Japan’s Reconstruction Agency to Fold in 2021
Japan studies how to support 2011 disaster areas after Reconstruction Agency folds in 2021
Staff are seen at the Reconstruction Agency in Tokyo in February 2017.
The government has started work to determine how to support rebuilding efforts in areas of northeastern Japan hit by the March 2011 earthquake, tsunami and nuclear disaster after the Reconstruction Agency is abolished in March 2021, sources said Tuesday.
The government has started by gathering views from 12 municipalities in Fukushima Prefecture, where a number of residents were forced to evacuate following the triple meltdown at Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings Inc.’s crippled Fukushima No. 1 power plant. The goal is to find out what support the municipalities expect from the central government, according to officials familiar with the matter.
The government aims to establish a basic assistance policy by the end of March 2020, chiefly by determining the roles of an organization that will succeed the agency, the officials said.
The agency was set up in February 2012 to take control of support for reconstruction efforts — particularly in severely damaged areas in the three Tohoku prefectures of Iwate, Miyagi and Fukushima.
It now has some 520 staff to support those affected and back business revitalization. It is also helping with the return of evacuees to their homes in Fukushima.
Legally, the agency cannot exist beyond March 2021, when the government-set reconstruction period for the disaster expires. But affected areas are still struggling. In Fukushima, evacuation advisories remain intact in some areas, prolonging recovery work even further.
The basic support policy and a blueprint for the successor organization will be finalized based on the results of the Fukushima survey, as well as talks with the Iwate and Miyagi prefectural governments and the ruling camp, the officials said.
The government hopes to see necessary legislation pass the Diet in 2020, they added.
One likely scenario regarding the successor body is setting up a department at the Cabinet Office to mainly support reconstruction efforts. But there are calls for creating a government agency to take charge of disaster prevention and reconstruction across the country, critics have said.
Selective abortion and radioactive contamination in Japan
From November 2, 2015
The Great East Japan Earthquake occurred on March 11th 2011. The tsunami reached shore 49 minutes later. Fukushima Daiichi Power Plant was hit and 7 minutes later lost all power and control over the reactors. We know now that 4 hours later, the nuclear meltdown had already started. The first explosion occurred one day after the loss of power.
Tragic environments that a thousands of children with disabilities and sicknesses live with as the result of the mega earthquake and the Tsunami followed by the nuke accident in Fukushima continues. Fukushima Prefecture Health Management Survey reported the results of Thyroid Ultrasound Examination on 7 February 2014. 75 suspicious or malignant cases were found including 34surgical cases, one of benign nodules, 32 papillay adenocarcinoma, one suspicious for poorly differentiated cartinoma. Whenever Japanese parents fume over Fukushima radiation, they stressed their baby’s abnormality as the results of tragedy. And it has been long time debating the parental dilemma whether or not to have a baby from the fear of radiation after 311 in Fukushima.
From April 2013, government approved 26 flagship hospitals to conduct the noninvasive prenatal genetic testing (NIPT) which will results of increasing number of selective abortion of babies with disabilities, as same as phenomenological dilemma people in US were already faced. Many people with disabilities have felt and do feel real threat to life. Violence against people with disability in Japan continues, or accelerates after 311.
Insufficient testing will mean playing radiation roulette for the consumers
Fukushima Pref. to stop blanket radiation checks on rice, start random testing
A woman, left foreground, participates in a tour to experience the blanket screening of Fukushima-produced rice for any radioactive materials.
FUKUSHIMA — The Fukushima Prefectural Government will halt blanket radiation screening of rice produced in the nuclear disaster-hit prefecture in favor of random checks as early as 2020, it has been learned.
Testing all of the prefecture’s annual rice output of some 10 million bags costs 6 billion yen a year. Meanwhile, no cases of rice exceeding the government-set limit of 100 becquerels of radioactive cesium per kilogram have been found in the past three years, according to the prefectural government. However, blanket testing will continue for the time being in areas once subject to evacuation orders in the wake of the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant disaster.
The prefecture set up a panel comprising officials from Japan Agricultural Cooperatives (JA) and consumer group members in July last year to discuss the inspection system. The prefectural government presented the plan to curtail the rice screening on Jan. 18, which was largely agreed to by the panel, and is set to finalize the plan shortly. Random testing has already been introduced for Fukushima Prefecture vegetables and fruits.
When the blanket screening on Fukushima rice began in 2012, there were 71 bags of rice produced that year with radioactive cesium levels exceeding the national limit, accounting for 0.0007 percent of all bags, according to the prefectural government. After natural attenuation of cesium and farmers’ soil management progressed, there were no cases of bags exceeding the limit from 2015 onward, while 99.99 percent of bags dipped under the minimum detection limit of 25 becquerels of cesium per kilogram.
In response, the prefectural government determined that it would be appropriate to switch to random screening after a two- to three-year preparatory period.
As areas where evacuation orders have been lifted are still working to resume rice farming, blanket screening will remain in place in those areas until enough data has been accumulated to guarantee product safety. Farmers who grow rice for their own consumption can have it tested upon their request.
The prefectural government has footed some 5 billion yen of the some 6 billion yen a year needed for the blanket screening, and has demanded plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co. pay the same amount in compensation. The remaining 1 billion yen has been subsidized by the central government.
Fears remain among farmers and distributers, though, over whether the current image of Fukushima rice as “safe as it has been screened” would change to “dangerous unless tested” under the new screening policy.
“I want authorities to come up with ways that allow everyone to feel at ease eating Fukushima rice,” said Hitoshi Saito, 62, a farmer from Date, Fukushima Prefecture. Saito went on to question “how consumers will feel” about the scaling back on the inspection system.
In a questionnaire conducted by the prefectural government last year, 40 percent of farmers in Fukushima requested more efficient screening on locally produced rice, while another 40 percent demanded that blanket testing continue. Ten percent said no screening was necessary.
