PCB waste treatment plan in Fukushima: “Insufficient explanation” and opposition from many people
Feb. 07, 2022
A meeting was held to check the government’s plan to dispose of highly concentrated PCB waste generated in Fukushima Prefecture after the nuclear power plant accident in Muroran City.
The Ministry of the Environment presented a plan to treat waste containing polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), a toxic substance, from the “contaminated waste management area” in Fukushima Prefecture at a facility in Muroran City, and the city and province approved the plan last December.
On the 7th, a meeting was held in Muroran City to check the government’s project, with representatives of citizens’ groups and academic experts attending.
At the meeting, a representative from the Ministry of the Environment explained that the decision was made based on the opinions of experts who had investigated the safety of the treatment at the site.
In response to this, a number of committee members expressed their opposition to the disposal of PCBs, arguing that the Ministry of the Environment’s explanation was too sketchy and that they had not received a reply to their questionnaire.
One of the committee members, Akiaki Kono, representative of the Association for the Safety of PCB Disposal, said, “Information on the field survey has not been properly disclosed. I felt that the administrative procedures were incomplete. The situation is not such that safety can be confirmed,” he said.
The Ministry of the Environment said, “We have not decided when we will start processing. The Ministry of the Environment says, “We have not decided when we will start the treatment, but we will answer the opinions and questions raised this time.
https://www3.nhk.or.jp/sapporo-news/20220207/7000043152.html?fbclid=IwAR3fXeQ4VwN56XNR5S05uFjTGHYCiRcQ9nk85uC9NbSG5V3FvDDQ4nFDEpY
Japanese Citizens Reject Government Plan to Use Soil Contaminated by Fukushima
Blowback Over Japanese Plan to Reuse Tainted Soil From Fukushima
The penultimate storage of contaminated waste
Japan ponders recycling Fukushima soil for public parks & green areas
Workers move big black plastic bags containing radiated soil. Fukushima prefecture, near Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.
Soil from the Fukushima prefecture may be used as landfill for the creation of “green areas” in Japan, a government panel has proposed, facing potential public backlash over fears of exposure to residual radiation from the decontaminated earth.
The advisory panel of the Environment Ministry on Monday proposed reusing soil that was contaminated during the Fukushima nuclear meltdown of 2011 as part of future landfills designated for public use, Kyodo news reported.
In its proposal, the environmental panel avoided openly using the word “park” and instead said “green space,” apparently to avoid a premature public outcry, Mainichi Shimbun reported.
Following an inquiry from the news outlet, the Ministry of the Environment clarified that “parks are included in the green space.”
In addition to decontaminating and recycling the tainted earth for new parks, the ministry also stressed the need to create a new organization that will be tasked with gaining public trust about the prospects of such modes of recycling.
To calm immediate public concerns, the panel said the decontaminated soil will be used away from residential areas and will be covered with a separate level of vegetation to meet government guidelines approved last year.
In June last year, the Ministry of the Environment decided to reuse contaminated soil with radioactive cesium concentration between 5,000 to 8,000 becquerels per kilogram for public works such as nationwide roads and tidal banks.
Under these guidelines, which can now be extended to be used for the parks, the tainted soil shall be covered with clean earth, concrete or other materials.
Such a landfill, the government said at the time, will not cause harm to nearby residents as they will suffer exposure less than 0.01 mSv a year after the construction is completed.
The Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant suffered a blackout and subsequent failure of its cooling systems in March 2011, when it was hit by an earthquake and a killer tsunami that knocked out the facility, spewing radiation and forcing 160,000 people to flee their homes. Three of the plant’s six reactors were hit by meltdowns, making the Fukushima nuclear disaster the worst since the Chernobyl catastrophe in 1986.
https://www.rt.com/news/382515-japan-recycling-fukushima-soil/#.WNoJ3cpBs98.facebook
Gov’t proposes reusing Fukushima’s decontaminated soil on green land
The Environment Ministry on Monday proposed reusing decontaminated soil from disaster-hit Fukushima Prefecture as landfill for parks and green areas.
At a meeting of an advisory panel, the ministry also called for launching a new organization to map out plans on how to gain public understanding about the reuse of decontaminated soil, ministry officials said.
The proposals come at a time when Fukushima Prefecture faces a shortage of soil due to the decontamination work following the 2011 nuclear meltdown.
http://english.kyodonews.jp/news/2017/03/465656.html
Only 20% of planned waste site secured
Six years after the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster, the government has secured only 20 percent of the site planned for intermediate facilities to store contaminated waste, such as soil.
