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34 points near Fukushima plant exceed radiation standard used for Chernobyl, map shows
A government map of soil radiation levels mainly within a 100-kilometer radius of the disaster-hit Fukushima No. 1 Nuclear Power Plant shows 34 locations with levels of cesium-137 exceeding 1.48 million becquerels per square meter, the level that was used for determining bans on living near the Chernobyl plant.
The map was released on Aug. 29 by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT). Cesium-137 has a half-life of around 30 years. The greatest concentration was found in the town of Okuma, which holds part of the plant, at 15.45 million becquerels per square meter. The six municipalities with levels over the Chernobyl level are Okuma, Minamisoma, Tomioka, Futaba, Namie, and Iitate.
The distribution of cesium in the soil across the 100-kilometer radius zone was very similar to that calculated from air samples taken in the same areas.
“The directly measured data from this survey will be useful for decontamination work,” says Takashi Nakamura, a professor emeritus of Tohoku University who was involved with the map’s creation.
Three corporations and 94 organizations including universities and MEXT cooperated to collect data in June and July from around 2,200 zones, each zone two kilometers by two kilometers. For each zone, soil and grass from five freely chosen locations was collected, mixed and measured.
Also on Aug. 29, the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (MAFF) released a map showing radioactive cesium (cesium-137 and cesium-134) concentrations in agricultural land in Fukushima, Miyagi, Tochigi, Gunma, Ibaraki and Chiba prefectures. Measurements were taken at 360 locations in Fukushima and 220 locations across the other five prefectures. In 13 Fukushima municipalities including Iitate, Soma and Minamisoma, there were measurements exceeding 5,000 becquerels per kilogram of soil, which is the limit over which rice planting is forbidden.
MAFF intends to expand the survey to 3,000 locations in the future.
Mainichi Shimbun , August 30, 2011
http://mdn.mainichi.jp/mdnnews/national/archive/news/2011/08/30/20110830p2a00m0na013000c.html
Gov’t releases most detailed maps yet of radiation around Fukushima plant
The Japanese government has released new maps of radiation around the Fukushima No. 1 Nuclear Power Plant, the most detailed yet.
The maps show radiation levels in the 20-kilometer no-entry zone around the plant, as well as areas outside that zone that were ordered evacuated. Radiation levels are given for one centimeter and one meter aboveground for 2,696 locations, generally one location for every 500 by 500 meters.
Some very high radiation levels were recorded, the highest of which was 139 microsieverts per hour at one meter above the ground in the town of Okuma, just south of the plant. The highest level at one centimeter above the ground was 368 microsieverts per hour in Futaba, just north of the plant.
According to the maps, radiation levels of 19 microsieverts per hour or higher were detected between the plant and four to five kilometers to the south, west and northwest of the plant.
Meanwhile, in the town of Namie, the central part of the evacuated area outside the 20-km no-entry zone, high levels including 41.3 microsieverts per hour were recorded at one meter above the ground and 105 microsieverts at one centimeter above the ground.
Japanese gov’t radiation info in English: http://radioactivity.mext.go.jp/en/
Mainichi Shimbun , September 2, 2011
http://mdn.mainichi.jp/mdnnews/national/archive/news/2011/09/02/20110902p2a00m0na016000c.html
Japan nuke plant radiation leak exceeds Hiroshima
TOKYO (AP) — The amount of radioactive cesium that has leaked from a tsunami-hit nuclear plant is about equal to 168 of the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima at the end of World War II, Japan’s nuclear agency said Friday.
The Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency supplied the estimate at a parliamentary panel’s request, but it noted a simple comparison between an instantaneous bomb blast and long-term accidental leak is impossible and the results could be “irrelevant.”
The report estimated for each of the 16 isotopes released from “Little Boy” and 31 of those detected at the Fukushima plant but didn’t provide the total. NISA has said the radiation leaked from Fukushima was about one-sixth of what the Chernobyl disaster released in 1986.
The March 11 earthquake and tsunami caused three reactor cores at Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant to melt. Several blasts and fires also sent massive radiation into the environment.