Shin Nagamine, 43, a farmer from the town of Aizubange, hailed the new policy, but added, “It’s unknown whether consumers will accept it in terms of ‘safety.’ I want the central and prefectural governments to get the word out to the whole country the fact that Fukushima rice is safe and secure.”
Fukushima to scale back rice radiation checks
Fukushima Prefectural Government plans to scale back radiation checks on rice harvested in the prefecture.
FUKUSHIMA – Fukushima Prefectural Government plans to scale back radiation checks on rice harvested in the prefecture, officials said Thursday.
The prefectural government is considering switching to sample tests, from blanket checks on all bags, within a few years for rice produced in areas not close to Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings Inc.’s Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant, the officials said.
But some farmers have sought to keep the full checks in place. The prefectural government aims to make a final decision by the end of March.
Blanket radiation checks began in 2012 following the triple meltdown at the nuclear plant in March 2011.
From the 2012 harvest 71 bags of rice had levels of radiation that exceeded the safety limit, which is set at 100 becquerels per kilogram.
But the number has since declined, and no such bags were found between 2015 and 2017. Taking the results into consideration, the prefectural government has been reviewing the test method to reduce costs and manpower.
Airborne radiation near Fukushima nuke plant still far higher than gov’t max
In this July 27, 2017 file photo, contaminated water storage tanks are seen on the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant grounds, in Okuma, Fukushima Prefecture.
Airborne radiation in “difficult to return” zones around the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant was as high as around 8.48 microsieverts per hour as of summer last year, according to data presented by the government nuclear watchdog on Jan. 17.
The Nuclear Regulation Authority (NRA) released the results of the July-September 2017 measurements at a regular meeting on the day. The highest reading was taken in Futaba, Fukushima Prefecture — one of the municipalities hosting the Fukushima No. 1 plant.
Following the March 2011 triple meltdown, the government set a long-term radiation exposure limit of 1 millisievert per year, which breaks down to an hourly airborne radiation dose of 0.23 microsieverts.
The NRA took airborne radiation readings in the Fukushima Prefecture towns of Futaba, Okuma, Namie and Tomioka, and the village of Katsurao. The highest reading registered in the previous year’s survey was 8.89 microsieverts per hour, in Katsurao.
Some of the NRA members at the Jan. 17 meeting pointed to study results showing that human exposure doses are relatively small compared to airborne doses. Regarding the calculation that an annual dose of 1 millisievert is equivalent to hourly exposure of 0.23 microsieverts, NRA Chairman Toyoshi Fuketa stated, “That was decided right at the start of the nuclear disaster, so it can’t be helped that it’s a cautious number.” He added, “If we don’t revise (that calculation) properly, it could hinder evacuees’ return home.”
Bike Project to Bring Tourists Back to Fukushima
In case you are interested, don’t forget to bring with you a good protective mask to stop you from inhaling radioactive nano particles….
Can this bike project bring tourists back to Fukushima?
(CNN) — It’s been over six years since the northeast coast of Japan’s Honshu island was hit by a devastating earthquake, leading to a deadly tsunami and nuclear disaster.
The hardest hit of all the affected prefectures, Fukushima is still fighting to lure tourists back to its beautiful natural landscapes.
Among the locals helping revive the local travel industry is Jun Yamadera, founder of bike share company Fukushima Wheel, based in the prefecture’s capital of the same name.
“In the year of 2011, we have almost no people,” says Yamadera. “It really hurt my feelings. That’s my main motivation to start this project.”
Like other bike share systems, Fukushima Wheel encourages citizens and tourists to explore the city on a shared bicycle. But there’s so much more to the project.
It also serves as a cost-effective way to collect big data from the city through citizen science. An environmental sensor has been mounted on each bike, measuring data such as radiation levels, temperature, air pollution and more.
The wheels are equipped with LED displays that can be customized to show advertisements.
The project also comes with a complementing smartphone app that doubles as a city guide, offering points-of-interest and discounts to the venues around you. It also measures how much you’ve exercised and carbon emissions.
Fukushima Wheel is still in development stage but it has already received enthusiastic praises from media and tech fairs around the world.
Radioactive debris + methane deadly balloon near Soma elementary school
From Oz Yo January 1, 2018
Haramachi ward, Soma City ~ 50km north of Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant: radioactively contaminated vegetation stored in plastic bags piled up and covered by a tarp. When the organic matter decays it produces methane which has in this case built up inside the well-sealed tarp. There’s an elementary school just beyond this … hopefully no children, or ignorant/reckless adults, will be tempted to ‘experiment’ with this deadly balloon.
Ryan Smith, alias Jon Doe, death in Tokyo
A very sad news.
This morning I just learned from a friend that our Rainbow Warrior Ryan Dale Smith had passed away this mid- December. How sad.
I never had the chance to meet him personally, but I did follow his Jon Doe Youtube videos, which I found quite interesting. I used to enjoy talking to him and looked forward to meeting him someday in Tokyo.
He had reported on Fukushima from inside Japan very courageously since day one during the past years. One of the very few to do it with quality and no nonsense.
Ryan Dale Smith was a rough uncut diamond shining by his wits and his sincerity. His deeply-felt loyalty to the working class shined out.
As Marleen Gillespie says: “Those who care so deeply for the needs of others often suffer from the pain of carying the weight of the world on their shoulders. The blessing they are to the world far too often also leaves a deep, unhealing personal wound. But, they must be treasured for the beautiful blessings they are, not the injury that took them from us.”
His Mother has left a message on his FB page Ryan Dale Smith if anyone wants to pay their respects to her and the family https://www.facebook.com/Jontube
We will miss you Ryan. Peace to your soul on your journey.
My condolences to his wife and daughter, and mother.
