2020 Olympics Minister Resigns Disparaged Fukushima Victims

Olympics Minister Sakurada Resigns

 

 Japan's Olympics minister Yoshitaka Sakurada resigned Wednesday after coming under increasing pressure over a series of gaffes -- in the latest, saying politics is "more important" than the recovery of the country's northeastern region devastated by the 2011 earthquake and tsunami. 

"I felt I had to take responsibility and submitted my resignation" to Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Sakurada, who was in charge of the 2020 Olympics and Paralympics Games to be hosted by Tokyo, told reporters. 

Abe virtually sacking the 69-year-old is a setback to his administration seeking to showcase the Tokyo Games as a symbol of Japan's recovery from the disaster that led to the Fukushima nuclear crisis. 

After accepting his resignation letter on Wednesday night, Abe then publicly apologized for appointing Sakurada as the Olympics minister. 

"As prime minister, I'd like to apologize to people in the disaster-stricken area for the remarks (made by Sakurada)," Abe told reporters. "I bear responsibility for having appointed him." 

"We need to straighten up and make sure we can run the event without a problem," a senior Japan Olympic Committee official said. 

In mid-March, the head of the committee, Tsunekazu Takeda, said he will step down when his current term ends in June, as he is under investigation by French authorities for alleged bribery related to Tokyo's successful bid for the Tokyo Olympics. 

Sakurada's resignation comes less than a week after a senior vice minister at the land ministry, Ichiro Tsukada, was forced to quit following comments suggesting he had acted in the interests of Abe's constituency over a road project. 

Sakurada is the eighth Cabinet minister to resign since Abe returned to power in 2012. As Abe's Liberal Democratic Party gears up for a series of elections through July, the prime minister's decision to oust Sakurada from the government is seen as a damage-control effort. 

Former Olympics minister Shunichi Suzuki, 65, will replace Sakurada, according to a government source. 

At a fund-raising party in Tokyo for an LDP lawmaker from the northeastern region, Sakurada said the lawmaker, Hinako Takahashi, is "more important than the (region's) recovery." 

The remarks came on top of earlier ones that had already prompted opposition parties to step up calls on Sakurada to step down. 

In February, he said he was "very disappointed" over swimming gold medal hopeful Rikako Ikee's diagnosis of leukemia -- a comment on the potential absence of the star from the Tokyo Games that elicited a huge backlash. 

Sakurada, while attending a parliamentary session, also said he has heard of the Olympic Charter but has never read it. 

In March, reflecting his lack of knowledge about the situation in the northeastern region, Sakurada said traffic was smooth on highways linking the Tohoku and Kanto areas in 2011 even as they were indeed damaged by the disaster. 

Sakurada, first elected to the House of Representatives in 1996, then called the city of Ishinomaki in Miyagi Prefecture, one of the hardest-hit prefectures, "Ishimaki" more than once during a parliamentary session on Tuesday. 

Opposition party leaders and residents in the northeastern region view his resignation as a natural turn of events. 

Yukio Edano, who heads the main opposition Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan, said his latest remarks are "unbelievable." 

"The remarks are those that hurt people affected by the disaster," Edano told reporters. "The responsibility now lies with Prime Minister Abe who has continued to defend Mr. Sakurada."

"We are still halfway toward the recovery" said Shigeru Yamazaki, a 70-year-old resident in Iwate Prefecture, who just resumed his clothing business in February after his shop was destroyed by the tsunami eight years ago. 

"There are many people who are still struggling. His resignation won't settle everything," Yamazaki said. 

Senior officials from the Tokyo metropolitan government said they are concerned the remarks could undermine the image of the upcoming Olympics and Paralympics. 

"The comments are beyond acceptable and it's unthinkable for someone representing the nation to say such things," a senior metropolitan government official said. 

Asahi

TEPCO Needs 5 More Years Of Government Subsidies

TEPCO Head Takashi Kawamura At Diet Testimony

The new chairman of Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO) says the utility needs to stop dragging its feet on plans to dump massive amounts of treated but contaminated water into the sea and make more money if it's ever going to succeed in cleaning up the mess left by meltdowns more than six years ago at the tsunami-hit Fukushima nuclear power plant.

Takashi Kawamura, an engineer-turned-business leader who previously headed Hitachi, is in charge of reviving TEPCO and leading the cleanup at the Fukushima Dai-Ichi plant. In testimony Thursday in the House of Deputies in the Diet, Kawamura said despite the massive costs of the cleanup and meeting tighter safety requirements, nuclear power is still vital for Japan's national security.

Below are highlights from the testimony.