The environment ministry plans to build the facilities at a 16-square-kilometer site surrounding the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant in Futaba and Okuma towns.
The site will store radioactive waste produced from the cleanup of nuclear contamination in Fukushima for about 30 years.
The facilities started going up in November of last year. The ministry says it plans to start their operation in the autumn of this year.
But as of the end of February, it has secured 3.36 square kilometers, or 21 percent, of the needed land.
Six years on, decontamination-related waste is still kept at about 1,100 temporary storage sites. Also individuals are keeping some waste in about 146,000 gardens and other sites.
Environmental experts urge the ministry to accelerate land negotiations to improve the situation.
Environment Ministry deleted some of its remarks from minutes on contaminated soil meet
The Ministry of the Environment deleted some of its remarks made in closed-door meetings on reuse of contaminated soil stemming from the Fukushima nuclear disaster from the minutes of the meetings, it has been learned.
When the ministry posted the minutes on its website, it said it had “fully disclosed” them. The deleted remarks could be taken to mean that the ministry induced the discussions. The remarks led the meetings to decide on a policy of reusing contaminated soil containing up to 8,000 becquerels of radioactive cesium per kilogram. An expert on information disclosure lashed out at the ministry’s handling of the minutes, saying, “It is extremely heinous because it constitutes the concealment of the decision-making process.”
The meetings were called the “working group to discuss safety assessments of impacts of radiation.” The meetings were attended by about 20 people, including radiation experts, officials of the Environment Ministry and the Japan Atomic Energy Agency (JAEA) and others. The meetings were held six times from January to May in 2016.
The meetings discussed the reuse of radioactively contaminated soil generated when areas affected by the Fukushima nuclear crisis were decontaminated.
Initially, the meetings themselves were unpublicized. But because requests for information disclosure on the meetings were filed one after another, the Environment Ministry posted the minutes and relevant data on its website in August. As a matter of clerical procedures, the ministry said at that time that everything was disclosed.
The minutes that were disclosed contain “draft minutes” that were prepared before becoming official documents, but the Mainichi Shimbun obtained an “original draft” that was prepared even before then. Comparing the disclosed minutes with the original draft, the Mainichi found multiple cases of remarks being deleted or changed. According to the original draft, an Environment Ministry official said at the fourth meeting on Feb. 24, “With the assessments of soil with 8,000 becquerels, there have been cases in which the annual radiation dose slightly exceeds 1 millisievert in times of disasters and the like. But it will be good if it stays within 1 millisievert.” But the remark was deleted from the disclosed minutes.
Soil contaminated with radiation exceeding 8,000 becquerels is handled as “designated waste,” but discussions were held on reusing of contaminated soil containing 8,000 becquerels of radioactive cesium per kilogram during a series of meetings. In the Feb. 24 meeting, the JAEA showed an estimate that workers engaged in recovery work on a breakwater made of contaminated soil of 8,000 becquerels that has collapsed in a disaster would be exposed to radiation exceeding 1 millisievert per year — the maximum dose allowed for ordinary people. Based on the estimate, there was a possibility of the upper limit for reusing contaminated soil being lowered, but the Environment Ministry official’s remark promoted experts and others to call for s review to make a new estimate, with one attendee saying, “If it collapses, it will be mixed with other soil and diluted.”
A fresh estimate that the annual radiation dose will stay at 1 millisievert or lower was later officially presented, and the Environment Ministry officially decided in June on a policy of reusing contaminated soil containing up to 8,000 becquerels of radioactive cesium per kilogram.
http://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20170105/p2a/00m/0na/007000c
Landscapes I saw
A short poem at the beginning of the year.
Accumulated dust can make mountains.
Here are the pictures that show reality.
Taken on January 2nd 2017.
These black bags are full of soil and fallen leaves gathered in the course of the decontamination work.
These bags last from 3 to 5 years.
What do we do now?
Over the mountain of black bags lies Odaka station.
Now anybody can get on and off the train.
Source: Akiyoshi Imazeki, Odaka Station, Minamisoma-shi, Fukushima Prefecture
Reclaimed Land for Okinawa US Base Filled With Fukushima Radioactive Waste?