Ryan Smith: Father, husband, communist
During the early hours of Tuesday, Dec. 12, Tozen Union member Ryan Smith (aka Jon Doe) passed away. He was 37.
He is survived by his wife, Makiko Kono, his 1-year-old daughter, Kayla, and his mother, Carrie Lester Plaster.
From Athens, West Virginia, Ryan studied journalism at Concord University. He moved to Japan in 2008 and taught English to adults and children.
Ryan loved to talk politics and never missed a chance to declare his commitment to Marxist revolution and his pride in his rural, working-class roots. His YouTube channel has over 1,800 subscribers.
But he loved nothing as much as his tiny daughter, Kayla. Since her birth, nearly every Facebook entry he posted included photos or video of her.
Just a random post on his account since his death gives an idea how loved and missed he is:
“As they lay you to rest this day I can only pray your restless soul is at peace. The impact your life had on so many cannot be ignored. May MK find strength to carry on your memory for Kayla. God speed, Ryan. I know the brightest star in tonight’s sky is you.”
But the best way to capture the man and his spirit is to quote something he wrote on the site two days before his death:
“I don’t believe in God, but I believe that humans have a special spark in them. I don’t believe humans have a soul, but I know there is a common feeling which binds all of humanity.
“I don’t believe in heaven or hell, but I know those who stomp on their fellow human beings have to hide from the rest of us to avoid being hung by a rope in the streets.
“I know right from wrong. I know it’s wrong the way capitalists treat working people. I don’t need a god or soul to understand that capitalists are bad people.”
Fears of children who have to check radiation levels outside before they can go and play
The main problem is internal radiation thru food and drinking, which in this article is not enough emphasized. Plus there is no safe level of manmade radiation.
Almost seven years after the Fukushima disaster, staff are forced to check if schoolyards are too poisonous to play
Pupils have to scan their school playground
Children are still using Geiger counters to test for deadly radiation levels at schools struck by the Fukushima disaster in Japan.
Almost seven years after the worst nuclear meltdown in decades, staff are forced to check if schoolyards are too poisonous to play.
A large Geiger counter in their playground measures the invisible threat still hanging over them after the nearby nuclear plant was hit by an earthquake and engulfed by the ensuing tsunami.
If radiation readings are too high, the children are told they cannot go outside.
Students even have their own handheld devices to check for themselves if schoolyards are too poisonous to play in.
One, 13-year-old Yume, admits what many others also feel. “I’m afraid I’m going to get cancer,” she says bluntly.
Her classmate Mei adds: “Some of the playgrounds near here have been shut – the radiation is too high.”
Device shows readings equal to having a chest x-ray
Explosion at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power station on March 14, 2011
The disaster in March 2011 was the worst nuclear incident in 30 years. Now students spend lessons scanning their school and plotting hotspots on a map back in class.
Ryu, 13, explained: “The trees are where the highest readings are. We picked up 0.23 last month.”
That level is double the 0.1 millisieverts patients face during a chest X-ray, or equal to 50 scans at the dentist.
While those last just seconds, these children are exposed constantly. The Japanese government has declared Fukushima safe, with a 20-mile no-go zone around the crippled power station itself.
Science teacher Takahira Abe, 52, leads workshops designed by Save the Children to educate about the dangers.
He said: “Fukushima will be a shadow these children live with for the rest of their lives. Most were so young life seems normal, but often when we teach them about radiation they get flashbacks.”
Kids in the area are more likely to get cancer
Science teacher Takahira Abe
They are taught about monitoring radiation in local crops and fish.
Mr Abe explains: “I want them to understand the risks – and that they are more likely to get cancers. It gives them tools to protect against further dangers.”
After the disaster Mr Abe and his wife Hiromi decided not to flee – despite protests from their son and daughter, then nine and 13. He said: “The school had a geiger counter for science, so I took readings. Levels were not too high.
“My duties as a teacher were more important. I had to stay and educate others.”
His textbook was created by Save the Children to help those living under a radiation threat. And counsellors have been brought in to help deal with mental health issues.
Mr Abe adds: “That’s one positive – we’re encouraging children to talk openly. That’s not happened before in Japan.”
So, how many Bananas are equal to Chernobyl and Fukushima?: Jim Green on Nuclear Propagandists
The ‘Nuclear for Climate’ lobby group recently attended the United Nations’ COP23 climate conference armed with bananas, in order to make specious comparisons between radiation exposures from eating bananas and routine emissions from nuclear power plants.
One of the reasons the comparison is specious is that some exposures are voluntary, others aren’t. Australian academic Prof. Barry Brook said in the aftermath of the Fukushima disaster: “People don’t understand that they live in an environment that is awash with radiation and they make decisions every day which affect their radiation dose – they hop on an airplane or eat a banana or sit close to the TV.” True – but people choose to hop on an airplane or eat a banana or sit close to the TV, whereas radiation doses from nuclear plants and nuclear accidents are usually involuntary.
Another reason why the comparison made by ‘Nuclear for Climate’ is specious is that it ignores spikes in radioactive emissions during reactor refueling. Radiation biologist Dr Ian Fairlie notes that when nuclear reactors are refueled, a 12-hour spike in radioactive emissions exposes local people to levels of radioactivity up to 500 times greater than during normal operation. The spikes may explain infant leukemia increases near nuclear plants − but operators provide no warnings and take no measures to reduce exposures.
The comparison between bananas and nuclear power plants also ignores the spike in emissions and radiation doses following catastrophic accidents. So, what’s the Banana Equivalent Dose (yes, that’s a thing) of the Chernobyl and Fukushima disasters?
According to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the collective effective dose from Chernobyl was 600,000 person-Sieverts. The UN Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation estimates radiation exposure from the Fukushima disaster at 48,000person-Sieverts.