The report said the damaged plant has released 15,000 tera becquerels of cesium-137, which lingers for decades and could cause cancer, compared with the 89 tera becquerels released by the U.S. uranium bomb.
The bomb “Little Boy” dropped on Aug. 6, 1945, destroyed most of the city and killed as many as 140,000 people. A second atomic bombing three days later in Nagasaki killed tens of thousands more, prompting Japan to surrender and ending WWII.
The Hiroshima bomb claimed most of its victims in the intense heatwave and neutron rays from a midair nuclear explosion and the highly radioactive fallout. No one has died from radiation leaks from the Fukushima plant, where explosion from hydrogen buildup damaged reactor buildings but did not involve reactor cores.
The report estimated that Iodine-131, another isotope that accumulates in thyroid gland, and Stronthium-90, which has a 28-year half-life and could accumulate in bones, leaked from the plant in amounts about equal to 2.5 of the Hiroshima bombs.
A separate government report released Thursday said that 22 percent of Cesium-137 and 13 percent of Iodine-131 released from the plant during the crisis have fallen on the ground, with the remaining either fell into the ocean or outside the area of simulation.
The National Institute for Environmental Studies said its simulation of aerial flow, diffusion and deposition of the two isotopes released from the tsunami-hit plant showed their impact reached most of Japan’s eastern half, ranging from Iwate in the north to Tokyo and central prefecture (state) of Shizuoka. Both Iwate and Shizuoka are more than 180 miles (300 kilometers) away from the plant.
The study also showed that Iodine-131 tended to spread radially and Cesium-137 tended to create “hot spots.”
Some 100,000 people evacuated their homes due to radiation threats from the Fukushima plant.
On Friday, about 30 residents from the immediate neighborhood of the plant were allowed to briefly return home to get clothes and other necessities they left early in the crisis. But officials have said their area may stay off-limits for years.
Plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co. and the government aim to bring the reactors to stable cold shutdowns by early January. The government is working to decontaminate areas outside the 12-mile (20-kilometer) restricted zone where access may be relaxed in coming weeks.
AP, August 27, 2011
http://mdn.mainichi.jp/mdnnews/national/archive/news/2011/08/27/20110827p2g00m0dm006000c.html
Above-limit cesium found at incinerators in 7 prefectures
TOKYO (Kyodo) — Incinerator dust and ash with too much radioactive cesium to allow it to be buried has been found at 42 facilities in Tokyo, Chiba, Iwate and three other prefectures as well as Fukushima, the Environment Ministry said Saturday.
The result of a survey of 469 facilities in 16 prefectures in northeastern and eastern Japan since late June was reported as a panel of experts at the ministry considers how to allow dust and ash containing over 8,000 becquerels of cesium per kilogram to be buried.
The government has already decided to allow dust and ash containing 8,000 becquerels or less of cesium to be buried in waste disposal sites only if residential houses are not built there in the future.
A worker exposed to such a level every day would still not exceed the annual limit of 1 millisievert for ordinary people.
But local governments are required to temporarily store such dust and ash at disposal sites until the panel reaches a conclusion.
The amounts detected were up to 95,300 becquerels in Fukushima, 70,800 becquerels in Chiba and 30,000 becquerels in Iwate.
Since 9,740 becquerels of cesium per kilogram was found in dust at an incineration plant in Tokyo’s Edogawa Ward in June, other prefectures also covered in the ministry survey such as Gunma and Ibaraki have released similar findings.
Kyodo, August 28, 2011
http://mdn.mainichi.jp/mdnnews/national/archive/news/2011/08/28/20110828p2a00m0na006000c.html
Panel cuts estimated release of radiogens from Fukushima plant
TOKYO (Kyodo) — The amount of radioactive substances emitted into the atmosphere from the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant is now estimated at 570,000 terabecquerels, down from an earlier estimate of 630,000 terabecquerels, the chairman of the Nuclear Safety Commission said Wednesday.
Given a large margin of error in an estimate of this kind, however, the figure “may change greatly” as more data on the nuclear accident become available, Haruki Madarame said.
The Nuclear Industrial and Safety Agency separately estimates the total amount of radioactive substances released into the air from the plant at 770,000 terabecquerels.
