Kan to tell Fukushima some areas near nuclear plant remain no-go zone
TOKYO (Kyodo) — Prime Minister Naoto Kan said Monday he intends to visit Fukushima Prefecture, which hosts the radiation-leaking Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, as early as Saturday and explain to local officials and residents that some areas near the plant will remain no-go zones for a long time.
Kan is expected to seek local approval of his government’s plan to keep certain areas exposed to high levels of radiation around the plant as no-go zones even after a “cold shutdown” of the plant’s damaged reactors is achieved, while briefing them on measures to help evacuees in the future, government sources said.
“We cannot deny the possibility that there would be some areas where it would be hard for residents to return to their homes over a long period of time,” Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano said in a news conference.
The top government spokesman said a final decision on the no-entry designation for some areas within 20 kilometers of the plant will be made after considering the outcome of a detailed radiation monitoring and decontamination plan, and consulting with the local communities.
Edano declined to say which areas would remain no-go zones and for how long.
On the idea of the government buying up land in long-term restricted areas or compensating owners of such land through a leasing arrangement, he said the government has yet to decide if it would do so and is studying whether decontamination will work for such areas.
The science ministry released its estimate Friday of annual accumulated radiation exposure. Ministry data showed that over 100 millisieverts of radiation exposure were expected for 15 out of 50 surveyed points in the no-go zone, exceeding the International Commission on Radiological Protection’s guideline of 20-100 millisieverts even at the time of an emergency.
The government will hold a meeting of its nuclear emergency response headquarters Friday to decide a basic policy on decontamination of areas near the radiation-leaking power plant, nuclear disaster minister Goshi Hosono said Monday.
According to the outline of the government’s basic policy on the matter, decontamination will be implemented with a long-term target of limiting the level of annual radiation exposure at 1 millisieverts or below.
The government’s headquarters on nuclear emergency is expected to present how the decontamination work will be implemented as methods of decontamination are expected to vary depending on the types of places to be decontaminated, such as roads and parks, and who will be in charge of the work.
The government has set a target deadline for completing the “Step 2” phase which includes achieving the cold shutdown by January.
Kyodo, August 22, 2011
http://mdn.mainichi.jp/mdnnews/national/archive/news/2011/08/22/20110822p2g00m0dm045000c.html
Radiation fears hit Fukushima on multiple fronts
FUKUSHIMA — This summer, some parks in this prefecture are devoid of children, parents having sent them on programs far away so they can play outside without worrying about radiation from the Fukushima No. 1 Nuclear Power Plant.
On Aug. 8, a group of 14 elementary and junior-high students were boarding a bus in the city of Date, one city where areas with high levels of radiation have been measured. The students had been invited by a prefectural support group to a two-week program in Aichi Prefecture in the southwest, where they would enjoy swimming and other sporting events. Many other support groups have organized similar programs.
Hiroaki Nagasho, 36, who sent his young daughter to participate in the Aichi trip, said, “I wanted to let her play outside as much as she wanted and release built-up stress.”
A 41-year-old woman who had two daughters participating said, “I’m worried about what to do after they come back. It’s not easy to move them to another school.”
As of July 15, 7,672 elementary and junior high school students had been transferred to schools out of the prefecture. During the summer break, which is continuing now, an additional 1,081 were set for transfers. Furthermore, around 2,000 children at private kindergartens have been moved out of the prefecture.
As of July 28, the total number of people that had evacuated from the prefecture was at 48,903.
Tourism has also been hit hard. Normally, through educational field trips, Fukushima Prefecture is visited by about 8,000 groups a year for a total of around 700,000 visitors (counting repeat visitors as separate people.)
However, the Fukushima Prefecture Tourism & Local Products Association expects a 95 percent drop in those visitors this fiscal year. They say that even reservations for two to three years in the future are starting to be canceled.
Another area where the prefecture is hurting is in sales of its peach crop. Fukushima Prefecture is second only to Yamanashi Prefecture in its production of peaches, and now is peak harvesting season, but distrust of Fukushima products is dealing a heavy blow to sales. According to a Fukushima city tourism and agriculture organization, the peaches are being left off of department stores catalogs for the summer gift-giving period, and sales of peach gifts have fallen greatly.