Combined, exposure from Chernobyl and Fukushima is estimated at 648,000 person-Sieverts. Exposure from eating a banana is estimated at between 0.09-2.3 microSieverts. Let’s use a figure of 0.1 microSievert per banana. Thus, exposure from Chernobyl and Fukushima equates to 6,480,000,000,000 Banana Equivalent Doses – that’s 6.48 trillion bananas or, if you prefer, 6.48 terabananas or 6,480 gigabananas.
End-to-end, that many 15-cm (6-inch) bananas would stretch 972 million kilometres – far enough to reach the sun 6.5 times over, or the moon 2,529 times over.
Potassium cycle
Another reason the comparison made by ‘Nuclear for Climate’ is specious is explained by Dr Gordon Edwards from the Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility:
“[T]he body already has a lot of “natural” potassium including K-40 [which is unavoidable], and any new “natural” potassium ingested is balanced by eliminating a comparable amount of “natural” potassium to maintain the “homeostasis” of the body. In other words the body’s own mechanisms will not allow for a net increase in potassium levels – and therefore will not allow for an increase in K-40 content in the body.
“Here’s what the Oak Ridge Associated Universities has to say; (ORAU was founded in 1946 as the Oak Ridge Institute of Nuclear Studies.): ‘The human body maintains relatively tight homeostatic control over potassium levels. This means that the consumption of foods containing large amounts of potassium will not increase the body’s potassium content. As such, eating foods like bananas does not increase your annual radiation dose. If someone ingested potassium that had been enriched in K-40, that would be another story.’
“The same argument does not work for radioactive caesium, or for any of the radioactive pollutants given off by a nuclear power plant, because most of these materials do not exist in nature at all – and those that do exist in nature are not subject to the same homeostatic mechanism that the body uses to control potassium levels. Consequently any foodstuffs or beverages containing radioactive caesium or other man-made radioactive pollutants will cause an additional annual dose of ionizing radiation to the person so exposed.”
Likewise, Linda Gunter explained in a 16 November 2017 article:
“At the COP23 Climate Talks currently underway in Bonn, a group calling itself Nuclear for Climate, wants you to slip on their false banana propaganda and fall for their nonsensically unscientific notion that bananas are actually more dangerous than nuclear power plants! I am not making this up. Here is the picture.
“The oxymoronic Nuclear for Climate people are handing out bananas complete with a sticker that reads: “This normal, every-day banana is more radioactive than living near a nuclear power plant for one year.” …
“If you smell something rotten in this banana business, you are right. So let’s peel off the propaganda right now. In short, when you eat a banana, your body’s level of potassium-40 doesn’t increase. You just get rid of some excess potassium-40. The net dose of a banana is zero.
“To explain in more detail, the tiny radiation exposure due to eating a banana lasts only for a few hours after ingestion, namely the time it takes for the normal potassium content of the body to be regulated by the kidneys. Since our bodies are under homeostatic control, the body’s level of potassium-40 doesn’t increase after eating a banana. The body just gets rid of some excess potassium-40.
“The banana bashers don’t want you to know this and instead try to pretend that the potassium in bananas is the same as the genuinely dangerous man-made radionuclides ‒ such as cesium-137 and strontium-90 ‒ that are released into our environment from nuclear power facilities, from atomic bomb tests and from accidents like Fukushima and Chernobyl.
“These radioactive elements, unlike the potassium-40 in bananas, are mistaken by the human body for more familiar elements. For example, ingested radioactive strontium-90 replaces stable calcium, and ingested radioactive cesium-137 replaces stable potassium. These nuclides can lodge in bones and muscles and irradiate people from within. This is internal radiation and can lead to very serious, long-lasting and trans-generational health impacts.”
An unfortunate incident in Goiania, Brazil in September 1987 illustrates the hazards of cesium-137, a fission product. Two people stole a radiotherapy source from a disused medical clinic. A security guard did not show up to work that day; he went instead to the cinema to see ‘Herbie Goes Bananas‘. The radiotherapy source contained 93 grams of cesium-137. It was sold to a junkyard dealer. Many people were exposed to the radioactive cesium and they spread the contamination to other sites within and beyond the town. At least four people died from exposure to the radiation source and, according to the IAEA, “many others” suffered radiation injuries. Those injured included eight patients who required surgical debridments, amputation of the digital extremities and plastic skin grafts. The incident was rated Level 5 (‘Accident with Off Site Risk’) on the 7-point International Nuclear Event Scale.
Terrorists don’t arm themselves with bananas
There is a long history of nuclear power plants being used directly and indirectly in support of nuclear weapons programs. Bananas are of no interest to nuclear weapons proliferators. There’s no Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Bananas, no Comprehensive Test Banana Treaty, no Anti-Banana Missile Treaty. Kim Jong-un and Donald Trump aren’t threatening each other with bananas; not yet, at least.
Nuclear historian Paul Langley notes that terrorists don’t arm themselves with bananas:
“The potassium cycle in humans is no excuse for nuclear authorities anywhere on the planet to claim any benefit or natural precedent for the marketing of nuclear industry emissions contaminated food.
“The fission products are not nutrients. Do not eat them. The nuclear industry promises to keep its radioactive sources sealed. When the industry invariably fails in this undertaking, it turns around and claims that the residue of its pollution is like a banana. Crap. The residue is like the residue of a rad weapon. Fact. It’s the same stuff. Terrorists do not attempt to arm themselves with bananas. They are not dangerous.
“Radio Strontium, Radio Iodine, Radio cesium have NO PLACE in food. Nuke is not clean, it is not green and it relies on lies it has concocted over decades. … The more the nuclear industry claims eating plutonium, strontium, cesium, iodine and other fuel and fission products is OK because bananas exist and because the potassium is a needed nutrient, the more I consider them to be blatant liars.”