CLEANUP REQUIRES RELEASE OF TREATED CONTAMINATED WATER

Massive amounts of radiation-contaminated water that has been processed and stored in hundreds of tanks at the plant are hindering decommissioning work and pose a safety risk in case another massive quake or tsunami strikes. TEPCO needs to release the water - which contains radioactive tritium that is not removable but considered not harmful in small amounts - into the Pacific Ocean, Kawamura said. The method is favored by experts at the International Atomic Energy Agency and Japan's Nuclear Regulation Authority as the only realistic option. Earlier, TEPCO had balked at calls by NRA chairman Shunichi Tanaka for controlled release of the water, now exceeding 770,000 metric tons, into the sea, fearing a public backlash. "Technically, we fully support the chairman's proposal," he said, adding that there is still strong resistance from local residents, especially fishermen. "I think we should have acted sooner. ... We should start moving faster."

PROFITS NEEDED TO COVER CRUSHING COSTS

Government subsidies are needed for at least five more years. Kawamura says TEPCO must become more profitable to manage to cover the gargantuan costs of cleaning up Fukushima Dai-Ichi after it suffered multiple meltdowns due to the massive March 11, 2011, earthquake and tsunami. TEPCO'S longtime status as a regional monopoly undermined its profit-making incentive, hobbling its ability to cover most of the 21.5 trillion yen (about $190 billion) price tag for decommissioning the plant and compensating dislocated residents. "To reconstruct Fukushima, we must make more profit, and I know we should not be taking about just money, but I think that is important," he said.

DECOMMISSIONING IS THE FUTURE

TEPCO's main mission now is decommissioning Fukushima Dai-Ichi, an unprecedented challenge that experts say could take decades and will take still more research and development. "That's our main activity and gaining new expertise in the decommissioning is far more important. But I believe there will be a time when decommissioning becomes an important business," Kawamura said. "Decommissioning is a process which takes time, not only for accident-hit reactors but ordinary retired reactors," he said. "I plan to coordinate with those who are studying the possibility of properly turning decommissioning of ordinary reactors into a viable business."

JAPAN NEEDS NUCLEAR POWER

Kawamura says he believes nuclear power is still a viable business and one that will continue to be vital for Japan's energy security, despite the extra costs from stricter post-Fukushima safety requirements and the cost of processing spent fuel and waste. TEPCO is reviewing its business strategy, but based on rough estimates, "I still believe that nuclear is still superior for Japan, which is really a resource- poor country," he said. "Even if we take severe accident measures and factor in spent fuel processing and other costs, I think there are some reactors that can still be profitable." He said nuclear power includes a wide range of technologies that Japan should not abandon, for national security reasons, as China continues to build nuclear plants.

TEPCO'S OTHER REACTORS

Kawamura said TEPCO hopes to restart the utility's Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear plant in northern Japan, even while the decommissioning at Fukushima Dai-Ichi is underway, so the operable plant can be a major source of revenue for the company. He said a decision on whether to resume operation of the Fukushima Dai-Ni plant, near Fukushima Dai-Ichi, will depend on a financial review. He said he regrets TEPCO's slowness in making a decision and acknowledged calls from local authorities and residents to decommission the second Fukushima plant, which was also hit by the tsunami but avoided a meltdown.

From Diet Transcripts 13 July

Government Calls Response By TEPCO "Arrogant"

Protesters Outside TEPCO HQ

The head of Japan's nuclear safety watchdog on Monday criticized the attitude of Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings Inc (TEPCO) toward decommissioning of the crisis-hit Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant and questioned the company's ability to resume operation of other reactors.

"I feel a sense of danger," Nuclear Regulation Authority Chairman Shunichi Tanaka said during a special meeting with the company's top management, adding that TEPCO does "not seem to have a will to take initiative and is responding with arrogance in our investigation" toward decommissioning of the crippled Fukushima Daiichi plant.

Takashi Kawamura, the chairman of TEPCO, and its president, Tomoaki Kobayakawa, attended the meeting. The authority felt it is necessary to hear from the top executives before it could make a decision on whether to approve TEPCO's plan to resume operation of the Nos. 6 and 7 reactors at its Kashiwazaki-Kariwa plant in Niigata Prefecture.

TEPCO filed for state safety assessment of the two reactors in September 2013 to reactivate them, hoping to restore its financial condition as it needed massive funds to pay compensation related to the Fukushima Daiichi disaster, triggered by a huge earthquake and tsunami on March 11, 2011, and to scrap the plant that suffered meltdowns.