Visitors are also sparse at shops and fruit orchards along “Fruit Line,” a road in Fukushima city developed for tourism. Shinichi Katahira, chair of the tourism and agriculture organization, thinks the visitors during this year’s Obon holiday were about one-tenth of what they were last year.
One orchard owner, Atsushi Konno, 59, said, “Peach trees don’t wait. They just keep producing,” as he continued picking fruits.
Mainichi Shimbun , August 21, 2011
http://mdn.mainichi.jp/mdnnews/national/archive/news/2011/08/21/20110821p2a00m0na004000c.html
Estimated yearly radiation dosage hits 508 mSv in town near nuke plant
High radiation levels of up to 508.1 millisieverts per year are estimated for areas within a 20-kilometer radius of the crisis-hit Fukushima No. 1 Nuclear Power plant in figures released by the government on Aug. 19.
The figures, released by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, are the first publicly released estimate of the yearly accumulated radiation dosage in 50 locations across eight municipalities in the 20-kilometer radius zone.
The highest figure was for the Koirino district of Okuma, Fukushima Prefecture, where the estimated yearly dosage was 508.1 millisieverts — over 500 times the acceptable yearly level of 1 millisievert per year for artificial radiation dosage. The district is three kilometers west-southwest of the plant.
The figures are based on measurements taken at the 50 locations and a person being indoors for 16 hours and outdoors for eight hours every day. Estimations for March 12 through to Aug. 11 were based on those days’ actual measurements. For Aug. 12 through to the end of the one year period, the average doses estimated from Aug. 9 and 11, the most recent data, were assumed to continue.
At 35 points, the level exceeded 20 millisieverts per year. The yearly radiation dosage at seven spots in the town of Okuma was estimated at over 100 millisieverts.
The Koirino district of Okuma was also highest for the most up-to-date estimate of hourly dosage, with 75 microsieverts per hour. That figure is below the 200 microsievert-per-hour figure used by the government as a basis for deciding whether residents can make short visits to their homes.
Other areas to receive high yearly estimates included the Kawabusa district of the town of Namie — 20 kilometers northwest of the nuclear plant — with 223.7 millisieverts per year, and the Nagatsuka district of Futaba — five kilometers north-northwest of the plant — with 172.4 millisieverts per year. However, in the Kitakiyohashi district of Namie, eight kilometers north of the plant, the level was 4.1 millisieverts per year, showing that radiation levels can vary greatly even within the same town.
Yoshihisa Matsumoto, an associate professor of radiobiology at the Tokyo Institute of Technology, said work to decontaminate the area will likely prove difficult.
“At the areas with high levels, the radiation exposure exceeds the amount that astronauts are exposed to during long stays on the International Space Station (about 1 millisievert per day), so decontamination is necessary for people to live there, but with radioactive materials spread all over in a wide area, the work will probably be very difficult. With regard to people making short visits to their homes, I don’t think they will be adversely affected if they are only there for a few hours,” he said.
Mainichi Shimbun , August 20, 2011
http://mdn.mainichi.jp/mdnnews/national/archive/news/2011/08/20/20110820p2a00m0na009000c.html
Radiation fears bring psychological stress to Fukushima residents
FUKUSHIMA — Residents of Fukushima Prefecture are increasingly visiting psychiatrists complaining of sleeplessness or the inability to concentrate as they worry about the effects of leaked radiation from the Fukushima No. 1 Nuclear Power Plant, the Mainichi has learned.
One housewife in her 40s in the city of Fukushima told the Mainichi she was afraid of the effects of radiation on her 4-year-old son. Relatively high radiation levels have been measured in the area where she lives, but she doesn’t want to move out of her new house, which she had built just last year. While agonizing over whether or not to evacuate, she started getting severe headaches, stiff shoulders, and heart palpations. This month she visited a psychiatrist and was diagnosed with an anxiety disorder. She is now taking prescription medicine to reduce her anxiety.
The stress is also affecting children. In the city of Soma in June, a boy in the upper grades of an elementary school who complained of vomiting and insomnia was taken to a psychiatrist.