Radioactive Waste from Fukushima Plant Water Piling Up with No Final Destination
FUKUSHIMA — While contaminated water continues to accumulate at the crippled Fukushima No. 1 Nuclear Power Plant, radioactive waste retrieved from that water during purification work is becoming a serious concern for the nuclear facility.
Since there is currently no way of dealing with the waste, plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO) has stored it onsite as a temporary measure. But there are fears in Fukushima Prefecture that it may be left there for good.
Contaminated water builds up every day at the Fukushima No. 1 plant as groundwater flows into the reactor buildings where melted fuel from the Fukushima nuclear disaster lies. Since this contaminated water could flow into the sea, TEPCO processes it with several types of purification equipment, and reuses it to cool the No. 1 to 3 reactors.
Tainted water in the reactor buildings is pumped into the U.S. cesium absorption apparatus Kurion and Toshiba Corp.’s Simplified Active Water Retrieve and Recovery System (SARRY) to remove radioactive cesium and other materials. The water is then desalinated and sent through the Advanced Liquid Processing System (ALPS), which can remove 62 different types of radioactive substances.
This process, however, does not eliminate the radioactive materials themselves; they are soaked up by absorbents, such as minerals. Radioactive materials build up in these absorbents, which remain as waste emitting high levels of radiation. This type of waste is stored in metal containers that isolate the radiation. As of Nov. 10, there were 178 such containers at the SARRY processing area, 758 at Kurio and 2,179 at ALPS. The size of the containers differs depending on the area, but overall, it amounts to some 11,000 cubic meters — which would fill around 30 25-meter swimming pools. These containers of waste stand in a temporary storage area on the south side of the plant’s No. 4 reactor.
Isao Yamagishi, a group leader at the Japan Atomic Energy Agency, warns, “Waste produced during water purification work is highly radioactive, and so is the risk of just keeping it in storage.” This is because even if the tainted water goes through a desalination process, salt can remain in the waste. There is a risk of the waste containers exploding if the concentration of hydrogen in them — produced due to the effects of radiation on water — reaches a certain level. Such a phenomenon was seen at the No. 1 and 3 reactor buildings of the Fukushima No. 1 plant, which exploded due to an accumulation of hydrogen soon after the outbreak of the disaster.
Yamagishi says that salt content has a tendency to aid hydrogen production, and it is necessary to release a sufficient amount of hydrogen from the containers. It is also possible that salt could corrode the metal containers. There do not seem to be any problems with hydrogen concentration or corrosion at this stage, but Yamagishi says, “We need to research over the long term what’s going on inside the containers.”
There is additional nuclear waste at the plant, too. Soon after the outbreak of the nuclear disaster, a decontamination system provided by France’s Areva SA was put into operation, and approximately 597 cubic meters of radioactive waste produced during the water purification process with this system remains stored at the plant.
The Nuclear Regulation Authority says that if the Fukushima plant is hit by another major tsunami, this waste could end up outside the plant. It therefore needs to be dealt with quickly, but there is nowhere for it to go.
Contaminated water also poses a problem. The ALPS system cannot remove radioactive tritium from the water, so tritium-tainted water is stored in tanks. There are about 1,000 tanks holding this type of water, whose total weight amounts to some 900,000 metric tons. And as work to decommission the plant’s reactors increases, both the amount of nuclear waste and the amount of contaminated water will increase.
Shigeaki Tsunoyama, former president of the University of Aizu in Fukushima and head of the Fukushima Prefectural Center for Environmental Creation, who is familiar with the field of nuclear safety engineering, comments, “Locals are concerned that nuclear waste will be left there as it is.”
In the future, work will begin to remove melted fuel at the Fukushima No. 1 plant, but its destination remains undecided. Some locals fear that if no destination for waste designated as being in “temporary storage” at the plant is decided, then Fukushima will become the final disposal site for melted fuel in the future. Tsunoyama is calling on officials to provide a map for the future.
“I want them to analyze the long-term risks, and provide an outlook for the storage and disposal of waste,” he says.
http://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20161126/p2a/00m/0na/004000c
About the Incineration of Fukushima Decontaminated Soil and Debris
From 2011 to 2014, decontaminated soil and debris were incinerated all over Japan. Informations about the quantity incinerated nationwide during those years in various locations are hard to get. As of today incineration is still ongoing in Eastern Japan, but we do no know if it is still ongoing or not in other parts of Japan as somehow nothing is being published about it.