The watchdog's safety screening has found TEPCO's failure to report insufficient earthquake resistance of a facility built to serve as the base to deal with a possible nuclear accident at the Niigata complex although it had acknowledged the insufficiency for three years.

In June, TEPCO submitted to the watchdog its revised safety measures for the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa complex.

"An operator lacking will to take initiative does not have the right to resume operation of nuclear reactors," Tanaka said.

TEPCO's chairman responded by saying, "There are citizens who believe nuclear power is necessary. Operating reactors is our responsibility."

But he also admitted there is room for only two more years' worth of space in the tanks to accommodate contaminated water stemming from the Fukushima complex.

At Monday's meeting, the watchdog asked TEPCO's top management about the company's safety measures for the Niigata complex on the Sea of Japan coast as well as its safety awareness.

Tanaka said the authority does not view that it received sufficient responses from TEPCO at the meeting and requested that the company submit more explanation on its plan to decommission the Fukushima complex and resume operation of the two reactors at the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa plant.

Tanaka plans to conduct on-site checkups at the two reactors of the plant in Niigata, saying, "TEPCO, which caused the (Fukushima) accident, is not an ordinary operator."

The two boiling water reactors at the Niigata plant are the same type as those that suffered core meltdowns at the Fukushima Daiichi complex, and no such reactors have cleared the authority's safety screening since the Fukushima disaster.

Kyodo

TEPCO Executives Go On Trial For Fukushima Reactor Disaster

Three former executives with the operator of the destroyed Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant have pleaded not guilty to charges of professional negligence, in the only criminal action targeting officials since the triple meltdown more than six years ago.

In the first hearing of the trial at Tokyo district court, Tsunehisa Katsumata, who was chairman of Tokyo Electric Power (Tepco) at the time of the disaster, and two other former executives argued they could not have foreseen a tsunami of the size that knocked out the plant’s backup cooling system, triggering a meltdown in three reactors.

“I apologise for the tremendous trouble to the residents in the area and around the country because of the serious accident that caused the release of radioactive materials,” Katsumata said, bowing slightly.

Prosecutors alleged that the 77-year-old, along with his co-defendants, Sakae Muto, 67, and Ichiro Takekuro, 71 – both former Tepco vice-presidents – had been shown data that anticipated a tsunami of more than 10 metres in height that could cause a power outage and other serious consequences.

A report by a government panel said Tepco simulated the impact of a tsunami on the plant in 2008 and concluded that a wave of up to 15.7 metres (52 feet) could hit the plant if a magnitude-8.3 quake occurred off the coast of Fukushima. Executives at the company allegedly ignored the internal study.

 

The three men – charged with professional negligence resulting in death and injury – have since retired from Tepco.

The company, which faces a multibillion-dollar bill for decommissioning Fukushima Daiichi, is not a defendant in the trial. If convicted, the men face up to five years in prison or a penalty of up to 1m yen ($10,000).

Although there are no records of anyone dying as a result of exposure to radiation from the plant, prosecutors alleged the executives were responsible for the deaths of 40 elderly people who were evacuated from a hospital near the plant.

The Fukushima plant had a meltdown after the tsunami, triggered by a magnitude-9 earthquake, hit the plant on the afternoon of 11 March 2011.

The tsunami killed almost 19,000 people along the north-east coast of Japan and forced more than 150,000 others living near the plant to flee radiation. Some of the evacuated neighbourhoods are still deemed too dangerous for former residents to return to.

“They continued running the reactors without taking any measures whatsoever,” the prosecutor said. “If they had fulfilled their safety responsibilities, the accident would never have occurred.”

Muto challenged the allegation by the prosecution that he and the other defendants failed to take sufficient preventative measures despite being aware of the risk of a powerful tsunami more than two years before the disaster.

“When I recall that time, I still think it was impossible to anticipate an accident like that,” he said. “I believe I have no criminal responsibility over the accident.”

Investigations into the accident have been highly critical of the lax safety culture at Tepco and poor oversight by industry regulators. Prosecutors considered the case twice, and dropped it both times, but a citizens’ judicial panel overrode their decision and indicted the former executives.

Outside the court, Ruiko Muto, a Fukushima resident and head of the group of plaintiffs, said: “Since the accident, nobody has been held responsible nor has it been made clear why it happened. Many people have suffered badly in ways that changed their lives. We want these men to realise how many people are feeling sadness and anger.”

Reuters

PM Abe Dismisses Calls For Imamura Resignation

Imamura At Diet Thursday

 Prime Minister Shinzo Abe dismissed opposition calls Thursday for the resignation of the disaster reconstruction minister, Masahiro Imamura, over remarks implying Fukushima evacuees yet to return to parts of the prefecture deemed safe to live in should fend for themselves.

