Fukushima update - 10/12/2013

Fukushima cleanup workers’ radiation feared 20% higher

Japan’s government may have underestimated by 20 percent the internal radiation doses Fukushima cleanup workers received after the plant’s nuclear disaster, a panel of leading UN scientists says in its preliminary findings.

RT,

12 October, 2013

Three of the Fukushima plant’s nuclear reactors were damaged by an earthquake-triggered tsunami on March 11, 2011, which led to a nuclear disaster with the plant accumulating radioactive water ever since.

The UN Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation (UNSCEAR) raised doubts about the estimates of radioactive substances discharged at the plant provided by the Japanese authorities, plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) and other entities, Japanese newspaper the Asahi Shimbun cited a preliminary report submitted to the UN General Assembly as saying.

The UN committee analyzed the data on radiation doses of 25,000 employees who worked at the plant no later than October 2012.

The committee established that the tests conducted on the workers had failed to account some types of radiation, the newspaper reported, citing a summary of its report. The procedures completely ignored incidences of Iodine-132 and Iodine-133, which have short half-lives of 2 hours and 20 hours, respectively.

Moreover, the workers were tested for thyroid gland doses from radioactive iodine only after a significant delay, the committee found.

If the UN scientists’ estimates are correct, then more Fukushima employees would be eligible for free health checkups and treatment.

At present about 1,100 people subjected to radiation of 50 millisieverts or more in whole-body doses are entitled to free tests for cancer of the thyroid gland, lungs, stomach and colon, the Asahi Shimbun reports. About 2,000 people with whole-body doses below 50 millisieverts but thyroid gland doses of 100 millisieverts or over are entitled to be tested for thyroid gland cancer.

UNSCEAR has said that the soonest the report will be completed is by the end of the year.

The Japanese Health Ministry required TEPCO and 81 primary contractor companies to submit medical examination results for 20,000 Fukushima employees before December 2011; however it is still waiting for that data, the Asahi Shimbun reported.

Luke Barret (R), external professional for TEPCO's contaminated water and tank countermeasures headquarters, inspecting TEPCO's Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant at Okuma town in Fukushima prefecture.(AFP Photo / TEPCO)

The newspaper also reported that the UN experts cannot check all thyroid examination results, as the database is incomplete. An unnamed expert told the paper that radiation exposure in the Fukushima disaster came in large part from radioactive iodine, which tends to accumulate in the thyroid gland. Exposure to radiation is linked to greater rates of cancer and thyroid disorders.

Japan holds 1st nuclear plant drill since 2011 disaster

Over 3,000 residents of Kyushu Island took part Saturday in the first day of a two-day nuclear safety training exercise focused on the Sendai nuclear plant in Kagoshima. In addition to local residents, officials from about 130 government institutions, including members of the prime minister's office and PM Shinzo Abe himself, participated in the first drill since the Fukushima crisis.

Residents living within a 30-kilometer radius of the plant took part in an evacuation drill for the first time.

The exercise began Saturday morning under the simulated conditions of an earthquake, with an intensity of upper 6 on the Japanese scale of 7, striking an area near the Sendai nuclear plant, causing one of the plant’s reactors to shut down. On Saturday afternoon, the plant was simulated to have lost all electricity due to an aftershock.

Rescue teams worked on news video reporting on the earthquake to alert people about the accident and show optimal evacuation routes. The exercise was also attended by members of the Coast Guard, who had evacuated the residents of remote islands of the supposedly contaminated area.

Since the Fukushima nuclear disaster, Japan has shuttered all of its dozens of nuclear power plants. However the Japanese government is considering restarting some reactors in the event of their compliance with new safety standards developed after the March 2011 disaster. Four Japanese power companies have already applied for the restart of six reactors at 12 nuclear power plants.

However it is not known whether local authorities will agree to reopen the plants, because after the nuclear meltdown of Fukushima’s reactors, public movements calling for a complete rejection of nuclear power have become more popular.

A preliminary decision on whether to reopen the nuclear plants is expected in early 2014.

Group Claims Elevated Radioactivity Levels At Tokyo 2020 Olympic Venues

Zero Hedge,

12 October, 2013

Measurements taken at 39 sporting venues earmarked to stage the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games have elevated levels of radioactivity according to a citizen's group. The South China Morning Post reports that the group "found caesium-137 at almost every place [they] carried out tests, and there was no caesium here before the accident at Fukushima." Tests were made at the Olympic Village, Media Center, and the highest radiation reading, 0.484 microsieverts per hour, was detected in undergrowth close to Yumenoshima Stadium - significantly higher than the level of 0.23 microsieverts per hour set by the government as the standard for decontamination work going on in the exclusion zone around the nuclear plant. In response to a request, a spokesman for Tokyo 2020 insisted: "Radiation levels in the air and water of Tokyo are safe." So all good then...

Via The South China Morning Post,

A citizens' group in Tokyo has found elevated levels of radioactivity at sporting facilities that will be used in the 2020 Olympic Games and is warning that competitors and the hundreds of thousands of people expected to flock to the city for the event will be putting themselves in danger.