Fukushima Nuclear Waste Crisis Is Getting Bigger With Every Passing Day
Youtube: https://youtu.be/zJCumRBl-w4
Nuclear waste storages in Namie, Minamisoma and Iitate, Fukushima prefecture in Japan. Adopting a return to normal policy, the Japanese government undertook an unprecedented decontamination program for areas of Fukushima contaminated by the triple reactor meltdown in March 2011. Fukushima prefecture is 70 percent mountainous forest which has not and cannot be decontaminated, with decontamination efforts focussed along roads and in towns, farmland and in narrow areas around peoples houses. The result has been that the Japanese authorities have produced a nuclear waste crisis, with over 7 million tons of waste located in 147,000 locations (as of August 2017). The Japanese government is determined to force people back to their homes despite the on-going radiation risks and the vast volumes of nuclear waste.
5 more minors in Fukushima Pref. at time of nuclear accident diagnosed with thyroid cancer
FUKUSHIMA — Five more people in Fukushima Prefecture who were 18 and under at the time of the 2011 nuclear accident were diagnosed with thyroid cancer as of the end of September this year, a prefectural investigative commission announced at a Dec. 25 meeting.
Fukushima Prefecture established the commission to examine the health of residents after the March 2011 triple meltdown at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant. A total of 159 Fukushima prefectural residents who were aged 18 and under when the meltdowns occurred have now been diagnosed with thyroid cancer.
The commission stated on Dec. 25 that “it is difficult to think the cases are related to radiation exposure” from the disaster.
Town of Futaba kicks off radiation cleanup with eye on 2022 revival
Decontamination work begins Monday in the town of Futaba, Fukushima Prefecture, to make it habitable again by spring 2022 under a government-led reconstruction project.
FUKUSHIMA – Cleanup work kicked off Monday to make radiation-tainted Futaba, one of the towns hosting the meltdown-hit Fukushima No. 1 power plant, habitable again by around spring 2022 under a government-led recovery project.
Cleanup and demolition crews are trying to decontaminate the town, which was tainted with fallout from the plant’s triple core meltdown after the March 2011 mega-quake and tsunami. The plant’s operator, Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings Inc., is shouldering the cost.
The work at Futaba marks the beginning of a series of government-led projects to make areas designated as special reconstruction zones livable again, with an emphasis on new infrastructure.
About 96 percent of Futaba has been designated as “difficult to return to” zone, and an evacuation advisory is still in place for the entire town, which hosts the stricken power plant with neighboring Okuma.
The cleanup will be concentrated in the special reconstruction zone, which covers 555 hectares accounting for 11 percent of Futaba.
“The reconstruction efforts will help motivate residents to return to their homes,” Futaba Mayor Shiro Izawa told officials involved in the project.
“We want you to carry out the work while thinking about the feelings of the citizens awaiting the day they can return,” he said.
Overseen by the Environment Ministry, the first steps will involve removing the top layer of soil in the area near Futaba Station, trimming grass along the streets, and dismantling nearly 60 houses and public facilities.
Along with Futaba, seven municipalities in Fukushima Prefecture have been designated as zones that are difficult to return to.
The government is aiming to lift the evacuation advisory near Futaba station by the end of March 2020, when the Joban Line plans to fully resume operation.
Some evacuees from Futaba had mixed emotions about the start of the work.
A 69-year-old woman residing in a temporary shelter in Iwaki said that her house is in the special reconstruction zone but that she had given up hope of returning because she evacuated over six years ago.
“If this was two or three years after the disaster, I might have a choice to return. But my house became run-down and I got old. Realistically speaking, I don’t think I can live there now,” she said.
On the other hand, Masamichi Matsumoto, who also fled to Iwaki, welcomed the project, saying, “I’m glad that a step has been taken to rebuild the town for the future.”
He said it is unlikely many citizens will return, partly because a nearby facility will be storing contaminated soil collected from the cleanup work.
“But I hope that Futaba will become a town where people can visit some day,” Matsumoto, 54, added.
Nuclear Waste Crisis in Fukushima is a Human Rights Issue
Nuclear waste storage area in Iitate, Fukushima prefecture in Japan (Oct 2017).
Traditional early morning Japanese breakfast, briefing on objectives, equipment check and drive into the beautiful mountainous forests of this region: this is the daily routine that will allow us to complete our latest investigation into the radiological status in some of the most contaminated areas of Fukushima prefecture.
But there is nothing normal about the routine in Fukushima.
Nearly seven years after the triple reactor meltdown, this unique nuclear crisis is still underway. Of the many complex issues resulting from the disaster, one in particular may have become routine but is anything but normal: the vast amounts of nuclear waste, stored and being transported across Fukushima prefecture.
A satellite image shows damage at Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant In Fukushima Prefecture (March 2011).
As a result of the Fukushima Daiichi accident, gases and particulates which vented into the atmosphere, led to radioactive fallout greater than 10,000 becquerels per square meter contaminating an estimated 8 percent, or 24,000 square kilometers, of the landmass of Japan. The highest concentrations (greater than 1 million becquerels per meter square) centered in an area more than than 400 square kilometers within Fukushima prefecture.
In the period 2013-14, the Japanese government set about a decontamination program with the objective of being able to lift evacuation orders in the Special Decontaminated Area (SDA) of Fukushima prefecture. Other areas of Fukushima and other prefectures where contamination was lower but significant were also subject to decontamination efforts in the so called Intensive Contamination Survey Area (ICSA).
Two areas of the SDA in particular were subject to concentrated efforts between 2014-2016, namely Iitate and Namie. A total of 24-28,000 people formally lived in these areas, with all evacuated in the days and months following the March 2011 disaster.
The decontamination program consisted of scraping, reverse tillage and removal of top soil from farmland, stripping and removal of soil from school yards, parks and gardens, trimming and cutting of contaminated trees and plants in a 20 meter area around peoples homes, and the same along a 10-15 meter strip either side of the roads, including into the nearby forests.