Masahiro Imamura had been defending at a Tuesday press conference the central government’s decision to delegate help for the “voluntary evacuees” from the March 2011 earthquake, tsunami and nuclear disaster when he said it is such people’s “own responsibility, their own choice” not to return.

“I want him to continue to be alongside those affected by the disaster and devote every effort to his duties with the aim of realizing reconstruction as soon as possible,” Abe said during a plenary session of the House of Representatives.

Earlier Thursday, Imamura, 70, apologized for “causing a nuisance to everyone” at a session of the lower house committee on reconstruction from the 2011 disaster.

Housing subsidies ran out last month for people who left areas other than government-designated zones around the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant.

At the Japanese Lower House of the Diet on Thursday Imamura said “Prime Minister Abe said I should apologize that I used a disparaging word and gave the impression that (the evacuees) are responsible for their own (return) despite the fact that they are displaced because of the nuclear disaster, and I deeply apologize,” Imamura said.

Kazuko Kori, a lawmaker from the main opposition Democratic Party the recovering area of northeastern Japan, had called for Imamura to resign because “we cannot discuss reconstruction under this minister.”

Many in the Diet have dismissed Imamura's aplogy as being nothing more than "Abe told me to, so that is the sole reason I am apologizing".

But Imamura vowed to “keep performing my duties in good faith.”

Imamura had aggressively lashed out at the reporter who had asked him the question on Tuesday, yelling “shut up” at the reporter during the press conference. He offered a brief apology the same day for having “become emotional.”

He said Thursday he is willing to apologize to the reporter, “if Prime Minister Abe said it is necessary.”

The lower house reconstruction committee is currently debating a proposal to reform a special law relating to the 2011 disaster that would see the state pay for cleanup efforts in the areas of Fukushima still too contaminated with radioactivity to live in.

Imamura has been in his post since a Cabinet reshuffle in August last year.

KYODO

Disaster Reconstruction Minister Masahiro Imamura Calls Fukushima Evacuees Leeches

Masahiro Imamura, Japan’s disaster reconstruction minister, said Tuesday displaced people yet to return to areas of Fukushima Prefecture deemed safe to live in are “responsible for their own lives and living,” before snapping at the reporter whose question prompted the remark.

Imamura made the comment at a press conference explaining the government’s efforts for the reconstruction of areas hit by the March 2011 earthquake, tsunami and nuclear disaster.

Housing subsidies ran out last month for those who had left areas other than government-designated zones around the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant.

Citing a court decision last month that the central government and the plant’s operator were liable in the nuclear disaster in the first ruling of its kind since the crisis, a reporter asked what the state is doing to help the “voluntary evacuees.”

Imamura responded that the central government has delegated such matters to prefectural authorities, which are more knowledgeable about local conditions.

“It’s evacuees responsibility, their own choice not to return, they are acting like leeches” he said when pressed further, pointing out that other evacuees have managed to go back to the areas.

The reporter said some of those still displaced have found themselves unable to return, and asked whether the state should take more responsibility for looking after those people.

“We are taking responsibility. The evacuees refuse to return so we have the situation now. So why are you saying something so rude?” Imamura shouted, slamming his podium.

Pointing a finger at the reporter, he then yelled, “Take that back! Get out of here!”

“You’re the one who’s causing problems for the evacuees,” someone called out as Imamura walked away from the podium, to which the minister responded “Shut up! You are annoying!" before leaving the room.

“The minister has informed me that he became emotional and was unable to remain calm for part of today’s press conference,” Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said during a subsequent press conference.

Suga, the government’s top spokesman, said the matter is one for Imamura himself to “handle appropriately.”

Imamura apologized later Tuesday, telling reporters he had “become emotional.”  When he was pressed again to explain what the administration of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is doing to assist the remaining evacuees, Imamura thanked the media present and left the press room without comment.

Imamura, 70, was installed in his post in a Cabinet reshuffle in August last year.

KYODO

Here is video of the exchange

Cesium Spread In Fukushima By Wild Mushrooms

Source: Asahi News - 朝日新聞

Radioactive cesium released after the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant's triple meltdown in 2011 is continuing to contaminate the environment through wild mushrooms, scientists say.

It turns out that the fungi absorb cesium and then release it through their spores after concentrating it.

But the amount of cesium in the environment is miniscule and poses no threat to human health, say the researchers, who are primarily with the Meteorological Research Institute of the Japan Meteorological Agency, Ibaraki University and Kanazawa University.