Incineration is never a solution for radiation contaminated waste, it reduces the volume of the contaminated waste but at the same time redistributes its contained radionuclides into the nearby environment, thus endangering the health of the people living there.
However, this article from September 2014 gives a list of the incineratition locations and of the disposal companies involved, among those Japan Environmental Safety Corporation (JESCO) was the most prominent, as JESCO was the company already handling most of the PCB waste disposal.
JESCO Hokkaido Office (Muroran City) ＪＥＳＣＯ北海道事業所（室蘭市）
Ecosystem Akita (Odate city) エコシステム秋田（大館市）
Kureha environment (Iwaki City, Fukushima prefecture) クレハ環境（福島県いわき市）
Tokyo Seaside Recycle Power (Koto Ward) 東京臨海リサイクルパワー（江東区）
JESCO Tokyo Office (Koto Ward) ＪＥＳＣＯ東京事業所（江東区）
Toyama Environment Improvement (Toyama City) 富山環境整備（富山市）
JESCO Toyota Plant (Toyota City, Aichi) JＥＳＣＯ豊田事業所（愛知県豊田市）
JESCO Osaka Plant (Osaka City) ＪＥＳＣＯ大阪事業所（大阪市）
KEIO GEORE (Amagasaki City, Hyogo) 関電ジオレ（兵庫県尼崎市）
Kobe Environment Creation (Kobe City) 神戸環境クリエート（神戸市）
Ecosystem Sanyo (Misaki Town, Okayama Prefecture) エコシステム山陽（岡山県美咲町）
Sanko (Sakaiminato City, Tottori Prefecture) 三光（鳥取県境港市）
Fuji Clean (Ayagawa Town, Aya Gun, Kagawa Prefecture) 富士クリーン（香川県綾歌群綾川町）
Ehime Prefecture Waste Treatment Center Toyo Works (Niihama City) 愛媛県廃棄物処理センター東予事業所（新居浜市）
Lightwork refining tobata manufacturing plant (Kitakyushu city, Fukuoka prefecture) 光和精鉱戸畑製造所（福岡県北九州市）
JESCO Kitakyushu Office$ ＪＥＳＣＯ北九州事業所
German firm aims to compactly convert radioactive Fukushima wood into power
Whatever they say, incineration is never a solution as it just redistributes radionuclides into the environment
Black plastic bags containing radioactive soil, leaves and debris from decontamination operations are dumped at a seaside spot devastated by the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami in Tomioka, Fukushima Prefecture, near the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant, in February 2015
Japan is turning to a small German company to generate power from timber irradiated by the 2011 Fukushima No. 1 nuclear meltdowns.
Closely held Entrade Energiesysteme AG will sell electricity from 400 of its container-size biomass-to-power machines set up in Fukushima Prefecture, said Julien Uhlig, the Duesseldorf-based company’s chief executive officer. The devices will generate 20 megawatts of power by next year and function like a “biological battery” that kicks in when the sun descends on the region’s solar panels, he said.
Selling green power with Entrade’s mobile units could support Japanese attempts to repopulate a region that’s struggled to restore a degree of normalcy after the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami killed 18,000 people while also triggering the Fukushima nuclear meltdowns that displaced 160,000 others. The prefecture aims to generaJapan is turning to a small German company to generate power from timber irradiated by the 2011 Fukushima No. 1 nuclear meltdowns.
Closely held Entrade Energiesysteme AG will sell electricity from 400 of its container-size biomass-tote 100 percent of its power from renewable energy by 2040.
Entrade’s so-called E4 plants, four of which fit inside a 40-foot (12-meter) container, can reduce the mass of lightly radioactive wood waste by 99.5 percent, according to Uhlig. Shrinking the volume of waste could help Japanese authorities who need to reduce the volume of contaminated materials. Workers around Fukushima have been cleaning by scraping up soil, moss and leaves from contaminated surfaces and sealing them in containers.
“Burning won’t destroy radiation but we can shrink detritus to ash and create a lot of clean power at the same time,” said Uhlig, a former German government employee, in a phone call from Tokyo on Oct. 21. “There’s a lot of excitement about this project but I also detected a high degree of reluctance in Fukushima to talk about radiation.”
The decommissioning of Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings Inc.’s stricken plant is set to take as long as four decades and the government estimates environmental cleanup costs may balloon to ¥3.3 trillion through March 2018.
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said in March that Japan cannot forgo nuclear power. His government wants about a fifth of Japan’s power generated by nuclear by 2030, compared with almost 30 percent before three of the six reactors melted down at the aged Fukushima No. 1 plant.