In the Chernobyl nuclear accident of 1986, an estimated 5.2 million terabecquerels of radioactive substances were discharged into the atmosphere.
The earlier estimate was revised based on new data on the release of radioactive substances in the four days from March 12, when the first of a series of explosions occurred following the earthquake and tsunami that hit the plant on March 11.
According to the recalculated estimate by the Japan Atomic Energy Agency, 130,000 terabecquerels of iodine 131 and 11,000 terabecquerels of cesium 137 were emitted into the air from the nuclear plant in Fukushima Prefecture from March 11 through April 5, Madarame said.
Kyodo, August 25, 2011
http://mdn.mainichi.jp/mdnnews/national/archive/news/2011/08/25/20110825p2g00m0dm049000c.html
22% of radioactive cesium settles on eastern Japanl
TOKYO (Kyodo) — Twenty-two percent of the cesium-137 that spewed out of the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant has since settled on land in eastern Japan, a study showed Thursday, confirming a widespread release of the radioactive isotope.
The study by researchers including Toshimasa Ohara, director of the Center for Regional Environment Research at the National Institute for Environmental Studies, showed that 13 percent of the iodine-131 released in the disaster has also fallen on the same area.
Massive amounts of radioactive materials have been released into the air and the ocean as a result of the disaster at the Tokyo Electric Power Co. plant caused by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami.
In the study, which appeared in a recent periodical published by the American Geophysical Union, the researchers analyzed how the radioactive matter spread in eastern Japan between March 11 and late March using a computer model that predicts the spread of air pollutants.
They found that the radioactive matter was carried by winds and settled on land due to wind and rain covering the area from Iwate and Miyagi prefectures in the north to as far south as Niigata, Nagano and Yamanashi prefectures.
The study showed that winds had a major impact on iodine-131 settling on land, while wind and rain both affected cesium-137’s movements.
The remainder of the radioactive substances released from the nuclear power plant is believed to have largely fallen in the Pacific Ocean.
Kyodo, August 26, 2011
http://mdn.mainichi.jp/mdnnews/national/news/20110826p2g00m0dm014000c.htm
Agriculture...
Over 1,000 cattle turn wild in no-go zone near Fukushima nuclear plant
FUKUSHIMA, Japan (Kyodo) — More than 1,000 cattle have turned wild and are roaming free in the no-entry zone within a 20-kilometer radius of the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, according to a recent tally of livestock in the area by the Fukushima prefectural government.
Almost all the pigs and chickens in the area have apparently starved to death, the prefectural government said at a meeting of the Liberal Democratic Party’s Fukushima chapter on Tuesday.
There were roughly 33,500 livestock — 30,000 pigs and 3,500 cattle — and about 440,000 poultry as of August last year.
Since the nuclear accident which was set off by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami, roughly 4,000 livestock and poultry, including 170 cattle, have been destroyed by the prefectural government with the consent of farmers.
While Fukushima Prefecture continues to cull livestock and poultry within the zone, including cattle, 132 of 315 farmers in the zone have given consent to the local government to do so, it said.
Kyodo, September 1, 2011
http://mdn.mainichi.jp/mdnnews/national/archive/news/2011/09/01/20110901p2g00m0dm001000c.html
Volume of radiation screening requests for food beyond capacity of current facilities
SENDAI — In Miyagi and Fukushima prefectures, where a central government ban on cattle shipments has been lifted and blanket testing of all cattle has been adopted, private agencies that screen food products for radioactive contamination have been overburdened with requests from food producers, distributors and consumers, in addition to tests on newly harvested rice.
In Miyagi Prefecture, where the screening of beef for radioactive cesium has been stepped up, four private testing companies are working around the clock to screen beef from a total of 100 cows per day. According to an official at the prefectural government’s livestock division, the screening of beef for radiation cannot be delayed to accommodate the rising need to test rice being harvested, because many livestock farmers currently have cattle at optimum shipping age.
