No. 1 Nuclear Power Plant
August 28, 2018
FUKUSHIMA — The government of Fukushima Prefecture in northeastern Japan has announced it will terminate in March 2020 the provision of free temporary housing to most of the evacuees from areas in four towns and villages rendered difficult to live in due to fallout from the 2011 triple core meltdowns at the Tokyo Electric Power Co.’s Fukushima No. 1 Nuclear Power Plant.
It was the first time to set a deadline to end housing support for evacuees from those “difficult to return” areas. The new measure, announced on Aug. 27, will stop the provision of all rent-free temporary housing from dwellings in the towns of Okuma and Futaba where the nuclear plant is located.
The termination of the support program will affect a total of 3,298 households who had to move out of difficult to return areas in the villages of Katsurao and Iitate, as well as the towns of Tomioka and Namie. The measure will cover both temporary prefabricated housing as well as private rental accommodation paid for by the prefecture.
The prefectural government explained that the financial support is being phased out as it is now possible for those residents to find stable homes on their own, among other reasons. Meanwhile, the prefecture will conduct an opinion poll on some 1,661 households from Okuma and Futaba to determine whether to continue to offer free housing for them after March 2020.
The free temporary housing service will end in March next year for evacuees of 2,389 households from five municipalities including the village of Kawauchi and the town of Kawamata, where evacuation orders have been lifted, but the service can be extended for another year for people with special circumstances.
Evacuation orders prompted by the 2011 nuclear disaster targeted 11 municipalities although they were eventually lifted for nine cities, towns and villages by April 2017 except Futaba and Okuma as well as difficult to return zones in some of the municipalities.
Free temporary housing for Fukushima evacuees to mostly end in March ’20
This file photo taken in April 2017 shows temporary housing in the city of Nihonmatsu in central Fukushima Prefecture in northeastern Japan for evacuees from the 2011 disaster at the Tokyo Electric Power Co.’s Fukushima No. 1 Nuclear Power Plant.
August 28, 2018
FUKUSHIMA — The government of Fukushima Prefecture in northeastern Japan has announced it will terminate in March 2020 the provision of free temporary housing to most of the evacuees from areas in four towns and villages rendered difficult to live in due to fallout from the 2011 triple core meltdowns at the Tokyo Electric Power Co.’s Fukushima No. 1 Nuclear Power Plant.
It was the first time to set a deadline to end housing support for evacuees from those “difficult to return” areas. The new measure, announced on Aug. 27, will stop the provision of all rent-free temporary housing from dwellings in the towns of Okuma and Futaba where the nuclear plant is located.
The termination of the support program will affect a total of 3,298 households who had to move out of difficult to return areas in the villages of Katsurao and Iitate, as well as the towns of Tomioka and Namie. The measure will cover both temporary prefabricated housing as well as private rental accommodation paid for by the prefecture.
The prefectural government explained that the financial support is being phased out as it is now possible for those residents to find stable homes on their own, among other reasons. Meanwhile, the prefecture will conduct an opinion poll on some 1,661 households from Okuma and Futaba to determine whether to continue to offer free housing for them after March 2020.
The free temporary housing service will end in March next year for evacuees of 2,389 households from five municipalities including the village of Kawauchi and the town of Kawamata, where evacuation orders have been lifted, but the service can be extended for another year for people with special circumstances.
Evacuation orders prompted by the 2011 nuclear disaster targeted 11 municipalities although they were eventually lifted for nine cities, towns and villages by April 2017 except Futaba and Okuma as well as difficult to return zones in some of the municipalities.
(Japanese original by Hideyuki Kakinuma, Fukushima Bureau)
Fukushima Daiichi Looks Drowned
From Majia Nadesan’s Blog — August 23, 2018
“I realize this series of posts on Fukushima Daiichi’s webcam imagery may seem tiresome to some readers. However, I’ve been watching the plant for 7 years and am very aware of changes in emissions patterns.
Today the plant looks drowned, especially as viewed through the cam focused on units 1 and 2:
Now:
Yesterday: 
Yesterday I noted that the lens has some sort of “stuff” on it but that alone does not explain the higher level of emissions that are visible on both cams and during day time hours (see my post from yesterday and screenshot of cam 4).
The weather in Fukushima presently is 82F, 42% chance of precipitation, with 84% humidity, which are pretty typical.
Yesterday the Wall Street Journal ran an article in their print edition titled, “New Challenge to ‘Abenomics’ Rises in Japan” (8/22/2018 p. A9) that begins with the following text:
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s policies have benefited the titans of business with whom he likes to play golf but have left millions of people behind, said a former defense minister [Shigeru Ishiba] who is making a long-shot bid to lead the ruling party.
This sense that many of today’s leaders are detached from the needs of “the people” because of their close alliances with “the titans of business” is not restricted to Japan.
Our time for fixing catastrophic risks, such as those posed by Fukushima Daiichi, is limited and elapsing.
As Rome burned and as the Titanic sank, the majority of elites were distracted by their privilege until they too went down with their wrecked domains….”
https://majiasblog.blogspot.com/2018/08/fukushima-daiichi-looks-drowned.html
Fukushima to maintain radiation monitoring budget
August 23, 2018
Japan’s nuclear regulatory body has reversed a plan to remove some of the radiation monitoring posts in Fukushima Prefecture.
Shoji Takeyama, a section chief of the Nuclear Regulation Authority, revealed this at a meeting of residents of Miharu Town in Fukushima Prefecture on Wednesday.
He also said the body will demand the same budget for the monitoring posts in the fiscal year that begins next April.
About 3,000 monitoring posts were set up across the prefecture after the accident at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant in March 2011.
About 600 million yen, or roughly 5.4 million dollars, has been earmarked annually to maintain the posts.
The authority said in March that it would remove 2,400 monitoring posts over the next 3 years from locations where radiation levels have dropped, except for areas where evacuation orders remain in place.
But local residents protested the plan, and none of the monitoring posts have been removed so far.
If the budget demand is approved, all the posts are expected to be retained through the next fiscal year.
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