Currently, just two of the nation’s 42 operable commercial reactors are running, which has translated into higher costs for imported fossil fuels as well as more greenhouse gas emissions.
Germany’s Federal Office for Radiation Protection declined comment on the process of burning radioactive waste in Fukushima.
Entrade’s biomass units will be located about 50 km (31 miles) from the Tepco reactors, said Uhlig.
Entrade’s biomass plants, which rely partly on technology developed by Germany’s Fraunhofer Institute, are “compactors” of lightly irradiated waste, said Uhlig. The “all in the box” technology is attractive to environmentally conscious clients who have a steady stream of bio waste but don’t want to invest in a plant, he said.
Uhlig’s company is cooperating with London’s Gatwick Airport to turn food waste from airlines into power. Royal Bank of Scotland financed another project supplying power from 200 units to an industrial estate near Liverpool, in northwest England.
Entrade has experimented with 130 types of biofuel since beginning operation in 2009. The company claims its plants convert biomass to power with 85 percent efficiency.
“It’s a bit like mixing muesli, taking what’s available from clients or the locality and blending it,” said Uhlig.
Entrade is moving its headquarters to Los Angeles to generate investment capital and help meet demand in the U.S. and Caribbean, he said. The company has 250 units in California and can hardly keep up with demand, Uhlig said.
German Owned Biomass Plants Burning Radioactive Wood For Electricity in Fukushima
Japan to burn irradiated wood to create electricity, releasing gases to the environment AGAIN! Safe disposal?
“Germany’s Federal Office for Radiation Protection declined to comment on the process of burning radioactive waste in Fukushima. Entrade’s biomass units will be located about 50 kilometers (31 miles) from the Tepco reactors, said Uhlig.”
A lone tree inside exclusion zone, close to the devastated Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear plant in February 2016.
Radioactive Fukushima Wood Becomes Power in German Machine
- Entrade contracts 20 megawatts of power sales to Fukushima
- Lighty radiated wood turned to power in 400 biomass plants
Japan is turning to a small German company to generate power from timber irradiated by the Fukushima Dai-Ichi nuclear meltdowns.
Closely held Entrade Energiesysteme AG will sell electricity from 400 of its container-sized biomass-to-power machines set up in Fukushima Prefecture, said the Dusseldorf-based company’s Chief Executive Officer Julien Uhlig. The devices will generate 20 megawatts of power by next year and function like a “biological battery” that kicks in when the sun descends on the the region’s solar panels, he said.
Selling green power with Entrade’s mobile units could support Japanese attempts to repopulate a region that’s struggled to restore normality after the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami killed 18,000 people while also triggering the Fukushima nuclear meltdown that dislocated 160,000 others. The prefecture aims to generate 100 percent of its power from renewable energy by 2040.
Entrade’s so-called E4 plants, four of which fit inside a 40-foot (12-meter) container, can reduce the mass of lightly irradiated wood waste by 99.5 percent, according to Uhlig. Shrinking the volume of waste could help Japanese authorities who need to reduce the volume of contaminated materials. Workers around Fukushima have been cleaning by scraping up soil, moss and leaves from contaminated surfaces and sealing them in containers.
“Burning won’t destroy radiation but we can shrink detritus to ash and create a lot of clean power at the same time,” said Uhlig, a former German government employee, in a phone call from Tokyo on Oct. 21. “There’s a lot of excitement about this project but I also detected a high degree of reluctance in Fukushima to talk about radiation.”
Ballooning Costs
The decommissioning of Tokyo Electric Power Co. Holdings Inc.’s stricken plant is set to take as long as four decades and the government estimates environmental clean-up costs may balloon to $3.3 trillion yen ($31.5 billion) through March 2018.
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said in March that Japan cannot forgo nuclear power. His government wants about a fifth of Japan’s power generated by nuclear by 2030, compared with almost 30 percent before three reactors melted down at the Fukushima plant.
Currently, just two of the nation’s 42 operable nuclear reactors are running, which has translated into higher costs for imported fossil fuels as well as more greenhouse gas emissions.
Germany’s Federal Office for Radiation Protection declined to comment on the process of burning radioactive waste in Fukushima. Entrade’s biomass units will be located about 50 kilometers (31 miles) from the Tepco reactors, said Uhlig.