NS Environmental Science Consultant Corp.’s Tohoku branch, an environmental consulting firm in Sendai that screens beef from 15 cows a day, installed germanium semiconductor detectors capable of taking precise measurements of cesium levels in June. The price of the machines is steep, at some 20 million yen each, but the company figured demand would rise due to the nuclear crisis at the Fukushima No. 1 Nuclear Power Plant.
Indeed, the company has been receiving a vast range of samples, from vegetables and fruit to water and rubble, from around the country for radioactive testing. NS employees work in three shifts around the clock, but they can screen no more than 50 samples a day without sacrificing measurement accuracy.
“We wish we could accommodate rice screening, too, but we just can’t,” said Akira Onodera, 47, the head of the company’s radiation survey department.
The Miyagi Prefectural Government’s agriculture division, which oversees the production and shipping of rice — now entering its harvest season — has turned to the Miyagi Prefectural Public Health Association in Sendai for help in screening rice. However, the association is currently overwhelmed by samples of beef, as well as home-grown vegetable samples sent in by members of the public. “It doesn’t look like we’ll be able to cut in (ahead of other samples) easily,” says an official at the prefectural government division.
In the meantime, the agriculture division is seeking cooperation from Tohoku University, which owns the equipment necessary to measure radioactive contamination, and is considering pursuing private companies based in the Kanto region that offer screening. There are concerns, however, regarding working with faraway organizations.
“It takes time to communicate with organizations in the Kanto region. They’re undoubtedly getting requests from other prefectures, too, and we worry that tests might be delayed and we’ll miss optimum harvest time,” said the agriculture division official.
In Fukushima Prefecture, where the stricken nuclear power plant is located, four germanium semiconductor detectors at a prefectural facility in the city of Koriyama are being run by 10 staff. In addition to beef and rice, one sample each of vegetables, fruit, eggs and various other food products from each prefectural city, town and village eligible for the screening are tested for radiation at the facility. Needless to say, this results in a massive amount of samples.
Samples are chopped up and placed in a 100-milliliter container, which is then wrapped in a plastic bag to prevent radioactive exposure in case the sample is tainted. At most, the facility can test 80 samples a day, with each sample taking about an hour to screen. Prefectural authorities have limited the variety of products and the number of local municipalities eligible for screening, and there have been calls for speedier testing from farmers.
The Fukushima Prefectural Government is slated to install six more detectors in September in order to “inform consumers about the safety of as many food products as possible, as soon as possible,” according to an official at the prefecture’s environment and agriculture division. It will also hire four more temporary staff to assist screening, with the goal of testing 200 samples a day. Still, the official says that demand may exceed the prefecture’s testing capacity, and is contemplating sending samples to organizations outside the prefecture for analysis.
In a press conference on Aug. 25, Senior Vice Minister for Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Takashi Shinohara said that the current situation in which blanket testing of beef has spread across the nation “must be corrected,” explaining: “The amount of testing equipment is still low. We hope that the prefectures (where radiation-tainted rice hay has not been distributed and) that do not require blanket testing will announce that they will refrain from such screening.”
Mainichi Shimbun , August 26, 2011
http://mdn.mainichi.jp/mdnnews/national/archive/news/2011/08/26/20110826p2a00m0na021000c.html
Gov’t lifts cattle shipment ban for Fukushima, Iwate, Tochigi
TOKYO (Kyodo) — The Japanese government lifted on Thursday its ban on cattle shipments from Iwate, Fukushima and Tochigi prefectures as sufficient measures have been compiled to ensure that livestock are protected from radioactive contamination, government spokesman Yukio Edano said.
The ban was imposed following the discovery of radioactive cesium-contaminated beef from cattle raised in the northeastern region in the wake of the nuclear crisis at the Fukushima Daiichi plant triggered by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami.
With the latest move, cattle shipments will now be resumed for all four prefectures that were instructed by the government between July and early August to stop cattle shipments. Miyagi was the first to resume shipments after its ban was lifted on Friday.
Based on quality control plans each prefecture will draw up, beef will be subject to inspections. Only farmers whose cattle are confirmed to be safe can resume shipments.
The contamination of beef with radioactive cesium exceeding the government-set limit is believed to have originated in rice straw placed outdoors when the Fukushima plant began releasing radioactive substances.