The new findings indicate that cesium is released into the environment again by mushroom spores in mountains and forests in zones designated as difficult to return to because of high contamination levels after the nuclear accident triggered by the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami disaster.

Radiation levels in the air are measured at monitoring posts and disclosed to the public. Those measurements are taken at a designated height to measure radiation from the ground and in the atmosphere.

In a separate effort, a team of scientists from the Meteorological Research Institute and other bodies measured the radioactivity concentration of cesium-137 by collecting airborne particles 1 meter above ground in Fukushima Prefecture.

The team’s survey showed that cesium levels in a mountainous area in the northwestern part of the town of Namie rise five times in summer compared with winter. The region is part of the difficult-to-return zone.

The increased cesium level during summer is equivalent to less than one ten-thousandth of the radiation dose of 2.1 millisieverts, which the average individual is naturally exposed to each year.

The latest findings were in marked contrast to studies covering the prefectural capital of Fukushima and elsewhere that showed cesium levels were higher in winter than summer.

Initially, the researchers considered the possibility of cesium on the ground's surface being kicked up by clouds of dust. But they found no clear association between the cesium level and dust.

Teruya Maki, an associate professor of microorganism ecology at Kanazawa University, analyzed genes of airborne particles gathered in forests and mountains in the northwestern part of Namie from August to September 2015.

The results showed that many of the particles were derived from mushrooms.

Between June and October last year, more than 10 kinds of wild mushrooms were gathered on 10 occasions in the region’s forests and mountains. The radioactivity concentration levels in the spores measured up to 143 becquerels per gram.

When multiplying the cesium concentration per spore by the number of collected spores per cubic meter, the result roughly matched the measured cesium concentration for the area.

“Spores in which cesium was concentrated were likely released into the atmosphere, raising the airborne concentration,” said Kazuyuki Kita, an air environment science professor at Ibaraki University, who was involved in the analysis of cesium levels.

The amount of cesium contained in a spore of sampled mushrooms was extremely small.

“Even if people inhale the air in areas where mushroom spores containing cesium are spreading, that could never affect human health,” said Kazuhiko Ninomiya, a researcher of radiochemistry at Osaka University, who is a member of the research team.

The researchers are also trying to ascertain the extent to which the mushroom spores spread. They are planning more studies to figure out if the distances involved could be several kilometers.

Last summer, airborne cesium concentration levels for mountains and forests in Namie that have yet to be decontaminated were almost the same as those for an area 1 kilometer away that has been decontaminated on a trial basis.

That indicates cesium is likely spreading in the air, according to the scientists.

Asahi News

Fukushima Evacuees Face End Of Housing Subsidy

Fukushima residents protests end of evacuee subsidies

Saturday will mark six years since the 2011 Tohoku Earthquake and Tsunami.  It marks as well the Fukushima Nuclear Disaster which caused the evacuation of over 150,000 residents of not only Fukushima City, but Fukushima Prefecture residents also.

At the end of this month, housing subsidies run out for those who fled the Fukushima nuclear disaster from areas other than the government-designated evacuation zones, and as the clock ticks down, evacuees have had to decide whether to return or move once again.

Many of these so-called voluntary evacuees are mothers seeking to avoid risking their children’s health while their husbands remain in radiation-hit Fukushima Prefecture, according to freelance journalist Chia Yoshida.

This is why the term “voluntary evacuee” is misleading, as it gives the impression that they fled Fukushima for selfish reasons, Yoshida told a news conference in January in Tokyo.

At the same news conference, another journalist proposed using the term “domestic refugee” to describe them.

The Fukushima Prefectural Government has been paying the cost of public and private housing for voluntary evacuees under the Disaster Relief Act since the reactors melted down at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant after the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami.

The number of evacuees from the disaster, including those from mandatory evacuation areas, peaked at 164,865 as of May 2012, according to the prefectural government.

Its latest tally, conducted earlier this year, shows that 11,321 out of the 12,239 voluntary evacuee households had already decided where to live after April, while 250 had not.

It was back in June 2015 when Fukushima announced the plan to end the rent subsidy this month, saying that decontamination work in the prefecture had advanced and food safety had been achieved.

Still, the central government’s evacuation orders have not been lifted in “difficult-to-return zones,” which include the towns of Futaba and Okuma, home to the crippled nuclear facility.

Those no-entry areas are subject to radiation of over 50 millisieverts per year, compared with the government’s long-term annual target of less than 1 millisievert after decontamination work.