Like Muesli
Entrade’s biomass plants, which rely partly on technology developed by Germany’s Fraunhofer Institute, are “compactors” of lightly irradiated waste, said Uhlig. The “all in the box” technology is attractive to environmentally-conscious clients who have a steady stream of bio waste but don’t want to invest in a plant, he said.
Uhlig’s company is cooperating with London’s Gatwick Airport to turn food waste from airlines into power. Royal Bank of Scotland financed another project supplying power from 200 units to an industrial estate near Liverpool, U.K.
Entrade has experimented with 130 types of biofuel since beginning operation in 2009. The company claims its plants convert biomass to power with 85 percent efficiency.
“It’s a bit like mixing muesli, taking what’s available from clients or the locality and blending it,” said Uhlig.
Entrade is moving its headquarters to Los Angeles to generate investment capital and help meet demand in the U.S. and Caribbean, he said. The company has 250 units in California and can hardly keep up with demand, Uhlig said.
Miyagi Prefecture to Request Municipalities to Dispose by Incineration the 8,000 Becquerels Below Contaminated Waste
The radioactive waste generated by the TEPCO Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant accident will be disposed in accordance to the contaminated waste standard disposal methods of the country. All to be incinerated in the Miyagi Prefecture existing waste treatment facilities.
First of all, they plan to have incineration tests beginning next year, testing incineration in various municipalities facilities, collecting data during approximately 6 months so as to confirm the safety of the concentration in the incinerated ash. Intending to embark on full-scale incineration from the middle of next year, 2017.
The Miyagi Prefecture summarizes its disposal policy : because the procedure for the disposal of contaminated waste above 8000 becquerels takes a long time, we decided to proceed with the disposal of substandard contaminated waste first.
As a specific method, contaminated waste will be burned while mixed with general waste so as not to exceed again radioactive concentration criteria. In addition, some municipalities which stored large volumes of contaminated waste and may not be able to handle it fully on their own, will get help from other municipalities facilities for disposal.
Next month, the Miyagi Prefecture will open the municipal mayors conference, during which it will the municipalities cooperation.
http://www3.nhk.or.jp/news/html/20161024/k10010741491000.html
Radioactive contaminant levels can’t be read at 31 Fukushima temp waste sites
FUKUSHIMA — It may be impossible to measure the radioactive contaminant concentrations of water leeching from soil and other waste produced by the Fukushima nuclear disaster cleanup at 31 temporary waste storage sites in Fukushima Prefecture due to a planning flaw, a Board of Audit inspection has found.
The cleanup waste is put in bags, put in piles and covered with a waterproof tarp at the temporary disposal sites. These piles are built atop a low convex mound of earth, which is also covered with a tarp and is supposed to funnel the water leeching out of the waste into underground tanks. Contaminant concentration measurements are then taken from these tanks.
However, though many temporary disposal sites have been built on soft ground such as agricultural land, apparently no provisions were made for land subsidence — the earth being pushed down by the pressure of the waste bags — during planning.
The Board of Audit chose 34 of the 106 disposal sites in the prefecture for inspection. The 34 sites were spread across five municipalities, had waste piles five to six bags (or about 5 meters) high, and had been established in the four years up to fiscal 2015. Of these, the earth beneath the waste stack had subsided — going from convex to concave — at 31 sites, meaning contaminated water was also not flowing into the storage tanks. It is possible the water is collecting in the tarps.
There are 15 such sites in the Fukushima Prefecture town of Kawamata, five in the town of Namie, four each in the city of Tamura and the village of Iitate, and three in the town of Naraha. The subsidence of the earth bases hasn’t been confirmed, but the Board of Audit has pointed out that if contaminated water is pooling in the tarps, it could impact future operations to move the waste to a mid-term storage site. It has also called on the Environment Ministry, which operates the sites, to take necessary measures to rectify the problem.
The ministry told the Mainichi Shimbun, “The stacks are designed so that contaminated water won’t escape even if the land underneath subsides, and no harm has been done by the treatment of the water. The waste bags themselves have been replaced with waterproof versions, but we would still like to consider ways to reinforce the ground (under the piles), such as by using sand in the middle.”
http://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20161024/p2a/00m/0na/017000c
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See here the final program of the 12th International #Uranium Film Festival #Rio de Janeiro, May 18 – 28, 2023, Modern Art Museum (MAM Rio) #Cinematheque. uraniumfilmfestival.org/en/rio-2023-pr…
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