According to the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry, more than 1,500 cows from Iwate, Fukushima and Tochigi prefectures had been shipped across the country, and some were found to have been contaminated with radioactive cesium exceeding the government-set provisional safety limit 500 becquerels per kilogram.
Fukushima had been expected to see the ban lifted last Friday along with Miyagi, but the government decided against it as contaminated beef from there had been newly detected.
Kyodo, August 25, 2011
http://mdn.mainichi.jp/mdnnews/national/archive/news/2011/08/25/20110825p2g00m0dm048000c.html
No radioactive substances found so far in rice harvested in Fukushima
TOKYO (Kyodo) — No radioactive substances were found in rice just harvested in nuclear crisis-hit Fukushima Prefecture, prefectural government officials said Thursday.
Rice growers in the prefecture, which hosts the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, and elsewhere have been concerned about possible contamination as newly harvested rice is set to hit the market in the coming months amid public concern about food safety.
About 2 kilograms of brown rice harvested from paddies in the town of Aizubange on Monday and Tuesday was sampled on Wednesday. The samples were brought in to a prefectural farming facility in Koriyama on Thursday morning for testing.
The prefectural government allows brown rice to be shipped to market as long as it does not contain more than 500 becquerels per kilogram of radioactive cesium.
Samples of the rice, which ripens earlier than other varieties, will be collected at about 200 locations in 21 municipalities in the prefecture, with plans to finish testing them by Sept. 10.
Meanwhile, the Chiba prefectural government said 47 becquerels per kilogram of cesium were detected in preharvest rice in the prefectural city of Shiroi.
The detection of the radioactive substance in rice follows the first case in Hokota, Ibaraki Prefecture, since the nuclear disaster in Fukushima.
The Chiba government collected samples from two paddies in the city on Monday and found the substance in rice from one of them. It will shortly examine samples of harvested rice on a broader basis.
Rice containing less than the government-set provisional safety limit of 500 becquerels per kilogram can be shipped, the prefectural government said.
Kyodo, August 26, 2011
http://mdn.mainichi.jp/mdnnews/national/news/20110826p2g00m0dm015000c.html
Living...
Residents make first temporary visits to homes within 3 km of Fukushima plant
Residents from areas within a three-kilometer radius of the crisis-hit Fukushima No. 1 Nuclear Power Plant began returning to their homes for brief visits on Aug. 26, for the first time since the onset of the nuclear disaster.
A total of 117 people from 64 households in the Fukushima Prefecture town of Futaba made visits to their homes on Aug 26. In the town of Okuma, only residents of the rest home Sunlight Okuma, their families and home staff were eligible to return, and 35 people applied to do so.
Participants gathered at a gymnasium in Hirono, Fukushima Prefecture, on Aug. 26, and traveled to the restricted area by bus.
“I’m happy that we can temporarily return to our homes, but if this is going to be a place we can never come back to, I want the government to clearly tell us that,” said 38-year-old Michiyo Suzuki, whose home is in Futaba.
Government officials say there are about 1,300 people from 400 households whose homes are located within three kilometers of the plant. A government survey on Aug. 24 found that the highest level of radiation was in Okuma, measuring 84.7 microsieverts per hour.
In the Hosoya district of Futaba, to which some residents temporarily returned, the radiation level measured 5 to 6 microsieverts per hour, while at the rest home in Okuma the level was 25 microsieverts per hour. Some residents of Okuma whose homes are within three kilometers of the plant will be allowed to make temporarily visits on Sept. 1.
Mainichi Shimbun , August 26, 2011
http://mdn.mainichi.jp/mdnnews/national/archive/news/2011/08/26/20110826p2a00m0na023000c.html
No quick way to remove radioactive substances from soil: experts
Experts say there is no technology or machinery available that can quickly remove radioactive substances from soil. Steady and repeated efforts are required to gradually reduce radioactive substances by removing the surface from soil, mowing down grass, or scraping the matter off with water.
Under the government’s basic scheme, radioactive substances can be removed from roads, roofs and playground equipment by rinsing with water in areas with radiation measuring less than 20 millisieverts per year.