Rika Mashiko, 46, is a voluntary evacuee living in Tokyo. She has decided to rent a house near the Fukushima-paid apartment where she and her daughter, now in elementary school, are currently living so that her daughter will not miss her friends.

Mashiko and her daughter fled Fukushima about two months after the nuclear crisis started, leaving behind her husband in their house in Miharu, located in the center of the prefecture.

Mashiko said many women evacuated from Fukushima with their children, compelled by their instinct as mothers to avoid danger.

“Maybe nothing might have happened, but if it had, it would have been too late,” she said.

Mashiko, who first moved to a house in Higashiyamato in eastern Tokyo that was leased for free, said mothers like her who fled the nuclear disaster feel they shouldn’t have to pay their housing costs and are angry at being “victims of the state’s nuclear policy.”

Many voluntary evacuees are financially struggling as they have to cover the double living costs in their hometowns, where typically the fathers remain, and the new places where the mothers and children moved.

In that sense, the free housing has been a “lifeline” for them, particularly in the Tokyo metropolitan area where housing costs are high, according to journalist Yoshida.

In an attempt to extend support to those families, Makoto Yamada, a veteran pediatrician in Tokyo, established a fund with ¥3 million out of his own pocket to help them rent new houses, for example by covering the deposit.

The initiative was the latest example of the support he has been providing to evacuees. Three months after the disaster, he held a counseling session in the city of Fukushima that attracted some 400 people concerned about radiation exposure. He has continued to hold similar sessions in Tokyo.

Yamada, 75, says poor understanding of the plight of voluntary evacuees has also played a role in bullying cases involving evacuee children that have been reported across Japan since last year.

In one high-profile case, a first-year junior high school student in Yokohama was called a “germ” at school, in reference to his supposed exposure to radiation.

Society appears to generally feel that voluntary evacuees have received a lot of money on top of the one-time compensation payment made by Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings Inc., the operator of Fukushima No. 1.

Yamada says if people understood that voluntary evacuees had no wish to leave but felt they had to, such bullying would disappear.

The first financial support from Yamada’s fund went to 10 mothers and their children on Jan. 15. He was surprised to see the recipients shed tears of joy upon receiving ¥200,000 or ¥300,000 each.

Yamada said the government has tried to reduce the number of evacuees from Fukushima in order to claim that their ranks have decreased and that the disaster has been overcome.

Yoshida echoed that view, describing the voluntary evacuees as “people who will be eliminated from history as the government seeks to trivialize the damage from radiation contamination and say their evacuation was unnecessary.”

As long as there are evacuees living outside Fukushima, they will remain a symbol showing the situation has yet to be solved, Yamada said.

“If you say ‘we will not forget about Fukushima,’ you should never forget the terror of radiation, bearing in mind that people will not live in safety as long as nuclear plants exist in the world,” he said. “So, I want to continue to think about the evacuees.”

Kyodo

Ice Wall At Fukushima To Be 35 Billion Yen Fail

TEPCO Workers at Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Palnt

 

Coping with the vast amounts of ground water flowing into the broken Fukushima nuclear plant — which then becomes radiated and seeps back out — has become such a problem that Japan is building a 35 billion yen “ice wall” into the earth around it.

But even if the frozen barrier built with taxpayers’ money works as envisioned, it won’t completely block all water from reaching the damaged reactors because of gaps in the wall and rainfall, creating as much as 50 tons of contaminated water each day, said Yuichi Okamura, a chief architect of the massive project.

“It’s not zero,” Okamura said of the amount of water reaching the reactors in an interview with The Associated Press earlier this week. He is a general manager at Tokyo Electric Power Co (TEPCO), which operates the facility that melted down after it was hit by a tsunami in 2011, prompting 150,000 people to evacuate.

Workers have rigged pipes that constantly spray water into the reactors to keep the nuclear debris inside from overheating, but coping with what to do with the resulting radiated water has been a major headache. So far, the company has stored the water in nearly 1,000 huge tanks around the plant, with more being built each week.

TEPCO resorted to devising the 1.5-kilometer-long ice wall around the facility after it became clear it had to do something drastic to stem the flow of groundwater into the facility’s basement and keep contaminated water from flowing back out.

“It’s a vicious cycle, like a cat-and-mouse game,” Okamura said of the water-related issues. “We have come up against many unexpected problems.”

The water woes are just part of the many obstacles involved in controlling and dismantling the Fukushima Dai-chi plant, a huge task that will take 40 years. No one has even seen the nuclear debris. Robots are being created to capture images of the debris. The radiation is so high no human being can do that job.