Aerial view of nuclear waste storage area in the mountainous forests of Iitate, Fukushima prefecture in Japan (Oct 2017).
This program involved millions of work hours and tens of thousands workers (often Fukushima citizens displaced by the earthquake, tsunami and reactor meltdown), and often homeless and recruited off the streets of cities, and exploited for a wage of 70 dollars a day to work long hours in a radioactive environment. All this for a man-made nuclear disaster officially estimated at costing 21 trillion yen but with other estimates as high as 70 trillion yen.
As of March 2017, the decontamination program was officially declared complete and evacuation orders were lifted for the less contaminated areas of Namie and Iitate, so called area 2. The even higher radiation areas of Iitate and Namie, Area 3, and where no decontamination program has been applied, remain closed to habitation.
In terms of effectiveness, radiation levels in these decontaminated zones have been reduced in many areas but there are also multiple examples where levels remain significantly above the governments long range target levels. In addition to where decontamination has been only partially effective, the principle problem for Iitate and Namie is that the decontamination has created islands where levels have been reduced, but which are surrounded by land, and in particular, forested mountains, for which there is no possible decontamination. Forests make up more than 70% of these areas.
As a consequence, areas decontaminated are subject to recontamination through weathering processes and the natural water and lifecycle of trees and rivers. Given the half life of the principle radionuclide of concern – cesium-137 at 30 years – this will be an on-going source of significant recontamination for perhaps ten half lives – or 300 years.
Greenpeace documents the ongoing radioactive decontamination work in Iitate district, Japan. The area is still contaminated since the March 2011 explosions at the Fukushima Dai-Ichi nuclear power plant (July 2015).
So apart from the decontamination not covering the largest areas of significant contamination in the forested mountains of Fukushima, and in reality only a small fraction of the total landmass of contaminated areas, the program has generated almost unimaginable volumes of nuclear waste. According to the Japanese Government Ministry of Environment in its September 2017 report, a total of 7.5 million nuclear waste bags (equal to 8.4 million m³) from within the SDA was in storage across Fukushima.
A further 6 million m³ of waste is generated in the ICSA within Fukushima prefecture (but not including waste produced from the wider ICSA which stretches from Iwati prefecture in the north to Chiba in the south on the outskirts of Tokyo). In total nuclear waste generated from decontamination is stored at over 1000 Temporary Storage Sites (TSS) and elsewhere at 141,000 locations across Fukushima.
The Government projects a total of 30 million m³ of waste will be generated, of which 10 million is to be incinerated, generating 1 million cubic meters of highly contaminated ash waste. Options to use some of the less contaminated waste in construction of walls and roads is actively under consideration.
Government policy is for all of this waste to be deposited at two sites north of the Fukushima Daiichi plant at Okuma and Futaba – both of which remain closed to habitation at present but which are targeted for limited resettlement as early as 2021. Although the facilities are not completed yet, they are supposed to be in operation only for 30 years – after which the waste is to be deposited in a permanent site. The reality is there is no prospects of this waste being moved to another permanent site anywhere else in Japan.
As we conducted our radiation survey work across Fukushima in September and October 2017, it was impossible not to witness the vast scale of both the waste storage areas and the volume of nuclear transports that are now underway. Again the numbers are numbing.
Aerial view of a nuclear waste incinerator in Namie, Fukushima prefecture in Japan (Sept 2017).
In the space of one hour standing in a main street of Iitate village, six nuclear waste trucks passed us by. Not really surprising since in the year to October over 34,000 trucks moved nuclear waste across Fukushima to Okuma and Futaba. The target volume of waste to be moved to these sites in 2017 is 500,000 m³. And this is only the beginning. By 2020, the Government is planning for as much as 6.5 million m³ of nuclear waste to be transported to the Futaba and Okuma sites – a rough estimate would mean over one million nuclear transports in 2020.
On any measure this is insanity – and yet the thousands of citizens who formally lived in Namie and Iitate are expected and pressurized by the Japanese government to return to live amidst this nuclear disaster zone.
A contaminated house being demolished in Namie town, Fukushima prefecture (Sept 2017).
Perhaps one of the most shocking experience in our visit to Fukushima was to witness a vast incineration complex hidden deep in the woods of southern Iitate and a nearby vast storage area with tens of thousands of waste bags surrounded on all sides by thick forests. The tragic irony of a multi-billion dollar and ultimately failed policy of decontamination that has unnecessarily exposed thousands of poorly protected and desperate workers to radiation – but which leads to a vast nuclear dump surrounded by a radioactive forest which that can never be decontaminated.
There is no logic to this, unless you are a trucking and incineration business and of course the Japanese government, desperate to create the myth of recovery after Fukushima. On this evidence there is no ‘after’, only ‘forever’.
This new abnormal in Fukushima is a direct result of the triple reactor meltdown and a cynical government policy that prioritizes the unattainable fantasy of effective radioactive decontamination, while de-prioritising the safety, health and well being of the people of Fukushima.
The nuclear waste crisis underway in Fukushima is only one of the many reasons why the Japanese government was under scrutiny at the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) in Geneva last month. Recommendations were submitted to the United Nations by the governments of Austria, Mexico, Portugal and Germany at the calling on the Japanese government to take further measures to support the evacuees of Fukushima, in particular women and children.
The Government in Tokyo is to announce its decision on whether it accepts or rejects these recommendations at the United Nations in March 2018. Greenpeace, together with other human rights groups and civil society in Japan are calling on the government to accept that it has failed to defend the rights of its citizens and to agree to implement corrective measures immediately.
Shaun Burnie is a senior nuclear specialist with Greenpeace Germany
The Occupation and Glass Badges
It is an article five years ago. But very important so I will post again.