“The radiation is scary. I have bad dreams and don’t feel refreshed after sleeping,” the boy was quoted as saying. According to the psychiatrist, the boy refrained from playing outside and always shut any open windows he found.
At Hiroyama Mental Clinic in Fukushima, two or three people a week have complained of radiation-related stress over the past month. They talk of symptoms like crying without knowing why, or feeling like their chests are being compressed. About a month after the devastating March 11 earthquake and tsunami that triggered the nuclear disaster, lingering fear from the tsunami or the collapse of homes was a common complaint from patients. But from around three months after the earthquake, radiation-related stress became the more prominent problem.
One high school student reportedly complained, “When I leave the house, I’m so anxious that I want to scream and cry.” Another patient, a man who couldn’t reach an agreement with his wife on evacuating, became depressed and unable to go to work.
“When people don’t have family or acquaintances they can share their concerns with, their condition tends to worsen. It’s important to listen to such people and let them know that their concerns are normal,” says the head of the clinic, Yuji Hiroyama.
Insomnia and other such symptoms can be lessened with medicine, but it is not easy for doctors to address the root cause of people’s radiation anxieties. Information on radiation is complicated and the effects of the leaked radiation on humans are still unclear.
“Data is scarce. We haven’t the grounds to tell patients, ’There’s nothing to worry about,’” says Naoto Kobayashi, the head of Azuma Clinic in Fukushima city.
Hiroyama worries, “If a situation where people can’t trust the government’s safety standards continues, the number of people feeling stress may increase.”
To better grasp the situation, Fukushima Medical University has begun surveying hospitals and clinics in about 80 locations around the prefecture, asking them what kind of radiation-related symptoms people who began visiting in the three months after the disaster have been complaining about.
Professor Shinichi Niwa of the university’s department of neuropsychiatry says, “After the Chernobyl disaster, psychological symptoms were reported among residents close to the plant there as well. In addition to effects on the environment and people’s physical health, we need to look at the damage caused by the nuclear disaster on people’s mental well-being.”
The results of the university’s survey are expected to be compiled this fall or afterward.
Mainichi Shimbun , August 19, 2011
http://mdn.mainichi.jp/mdnnews/national/archive/news/2011/08/19/20110819p2a00m0na016000c.html
At least 30 prefectures to test newly harvested rice for cesium to alleviate safety concerns
As many as 30 prefectures are planning to test newly harvested rice for radioactive cesium contamination in a bid to ensure and demonstrate the safety of their farm crops to consumers worried by the spread of radioactive substances from the crippled Fukushima No. 1 Nuclear Power Plant, the Mainichi has learned.
The Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries has subjected newly harvested rice in 17 prefectures from Aomori to the north to Shizuoka to the west in East Japan to cesium contamination tests, but other municipalities, keen to alleviate safety concerns among consumers about farm products, decided to test rice independently.
The farm ministry urges the 17 prefectures to test brown rice raised in soil containing 1,000 becquerels of radioactive cesium per kilogram or more, or in areas whose atmospheric radiation doses are more than 0.1 microsievert per hour, before and after harvesting. If more than 200 becquerels per kilogram are detected in brown rice in a preliminary testing before harvesting, the area will be designated as an “area for priority testing” and be thoroughly examined after harvesting. If radiation exceeds 500 becquerels, shipments of the rice from the area will be banned.
Voluntary testing for cesium has been expanding to prefectures in Hokuriku, Kinki, Chugoku and Shikoku districts, and as of Aug. 13, at least 13 prefectures decided to conduct tests on newly harvested rice for cesium. At least 3,500 locations are subject to main tests and about 900 locations are subject to preliminary tests. Fukushima Prefecture tops the list of the number of locations for main tests, followed by Miyagi and Ibaraki. All rice growing municipalities in nine prefectures — Akita, Yamagata, Miyagi, Niigata, Tochigi, Ibaraki, Saitama, Chiba and Nagano — will conduct the tests regardless of designations by the farm ministry. There are 34 municipalities in Miyagi Prefecture which plan to conduct main tests in about 400 locations possibly in early September — nearly double the number of locations designated by the farm ministry.