The ice wall, built by construction company Kajima Corp., is being turned on in sections for tests, and the entire freezing process will take eight months since it was first switched on in late March. The entire wall requires as much electricity as would power 13,000 Japanese households.

Edward Yarmak, president of Arctic Foundations, based in Anchorage, Alaska, which designs and installs ground freezing systems and made an ice wall for the Oak Ridge reactor site, says the solution should work at Fukushima.

“The refrigeration system has just been turned on, and it takes time to form the wall. First, the soil freezes concentrically around the pipes and when the frozen cylinders are large enough, they coalesce and form a continuous wall. After time, the wall increases in thickness,” he said in an email.

But critics say the problem of the groundwater reaching the reactors was a no-brainer that should have been projected.

Building a concrete wall into the hill near the plant right after the disaster would have minimized the contaminated water problem considerably, says Shigeaki Tsunoyama, honorary professor and former president of University of Aizu in Fukushima.

Even at the reduced amount of 50 tons a day, the contaminated water produced at Fukushima will equal what came out of Three Mile Island’s total in just eight months because of the prevalence of groundwater in Fukushima, he said.

Although TEPCO has set 2020 as the goal for ending the water problems, Tsunoyama believes that’s too optimistic.

“The groundwater coming up from below can never become zero,” he said in a telephone interview. “There is no perfect answer.”

Okamura acknowledged the option to build a barrier in the higher elevation near the plant was considered in the early days after the disaster. But he defended his company’s actions.

The priority was on preventing contaminated water from escaping into the Pacific Ocean, he said. Various walls were built along the coastline, and radiation monitors show leaks have tapered off over the last five years.

Opponents of nuclear power say the ice wall is a waste of taxpayers’ money and that it may not work.

“From the perspective of regular people, we have serious questions about this piece of research that’s awarded a construction giant,” says Kanna Mitsuta, director of ecology group Friends of the Earth Japan. “Our reaction is: Why an ice wall?” 

AP

Fukushima Daiichi Just Got Uglier

As time passes, a bona fide message emerges from within the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant disaster scenario, and that message is that once a nuclear power plant loses it, the unraveling only gets worse and worse until it’s at its worst, and still, there’s no stopping it. Similar to opening Pandora’s box, there’s no stopping a ferocious atom-splitting insanity that knows no end.

Four years of experience with Fukushima provides considerable evidence that splitting atoms to boil water is outright unmitigated madness. After all, nuclear power plants are built to boil water; yes, to boil water; it’s as simple as that, but yet at the same time it’s also extraordinarily complex. Conversely, solar and wind do not boil water and are not complex and never deadly (Germany knows).

As it unfolds, the Fukushima story grows more convoluted and way more chilling. For example, according to The Japan Times, October 30th Edition: “Extremely high radiation levels and the inability to grasp the details about melted nuclear fuel make it impossible for the utility to chart the course of its planned decommissioning of the reactors at the plant.”

Thereby, the bitter truth behind a major nuclear meltdown shows its true colors: “Impossible for the utility to chart the course of its planned decommissioning…” is very definitive, divulging the weak underbelly of the fission-to-heat process; only one slip-up, and it’s deadly dangerous and likely out of control!

Not only that, but the entire Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant complex is subject to recurring mishaps and setbacks, as well as various technical tribulations, something different going wrong on any given day. And, it’s always big, never small.

For example, according to The Japan Times, October 30thEdition: “Deadly 9.4 Sieverts Detected Outside Fukushima Reactor 2 Containment Vessel; Checks Stop.”

TEPCO also detected deadly radiation levels outside of reactor No. 1. According to a direct quote from the article: “People exposed to the maximum radiation dose for some 45 minutes will die.” Death in 45 minutes!

The potency contained within 9.4 Sieverts (Sv) is enormous. One Sievert, which is a measure of the health effect of radiation on the human body, is normally considered a massive dose, causing immediate radiation sickness. But, since levels beyond one Sievert are rarely, if ever, encountered in the normal course of everyday life, the industry standard uses millisieverts (mSv = 1/1000th) or microsieverts (uSv = one millionth of a Sievert) when measuring radiation.

Miserably, eight (8) Sieverts causes severe vomiting, severe headache, severe fever, incapacitation, and a 100% death rate over a period of time greater than 10 minutes within 48 hours (Radiation Survival Guide).

Chernobyl is a prime example of the potency of radiation. Immediately after the explosion (1986), radiation levels in the control room reached 300 Sv/hr, resulting in the deaths of the operators of the plant. Thirty years later, radiation levels in the same control room run approximately 8-10 mSv/hr.