—”Why are children and pregnant women, who are not inside nuclear power plants, wearing these badges? The proposal came from the National Cancer Center of Japan, which suggested to both central and Fukushima regional governments the use of dosimeters “to calm the anxiety of the children and their guardians.”
by TOMOE NAGANO
(日本語による原文は下記に掲載）
Today, children in Fukushima are mandated to wear radiation dosimeters called ‘glass badges.’ Some of the regional governments also require pregnant women to wear them. They are a durable, modified version of film badges, one of three main types of radiation monitors: -alarm meters, film badges, and pocket dosimeters – all used by the workers in nuclear power plants.
Why are children and pregnant women, who are not inside nuclear power plants, wearing these badges? The proposal came from the National Cancer Center of Japan, which suggested to both central and Fukushima regional governments the use of dosimeters “to calm the anxiety of the children and their guardians.” The Cancer Center, prior to giving badges to children, had monitored radiation exposure on public health nurses who went to the vicinity of the Fukushima Daiichi to give medical care to the residents. Under this project, the nurses, most of whom are women, were turned into radiation monitoring devices. The Center’s official report of the project clearly states that “[the public health nurses are] to become representatives of local residents for monitoring radioactivity.”1 Since the nurses had capacity to go about every single house in the region to check health condition of the residents, the Cancer Center supposedly tried to check radiation exposure of the people by taking advantage of their role.
Every three months, the glass badges are collected from the people by various research institutions, universities and specialized companies2, who then would gather the data to report to the Cancer Center. However, aside from collecting the data, the Center as well as any other governmental agencies never give the people any advice as to how to protect themselves from exposure to radiation and how they can deal with health damages caused by radioactive materials. After reporting the levels of exposure, they neglect to offer any health management and support and leave them up to local governments. On the other hand, there is a person who advocates a very simple method to protect oneself from radiation; the representative being Dr. Shun-ichi Yamashita. His simple and honest advise is: “you will not get damage of radiation as long as you are smiling. You only do if you worry.” (There is a Japanese saying ‘Fancy may kill or cure’ – the very word that the former PM Yasuhiro Nakasone had said during his visit to Hiroshima Atom bomb casualty Hospital, trying to calm the minds of hibakusha he met there. Nakasone, known to have passed the very first budget for nuclear power plants in Japan during his term, always promoted nuclear energy.
Being a hibakusha nisei or the son of a hibakusha, Shun-ichi Yamashita is a doctor with various entitlements, who took the position of the Radiation Risk Advisor in Fukushima after 3/11, then was appointed for the vice president of the Fukushima Medical College. He also received the 2011 “Asahi Cancer Award,” which is supposed to be given to those who contributed to cancer treatment, presented by Japan Cancer Society, many of whose faculty are appointed from the National Cancer Center. This particular award was co-presented by the relatively liberal newspaper Asahi Shimbin, which came as a surprise and disgust to many, especially since Yamashita’s overly unscientific remarks had been a topic of ridicule even among mass-media.
As I described above, the residents of Fukushima today are made into the subjects of human experiments by the Japanese government, research institutions as well as mass-media that support their stance. In a TV report by WDR (Westdeutscher Rundfunk) in Germany, a school teacher, who hands out the glass badges to his pupils, says: “I’m not happy with these dosimeters. They are going to turn our students into study subjects. The dosimeters only accumulate data in them, instead of displaying the levels of radiation. I wish they were radiation alarms which warn you when you have to get out of the area.”
The people of Fukushima are expropriated of their health data without being provided with care or treatment. The very situation reminds me of what had been done to hibakushas in Hiroshima and Nagasaki under the US military occupation.
In August 1945, atomic bombs were dropped in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, thereby many people were killed and exposed to radiation through the thermic rays and radiation. About a year later, the occupying US military under the order of Harry Truman founded ABCC (Atomic Bomb Casualty Commission) under auspices of the military regime, in order to prepare for the future nuclear wars. At the newly set-up research facility in Hiroshima, ABCC began researching the effects of radiation on human bodies. The United States Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) stated as follows: “The bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki provided an exceptional and unique opportunity to monitor the effects of radiation on human groups.3” Although the ABCC collected data and human biological samples from the victims, they never provided any kind of treatment. The focus of their research was the effects on DNA. And this required the development of dynamic statistics of population, the institutionalization of pregnancy/birth registration and the establishment of public health office. Therein, crucially needed for the research was the role of mid-wives, who were to be ordered to record and report in detail the conditions of pregnancy, birth, and the newborn, and if they were safely delivered or miscarried. The research was also targeted on pregnant women and children of the resident ethnic Koreans and other foreigners. It goes without saying that the Japanese government was co-opted to this crime.
A woman from Fukushima stated at a rally last summer: “the people of Fukushima have become the subjects of a nuclear experiment. Vast amount of radioactive waste will remain. In spite of the huge sacrifice, the clout of the proponents of nuclear power prevails. We have been abandoned. (…) We are ‘the demons of the northeast’ quietly burning flames of wrath.” There are quite many who understand the meaning of having glass badges attached on their bodies. Thus the people in Fukushima ought to become demons. Not another person, child or woman should be exploited by the development of nuclear military industrial complex.4
We must recall the following phrases over and over again:
It was not that the victims were never given explanation about the research. However, one might wonder if there were any agreements between the researchers and the victims over the purpose of the research. What kind of resulting reports were given to the victims? Were they ever informed how the results from the experiments were used?
During the time [of the nuclear research], no adults ever accused the cruelty of the bomb causality research, nor they told their children what it meant. In this sense, the adults were responsible as well.
(from Masao Sasamoto, Atom-Bomb Research Under the US Military Occupation)
2 One of the companies, Chiyoda Technol, is a corporation whose facility is build in Rokkasho, Aomori Prefecture, under the support from both Central and Aomori governments. They are proponents of nuclear energy.
3 Hewlett, Richard G. and Oscar E. Anderson Jr. The New World, 1939-1946, (History of the United States Atomic Energy Commission, Vol.1), University Park, 1962.