On the reason why Miyagi Prefecture will conduct tests in broader areas than designated by the farm ministry, a prefectural government official said, “As a main rice producing prefecture, it is our duty to confirm the safety (of rice).”
At a briefing session held in southern Miyagi Prefecture under the auspices of the central government and the Miyagi Prefectural Government on Aug. 12, many people requested the authorities to issue certificates for rice from tested areas “to prove its safety.” If radioactive cesium of over 500 becquerels per kilogram is detected, the farm ministry will order the given municipality to ban shipments, and all rice harvested in the area in the fall would be destined to be disposed of. An official of the Shichigashuku town government said, “We want the government to narrow the scope of shipment restrictions to settlements in order to reduce damage to farmers.”
Meanwhile, many prefectures in western Japan are planning to conduct tests in selected areas to “defuse consumer concerns.”
Preliminary tests are expected to reach their peak in early September while main tests are set to peak in mid-September. But there are municipalities that do not have enough equipment. If tests fall far behind schedule and shipments are delayed, the qualities and prices of rice could fall and cause economic damage to farmers.
Mainichi Shimbun , August 15, 2011
http://mdn.mainichi.jp/mdnnews/national/archive/news/2011/08/15/20110815p2a00m0na013000c.html
Excessive levels of radioactive cesium found 100 km from plant
FUKUSHIMA (Kyodo) — Excessive levels of radioactive cesium were found in sludge in a ditch at a district court branch in Fukushima Prefecture, about 100 kilometers west of the crippled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant, the court said Tuesday.
The isotope in the sludge, sampled from a ditch at the Fukushima District Court’s Aizuwakamatsu branch, measured about 186,000 becquerels per kilogram, the court said, adding it plans to remove the sludge after consulting with local governments.
Under government standards, sludge can be used in a landfill as long as the radioactive cesium contained in it measures 8,000 becquerels per kilogram or lower.
The court has barred entry within 1 meter of the area where the sludge was sampled and another where radiation levels were higher than other locations on the premises, but that has not disrupted court business, it said.
The nuclear power plant, operated by Tokyo Electric Power Co., spewed massive amounts of radioactive materials into the air and ocean after a series of explosions that followed the March earthquake and tsunami.
Kyodo, August 17, 2011
http://mdn.mainichi.jp/mdnnews/national/archive/news/2011/08/17/20110817p2g00m0dm008000c.html
Tepco: Radiation release plunged
Radioactive materials released from the crippled No. 1, 2 and 3 reactors at the Fukushima No. 1 power plant are roughly one 10 millionth of contamination spewed at the beginning of the accident in March, based on readings taken in the past two weeks, Tokyo Electric Power Co. said Wednesday.
Tepco estimated the amount from July 26 to Aug. 12, saying the maximum reading logged was 200 million becquerels per hour. Based on this data, the radiation level around the plant is estimated at a maximum 0.4 millisievert per year, compared with the annual legal limit of 1 millisievert.
The estimated amount released March 15 was 2 quadrillion becquerels per hour, meaning the amount has decreased to one 10 millionth of that level.
But since the estimation was made based only on the amount of radioactive materials in the air around the west gate of the plant, “we think the degree of accuracy is still not that high,” Yoshinori Moriyama, a spokesman of the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency, said during a joint news conference by the government and Tepco.
The utility admitted the accuracy needs to be raised and said it will increase data-measuring spots, but “we don’t think it will be that different from this figure,” said Tepco Vice President Zengo Aizawa.
The figure revealed July 19 was about 1 billion becquerels per hour at most, and the surrounding area’s radiation level was estimated as a maximum 1.7 millisieverts per year.
During the briefing, the government and Tepco also updated the monthly progress of the second phase of the remedial road map, which aims for a cold shutdown of the reactors by mid-January.
They said the utility has already achieved stable cooling of the spent fuel pools of reactors 1 to 4, as it was able to launch circulation cooling systems in the pools of the four reactors this past month.