The Citizens' Group for Measuring Radioactive Environment at Facilities for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics claims wind-borne radiation from the four crippled reactors at the Fukushima nuclear plant has contaminated a number of future venues. 

...

 The tests were also carried out at the planned site of the Olympic Village and the media centre, with the highest radiation reading - 0.484 microsieverts per hour - detected in undergrowth close to Yumenoshima Stadium, where the equestrian events will be held. 

Soil samples collected at the site had 3,040 becquerels of caesium per kilogram. 

...

While the readings do not pose an immediate threat to human health, members of the group say they are still significantly higher than the level of 0.23 microsieverts per hour set by the government as the standard for decontamination work going on in the exclusion zone around the nuclear plant.

"We found caesium-137 at almost every place we carried out tests, and there was no caesium here before the accident at Fukushima," Mitsuo Tanaka, a member of the group, told the South China Morning Post.

 ...

In response to a request from the Post, a spokesman for Toyko 2020 insisted: "Radiation levels in the air and water of Tokyo are safe.

Fukushima Farmer: Plutonium was detected “all over” village 25 miles from plant

• Professor: “Something terrible, dreadful happening”
• Mayor: Please don’t tell this to the residents

ENENews,

12 October, 2013

Kenichi Hasegawa, Farmer from Iitate Village in Fukushima Prefecture, Canberra Forum, March 13, 2013 (At 40:00 in): 

After the nuclear accident, all over Iitate village, plutonium and strontium were detected [40km from nuclear plant]. [...] And then something unbelievable happened. Authorities started bringing many [hygienists or dentists?] to the village […] these doctors started doing this local safety campaign. They kept telling us, “It’s OK, it’s safe, there’s nothing to worry about.” […] The day before the evacuation order was announced, the professor from Kyoto University called Professor Imanaka came to the village and did a thorough research monitoring of the radiation levels. And Professor Imanaka, he was just astonished, “Something terrible, dreadful is happening. The radiation level was so high; I can’t believe people are still living here.” […] So Professor Imanaka brought his data to the mayor and said, “You guys should evacuate immediately.” But the mayor’s response was, “Please do not disclose this data to the public.” Instead he said, “Is there any way to live with this radiation?” The village authorities only were interested in protecting the village itself, not the people. We wanted to protect the children and we suggested to evacuate the children, but they didn’t listen. And the day before the evacuation order, exclusion zone, was announced, the day before, a different professor from ??? University visited the village and he called all the parents to the town hall, and then gave a safety lecture, “Your kids can go out and play, your kids don’t have to wear masks just to play outside.” But the very next day the evacuation order was announced.

Japan physician who volunteered at a Minamisoma evacuation center soon after 3/11, Feb. 19, 2013 (at 54:00 in): 

What happened at that time was systematic effort by the prefecture government, […] as well as the Japanese central government, tried to minimize the amount of radiation. […] Primary concern [...] for Fukushima Minpo [newspaper] was losing business […] For the prefecture government, losing the people means less revenue, less positions.

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Fukushima News 10/12/13: "All of Japan" At Risk Of Food And Water Having Serious Contamination

Cesium contamination increasing in water at port of Fukushima plant

Tokyo Electric Power Co. announced Oct. 12 that it has detected a rising level of radioactive cesium in seawater sampled from the mouth of the harbor of the devastated Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant, measuring a combined 10 becquerels of cesium-134 and cesium-137 per liter.

Asahi Shimbun,

13 October, 2013

The level is the highest since the plant operator began sampling water in June at the mouth of the port, which marks the boundary between the harbor around the plant and the ocean.

At the plant, a vast amount of contaminated water that includes radioactive substances has been discharging into the sea since the nuclear disaster following the Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami on March 11, 2011.

On Oct. 11, TEPCO said that it recorded 2.7 becquerels of cesium-134 and 7.3 becquerels of cesium-137 per liter at the port mouth. Samples taken a day earlier were below the measurable limits of 1.1 becquerels of cesium-134 and 0.9 becquerel of cesium-137 per liter, the company said.

The previous record amount of radioactive cesium detected at the mouth of the harbor was 1.6 becquerels of cesium-134 and 4.7 becquerels of cesium-137 per liter in water sampled on Aug. 19.

World Health Organization guidelines advise the maximum level of radioactivity in drinking water to be 10 becquerels per liter or less. But TEPCO officials said that the environmental impact of the level of cesium detected on Oct. 11 is negligible.

On Oct. 8, the company also detected 1.4 becquerels of cesium-137 from seawater sampled 1 kilometer off the mouth of the port.

Meanwhile, TEPCO measured 320,000 becquerels of tritium, a radioactive isotope of hydrogen, per liter from water sampled from an observation well on Oct. 10 located near a storage tank, from which the leakage of 300 tons of highly contaminated water was discovered in August.

About 1,000 storage tanks are holding the ever-increasing volume of highly toxic water left after being used to cool the reactors.

It marked the first time that water containing 300,000 or more becquerels of tritium per liter was detected from groundwater sampled from the compound of the Fukushima No. 1 plant.

It is more than five times the legally allowed maximum level of tritium contamination--60,000 becquerels per liter--that could be released into the ocean.