But radioactive substances would spread if they seeped into soil or rivers. In the case of the Chernobyl nuclear accident in 1986, when radioactive substances on buildings were washed away, the levels of radiation where water reached rose several fold.
It is also difficult to secure places for radioactive waste disposal. According to an experiment conducted by the Date Municipal Government in Fukushima Prefecture, 35 metric tons of contaminated soil was produced when only soil around three houses was removed. The half-life of cesium-137 is 30 years, and therefore it needs to be stored and maintained for a long time.
Meanwhile, the government is responsible for removing radioactive substances in areas with radiation measuring 20 millisieverts or more. The cumulative level of radiation in Koirino in the Fukushima Prefecture town of Okuma is estimated to be 508.1 millisieverts per year. “It is difficult even to secure workers,” said an official of the Japan Atomic Energy Agency, which has been helping with decontamination efforts. Even if the government-imposed target of reducing radiation levels by half in two years is achieved, it is far cry from 20 millisierverts — the estimated level of radiation that is safe for local residents to return home.
Mainichi Shimbun , August 27, 2011
http://mdn.mainichi.jp/mdnnews/national/archive/news/2011/08/27/20110827p2a00m0na012000c.html
Hot-spot cleanups hampered by public resistance to local disposal sites
FUKUSHIMA — Municipalities looking to clean up radiation “hot spots” caused by the disaster at the Fukushima No. 1 Nuclear Power plant are facing stiff local resident opposition as they search for temporary disposal sites for tainted materials.
Some 3,800 residents of Fukushima city’s Watari district, site of a radioactive hot spot, carried out a major decontamination operation in late July, scraping out ditches and removing tainted topsoil. The city designated a site in the mountains as a temporary disposal area and trucked in the some 6,000 bags of contaminated material produced in the Watari operation. The disposal, however, was met with fierce opposition from locals around the mountain site.
“If the stuff had come from a local decontamination operation, then I’d just have to live with it. But I just can’t agree with bringing it in from someplace else,” said one 50-year-old housewife who lives only a few hundred meters from the disposal area. Aware of the local opposition, the city government has now begun looking for an alternate site.
Meanwhile, a Fukushima section of the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism also hit a wall of public resistance when it tried to lay grass cut from the banks of a river in the city of Nihonmatsu on the river’s bed. Previously, the grass had been used as animal fodder and compost. Since the grass has been contaminated by the nuclear disaster, however, the land ministry’s Fukushima Office of Rivers and National Highways decided to lay the cuttings along the riverbed, at least temporarily. The public backlash against the plan began after a local resident saw the operation in progress.
“I’ve become very sensitive to the radiation issue so this is giving me a lot of stress,” said one 44-year-old local resident. “Of course I don’t want those cuttings to be left near my family.”
Mainichi Shimbun , August 27, 2011
http://mdn.mainichi.jp/mdnnews/national/archive/news/2011/08/27/20110827p2a00m0na013000c.html
Efficiency...
Local leaders steamed at government’s ’buck-passing’ radiation decontamination plan
Local leaders in areas contaminated by the disaster at the Fukushima No. 1 Nuclear Power Plant are angry and disappointed at the central government’s decontamination plan, which dumps much of the responsibility for the clean-up on municipalities.
The central government’s decontamination plan, finalized on Aug. 26, leaves clean-up of any sites emitting 20 millisieverts of radiation annually or less to municipal governments, while also calling on those same governments to create temporary storage areas for contaminated materials. Most of the sites with that level of radiation are in the emergency evacuation standby zone 20-30 kilometers from the stricken nuclear plant.
“It’s very strange that the government would leave decontamination up to municipalities while at the same time seeking to bring down radiation emissions to 1 millisievert annually or less,” said Motohoshi Yamada, mayor of Hirono, Fukushima Prefecture. Yamada apparently lambasted a visiting central government official on Aug. 25 over the plan. Hirono lies within the evacuation standby zone, though some 90 percent of the town’s population has already fled.
“Our town’s recovery will be delayed if we wait for the government’s plan,” Yamada continued, referring to the long list of tasks the municipality must undertake if it must tackle decontamination on its own, including finding a tainted material storage site and gaining support for it from local residents.