4 In Manhattan Project even before the dropping of the atomic bombs, the people were made into subject of human experiments where they were injected with plutonium to see its effects. (Albuquerque Tribune, Manhattan Project: Human Plutonium Injection Experiments)
Fukushima radioactive contamination: Children nosebleed while asleep and also in daytime, especially after playing in the sand!
Soil contamination survey: 80% of schools have amazing figures!!
The government and Fukushima prefecture do not measure the soil contamination, and lifted the evacuation order one after another, as “external radiation dose has come down to less than 20 mSv/year.” Besides that, Fukushima prefecture closed off in March 2017 the free housing support for voluntary evacuees. “Voluntary evacuees” are evacuees who are evacuating from areas outside the evacuation order zone. The exact number is not grasped and it is estimated to be about 17 thousand people.
For voluntary evacuees, there is no mental reparation from TEPCO, which is paid to forced refugees, 100,000 yen (～1000 $) per month, so only the free provision of housing is a lifeline. Many people will not be able to continue the evacuation life if this is cut off.
Sakamoto says, “The prefecture officials repeatedly said at the briefing session for borrowed housing termination,” We do not know about contamination of the soil, because there are people living in Fukushima. ” But this contamination situation of soil extraordinary. We, the residents in Fukushima, cannot protect ourselves if our prefecture does not clarify the details of soil contamination.”
In Fukushima prefecture, accurate information was not given to residents after the accident. Some people evacuated in the direction of radioactive plum, and many stayed outdoors for a long time in order to get water and food.
Sakamoto’s second daughter was healthy until the nuclear accident, but for some time after the accident, she suffered from symptoms such as nosebleeds, diarrhea and anemia.
“There are so many people who regret that they allowed their children exposed at that time. We hear that the staff of Fukushima Medical University took iodine, which was not given to residents. We never want children to be exposed. “(Sakamoto)
The government and the Fukushima prefecture evaluate the safety only by external radiation dose. Mr. Kono of the citizen environment research institute also alarms the danger of the evaluation.
“Since radioactive material that fell on the ground enters the soil with the passage of time, the radiation dose of the space is shielded by the soil. But it will not be eliminated from the ground and radioactive substances attached to the fine particles soar up and move. Decontaminated ground will be contaminated again and you may suck in and have internal exposure. In fact you do an exact soil survey and decontaminate the place where people live as many times as you can. If the prefecture can not decontaminate, it should give the right to emigrate to people who want to move. It is presumed to be because they do not want to reveal the seriousness of pollution that the government and prefecture do not investigate soil contamination in detail. “
Medical Doctor Ushiyama, clinical professor of Shimane University, and in charge of medical departments at Sagami Hospital, who visits medical sites in Chernobyl often, also said, “To judge safety only by radiation dose in space ignores the risk of internal radiation exposure when radioactive substances are taken into the body. “
In fact, Mr. Sawada (Fukushima-city) who found that cesium was detected from the urine of her child and she is exposed to internal radiation said:
“I was pregnant when a nuclear accident took place 5 years ago. and I evacuated to Yamagata with my 2-year-old daughter. I gave birth at Yamagata and was struggling to raise children by myself. However, since her eldest daughter became emotionally unstable and wanted to return home, I returned home in January 2014. In Fukushima city, the eldest daughter came to take a nosebleed after playing sand. Nosebleed in asleep and in daytime, and my second daughter also took nosebleed after playing outside.
Now that her eldest daughter became first grade in primary school and she does not play sand, it’s gone … …. “
Mr. Sawada says that if children have nosebleed from now on, they will think about evacuation again.
Mr. Endo (Minamisoma city) also talks like this.
“Radioactive dust is terrible because heavy duty trucks carrying decontamination soil and gravel frequently comes and goes back and forth around the school. Her son who goes to the nursery school is picked up by car, but her elder brother goes to
school by bicycle. I worry that my son will inhale the radioactive dust … ”
According to a survey group, soil contamination was 449,000 Bq / square meteron the school road in Minamisoma where Mr. Endo lives (around Ishigami 2nd elementary school) . In Fukushima city where Sawada lives, 480,000 Bq / square meter (around Fukushima Daiichi Junior High School) was detected. Ushiyama mentioned that Both the contamination is the value corresponding to the “move rights area” in Belarus ‘(Chernobyl).
“Even a trace amount of radioactive substances taken into the body continue to emit radiation irradiate the organs within the body until it is discharged. It いｓl be difficult to get out when the radioactive substance enters the lungs. I heard from a Belarusian doctor that there is a possibility that bladder cancer increased by excretion of radioactive substance in the urine. The accumulation in genital organs is also concerned about the influence on the next generation. , It has also been reported that the abnormality worsened if insects are grown with bait contaminated with radioactive materials. “
Mothers are exhausted ｂｙ the irresponsible constitution of the government and the prefecture and the social pressures that force to consider “Don’t worry, Fukushima accident never happened, everything is all right.”
Terumi Kataoka who told me the story that removed the slide says.
“Aizu is believed to have little pollution, but it depends on the location.In Aizu Wakamatsu City, the mayor has declared the safety declaration earlier so it is not even decontaminated.If you want the mayor to decontaminate previously If we asked, “Although tourists are returning, if we decontaminate now, both original and child will be lost” was rejected ”
1 This Month
To see nuclear-related stories in greater depth and intensity – go to https://nuclearinformation.wordpress.com/
12 February – Webinar The Big Push: New Nuclear Projects in Canada
Thursday, February 12, 7 pm Eastern | 2nd of 4 sessions in the 2026 Nuclear Waste Online webinar series
Join a webinar on the push for new nuclear generation in Canada. Go to Northwatch.org to register or use the registration link https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_ZfWOf1GITqSRIZX8CB-A9w
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