It’s little wonder TEPCO finds it impossible to plan decommissioning of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant, which begs the question of if, and when, decommissioning will be possible. Who knows, if ever?

Furthermore, according to The Japan Times’ article: TEPCO planned to start checking inside the containment vessel in August by use of a remote-controlled robot but “high radiation levels have stalled the examination.”

Unfortunately, not only is radiation sizzling outside of reactor No. 1, but a pipe connection at reactor No. 2 also shows extremely high radiation levels. Reactor No. 2 is where the hot melted radioactive core (corium) still has not been located. But, then again, with so much hot stuff sizzling throughout the entire Fukushima complex, how are workers expected to locate a melted nuclear core that may have already penetrated the steel-reinforced concrete containment vessel, entering the earth?

If total meltdown occurred/occurs, nobody has any idea of what to do next. There is no playbook. It’s likely impossible to do anything remedial once a melted nuclear core has burrowed into the ground because deadly isotopes uncontrollably spread erratically, ubiquitously into the surrounding underground soil and water. Then what?

In the final analysis, there is a distinct probability that Fukushima has no final analysis. Reports issued by the Japanese government even indicate that Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant cleanup and decommissioning is severely restricted by extremely high radiation levels and the inability to grasp the details about melted nuclear fuel. What could be worse?

 

Counterpunch and Kyodo

The Last Fukushima Exclusion Zone Farmer

Two years since the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant went into full meltdown, and the resulting 20km evacuation zone was enforced, one farmer still remains behind braving high levels of radiation and loneliness to tend to abandoned animals.

His name is Naoto Matsumura, and he is the last man standing in the ghost town of Tomioka. Another farmer, Kenji Hasegawa's town of Iidate was also evacuated due to high levels of radiation, he sought refuge in temporary housing. Faced with a post­nuclear world both these men share brutally honest views on the state of their lives, TEPCO, government inaction and some of the hardest situations they have had to face in the midst of overwhelming radioactivity.

Japanese Government Admits Fukushima Worker Has Cancer

Health Minister Yasuhisa Shiozaki at news conference

Yesterday, the Japanese Health Ministry made its first admission that a worker at the Fukushima nuclear plant developed cancer as a decontamination worker after the 2011 disaster.

The man, unnamed by the ministry, worked at the damaged plant for over a year, during which time he was exposed to 19.8 millisieverts of radiation, four times the exposure limit the Japanese government sets as safe. The worker has contracted from leukemia.

A Fukushima Daiichi engineer, Masao Yoshida, also contracted esophageal cancer after the disaster and died in 2013 – but TEPCO refused to accept responsibility, insisting that the cancer developed too quickly.

Three other Fukushima workers have also contracted cancer but have yet to have their cases assessed.

The Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster followed the earthquake and tsunami of March 2011. Three of the reactors on the site melted down sending clouds of deadly radiation into the atmosphere following a hydrogen explosion.  Inspections have found nuclear fuel  melted through the steel reactor vessels and sunk into the concrete foundations.

Charles Gannon and Dallas Brincrest

Thyroid Cancer Rise Linked To Fukushima Radiation

Four Japanese researchers have attributed most of the thyroid cancer cases found among children and adolescents after the March 2011 nuclear power plant crisis in Fukushima Prefecture to radiation from the accident in their report published Tuesday.

Annual thyroid cancer incidence rates in Fukushima after the disaster through late last year were 20- to 50-fold higher than a pre-accident level for the whole of Japan, a team led by Toshihide Tsuda, professor of environmental epidemiology at Okayama University, said in the electronic edition of the journal of the International Society for Environmental Epidemiology.

The finding, based on screening some 370,000 Fukushima residents aged 18 or younger at the time of the accident, “is unlikely to be explained by a screening surge,” the researchers said, pointing to radiation exposure as a factor behind the rise in thyroid cancer cases.

But their conclusion is refuted by other epidemiology experts, including Shoichiro Tsugane of the National Cancer Center, who said the results of the researchers’ analysis are premature.

“Unless radiation exposure data are checked, any specific relationship between a cancer incidence and radiation cannot be identified,” said Tsugane, director of the Research Center for Cancer Prevention and Screening. He also referred to a global trend of overdiagnosis of thyroid cancer.

As of late August, the Fukushima prefecture government identified 104 thyroid cancer cases in the prefecture.

But the prefectural government and many experts have doubted whether these cases are related to the nuclear disaster because the radioactive iodine released from the crisis was smaller compared with the level following the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear accident.

Kyodo