“There is just a mountain of issues to get through,” the Hirono Municipal Government’s disaster response headquarters commented.
Meanwhile, Mayor Katsunobu Sakurai of the city of Minamisoma — a large part of which lies in the evacuation standby zone — told the Mainichi, “I’d like to call on the government repeatedly to take its share of the responsibility for decontamination, including funding.”
Minamisoma in fact already has an independent decontamination plan, which one senior city official said was put in place because “the central government and (plant operator) Tokyo Electric Power Co., which are supposed to take such action, aren’t moving at all. I have no idea what they’re thinking.”
Mainichi Shimbun , August 27, 2011
http://mdn.mainichi.jp/mdnnews/national/archive/news/2011/08/27/20110827p2a00m0na014000c.html
Kan wants Fukushima nuke waste storage site
FUKUSHIMA– Prime Minister Naoto Kan on Saturday asked Fukushima Prefecture to host a temporary facility to store soil and debris contaminated with radioactive materials from the crippled nuclear plant.
At a meeting with Fukushima Gov. Yuhei Sato, Kan said the central government has no choice but to ask the prefecture to build a storage facility to properly manage radioactive substances.
But Kan added that the envisioned facility is not intended to become a permanent disposal site.
Sato appeared taken aback by the request, saying: “It is an abrupt proposal. We are really perplexed.”
Kan told Sato that there would be a possibility that residents of some areas with high levels of radiation may not be able to go home for a long time.
“We would like to apologize to the people of Fukushima,” Kan said.
Meanwhile, radioactive substances continue to leak from the stricken Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant.
Go Hosono, state minister in charge of the nuclear crisis, has said that it will take at least 20 years before residents from areas where 200 millisieverts of radiation per year have been detected can return to those areas.
For areas with an annual level of 150 millisieverts per year, it will likely take 10 years, according Hosono.
Meanwhile, Tatsuo Hirano, minister in charge of reconstruction, said the government plans to establish a special law by next year to enable it to lead efforts to rebuild Fukushima Prefecture.
Hirano told reporters in the city of Fukushima that legislation “should be passed no later than the next ordinary Diet session,” which usually runs for five months from January.
Kyodo, August 28, 2011
http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20110828a2.html
Japan Decides How to Dispose of Cesium-Tainted Ash
Tokyo, Aug. 27 (Jiji Press)—The Environment Ministry plans to allow ash of debris and garbage contaminated with radioactive cesium to be disposed of in ordinary landfills if the amount of cesium is 100,000 becquerels per kilogram or less, ministry officials said Saturday.
The ministry concluded that such ash can be disposed of safely if measures are taken to prevent radioactive cesium from making its way into groundwater, the officials said.
Such measures will include cementing the tainted ash and using roofed disposal facilities to prevent the ash from coming into contact with water and flowing out.
After disposal in landfills, drainage of the disposal facilities and nearby groundwater will be monitored, the officials said.
Since the nuclear crisis started at Tokyo Electric Power Co.’s radiation-spewing Fukushima No. 1 power plant, the ministry has so far requested that if radioactive cesium in excess of 8,000 becquerels is detected in ash at incineration facilities, the ash should be stored temporarily until the disposal method is decided.
Jiji Press, August 27, 2011
http://jen.jiji.com/jc/eng?g=eco&k=2011082700388
Fukushima cleanup sets two-year goals
60% reduction in radiation dose sought for kids
Japan will seek to halve the amount of radiation in residential areas around the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant and cut children’s daily radiation dose by 60 percent over the next two years, according to an emergency decontamination policy document.
The plan is to be endorsed Friday by a government task force dealing with the nuclear crisis triggered by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami.
The government under the plan will take responsibility for securing final disposal sites for contaminated soil but will stress the need for temporarily storage locally.
To achieve the goals set in the emergency plan, the government will lead decontamination activities to scale down areas where radiation exposure is expected to top 20 millisieverts a year, such as within the 20-km no-entry zone around the plant, it said.
Local governments can request the cleanup of contamination if safety is assured.
Kyodo, August 26, 2011
http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20110826a3.html
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