Cold shutdown is defined as bringing the temperature at the bottom of the pressure vessels to below 100 degrees, while reducing the radiation level around the plant to less than 1 millisievert per year.
Goshi Hosono, state minister in charge of the Fukushima crisis, said reducing the massive amount of radioactive contaminated water at the plant remains a major task. He also said the government will soon announce a basic plan for decontamination efforts around the plant.
By KAZUAKI NAGATA, Japan Times Staff writer, August 18, 2011
http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20110818a1.html
Fukushima food producers protest
Demanding stabilization of the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant and
compensation for the disaster at the earliest possible date, about 2,800
farmers and fishermen from Fukushima Prefecture gathered for a protest
rally in Tokyo’s Hibiya Park Friday.
Following the rally, the participants, some carrying protest banners,
marched to the nearby head office of plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co.
The protest rally and demonstration were organized by JA (Japan
Agricultural Cooperatives) Fukushima and related bodies to appeal for
speedy payments of compensation to food producers whom the disaster has
left in dire financial straits.
One of the demonstrators, Ryoichi Sato, 57, whose 30 hectares of paddies
and 15 hectares of other fields, located in the no-entry zone within a
20-kilometer radius of the crippled plant, were lost in the March 11
tsunami, said, "As my fields remain underwater, even radioactivity
monitoring cannot be carried out there, and I’m afraid the farmland may
be left unusable for years."
The Yomiuri Shimbun , August 13, 2011
http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/national/T110812005552.htm
Science teachers stumped over instruction on radiation as nuclear crisis continues
The subject of radiation is set to make an appearance in junior high school science textbooks in the coming school year for the first time in 30 years, which has teachers concerned about their ability to teach students about the topic.
As the nuclear crisis at the Fukushima No. 1 Nuclear Power Plant drags on, members of the public remain divided on their views toward the handling of radioactive contamination as well as the question of what to do about Japan’s relationship with nuclear power. Many science teachers have never had to teach students about radiation before, prompting concerns over whether they will be able to accurately answer students’ questions.
Junior high school textbooks covered radiation through the 1980 school year. Thereafter, however, the topic was excluded from the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT)’s guidelines for required content until 2008, when the decision was made to reintroduce the topic in junior high science instruction guidelines. The guidelines stipulated that instruction cover nuclear power, including “the characteristics and uses of radiation” in teaching about energy sources. The textbooks set to be used by students in their third year of junior high were slated to include the medical uses of radiation and explain the workings of nuclear power plants.
The disaster at the Fukushima plant, which unfolded after such decisions had been made, has triggered heated debate on how the spread of radioactive materials has been handled since the start of the crisis. Radiation has become a personal issue, with regional municipalities taking daily measurements of radiation levels in the air and releasing them to the public, and concerned parents buying and using radiation detectors themselves. In light of such circumstances, junior high school teachers aren’t sure how far they should delve into the topic when the next school year rolls around.
Training sessions for teachers have been held in response to the planned reintroduction of radiation in textbooks. One such session was held by the Tokyo Metropolitan Government on Aug. 16, with some 50 people in attendance. In addition to lectures by radiation experts, attendees conducted experiments, including one that involved the visualization of radiation and another in which the participants measured radiation levels in salt.
“My students may ask questions about radiation, but so much remains unknown about it, even among experts,” said a teacher at a public junior high school in Chofu, Tokyo, who attended the workshop. “Entering such territory will put teachers in difficult positions.”
Naoyuki Yamamoto, the deputy director of the Nuclear Safety Research Association, who lectured at the session, said that teachers have voiced their uneasiness. “I heard from teachers in Chiba and Ibaraki prefectures that they’ve received questions about radiation levels in school swimming pools and fields, and are at a loss about how to respond. Many teachers are anxious.”
In response to the ongoing nuclear disaster, MEXT has decided to compile supplementary reading materials for elementary, junior high and senior high schools covering basic information about radiation, but how the additional materials are used in the classroom will be left up to individual schools.
Mainichi Shimbun , August 17, 2011
http://mdn.mainichi.jp/mdnnews/national/archive/news/2011/08/17/20110817p2a00m0na009000c.html