Sunday, October 16, 2011

Radioactive Debris: Ministry of the Environment to Municipalities - Don't Tell Anyone, Don't Say No

As reported here a number of times, Japan's Ministry of the Environment under Goshi Hosono (who is also in charge of the Fuku I nuclear accident) is more than ever eager to spread radiation throughout Japan by forcing the municipalities (except one - Tokyo - who will be happily burning the debris from Iwate after a bogus test of mixing radioactive debris with regular garbage to reduce the density of radioactive materials in the ashes) to accept disaster debris from Tohoku.

Someone in Japan uploaded the notice from the Ministry to the people in charge of waste disposal in the municipalities, dated October 7, 2011. It is a questionnaire that the Ministry wants the municipalities to fill and send back to the Ministry via email, asking about the current status in the municipalities on their effort to accept disaster debris. The Ministry wants to know how much debris they can take in, what types of debris, what type of disposal available. The similar survey was done several months ago, but since then the local oppositions have grown. So the Ministry wants to persuade the wavering municipalities.

The notice is not what the Ministry would put up on their website as "press release" because it is not a press release. Rather, it is a document only seen by local officials.

The notice is an outrage for anyone who oppose moving the radioactive debris to their cities and towns, particularly those in the western Japan where the radioactive fallout from Fukushima I Nuke Plant has been close to zero. (Internal radiation exposure is another matter, which is happening in the western Japan also.)

Why?

First:

なお、本調査の結果について、個別の地方公共団体名は公表しないこととしています。

When we announce the result of the survey, the names of the individual municipalities will not be disclosed.

Unlike the earlier survey where all the names of the municipalities were disclosed and which led to the citizens' oppositions in those municipalities, the Ministry is assuring them their names won't be disclosed this time.

Second, in the multiple choices on the current effort level at the municipalities, there is no choice to say "No" to the debris. There are three choices, and they are:

A:既に受け入れを実施している
A: Already accepting the debris

B:被災地への職員派遣や検討会議の設置等の具体的な検討を行っている
B: Effort already ongoing such as sending the personnel to the disaster area and setting up the committee to discuss the acceptance

C:被災地への職員派遣や検討会議の設置等は行っていないが、受入れに向けた検討を行っている

C: Hasn't started sending the personnel to the disaster area or setting up the committee, but ongoing discussion toward accepting the debris

There should have been D: No plan to accept any debris from the disaster area, period.

To top it off, when it actually comes to bringing the disaster debris to those municipalities who will have secretly said yes, the residents may or may not be consulted if the case of Aichi Prefecture is any indication:

Chunichi Shinbun (10/15/2011; don't expect the link to remain long for this paper. If it is gone, go here for the full copy of the article) reports a comment from the Ministry of the Environment:

「実際に受け入れる時は、市町村側が住民に説明することなどを検討したい」

"When the actual acceptance of the debris happens, we may consider having the municipalities explain to the residents."

Doing the rudimentary reading-between-the-lines exercise, I think the Ministry is saying it does not require that the municipalities explain the debris acceptance to the residents, and it certainly does not require that the explanation be done beforehand.

Some on the net call the Ministry as "The Ministry of the Environmental Destruction". That's about right.

Here's a page from the scanned copy of the Ministry's notice, detailing what information the Ministry wants from the municipalities including the above multiple choice question:



20 comments:

Anonymous said...

Japanese consensus approach, top-down arm twisting and smile.

Anonymous said...

laprimavera, why are you assuming that the tsunami debris from Miyagi and Iwate would be radioactive? The coastal area of Miyagi seems to be OK. Fukushima is another matter, of course, but even Hosono admits that.

Anonymous said...

Anonymous, why should debris from tsumani be sent to other locations for burning/disposal...burn in place! No reason to spend for transporting! Unless there is a reason to spread and share any radioactive materials all over Japan. The children of Japan need to be protected, not become victims of TEPCO. Who will be their for them when thyroid cancer occurs in a few years, or when Japanese residents realize they have been chemically castrated by radiation????

arevamirpal::laprimavera said...

@anon at 5:10AM, I am not assuming. They actually are radioactive, as measured by the Ministry of the Environment (to the tune of over 4000 becquerels/kg of radioactive cesium in burned ashes in Miyako City, Iwate, that's where Tokyo metropolitan government will receive debris), no less. Tokyo metropolitan government did its mixing and matching measurement.

Anonymous said...

5:10,

Miyagi and Iwate have been subjected to weather.

Unknown said...

Long term plan :

1/ dispatch radioactive material throughout Japan
2/ Burn it
3/ increase radioactivity low level contamination nationwide
4/ expect global diseases
5/ 20 years later, lie : No the disease you are complaining about are NOT related to Fukushima, look all Japan as similar cases in every 47 prefectures.
6/ Keep Toshiba/Westinghouse making profits and kill people.

DD said...

Speaking cynically: spreading contamination nationally could be a policy designed to create "side effects" over the whole of the honourable nation of the formerly rising sun, so that in years to come the statistics could be abused to "prove" a nationwide increase in cancer, genetic defects, etc., and thereby "disprove" any effects due to contamination local to fuxu.

This cannot be the case!

Anonymous said...

@laprimavera: "I am not assuming. They actually are radioactive, as measured by the Ministry of the Environment (to the tune of over 4000 becquerels/kg of radioactive cesium in burned ashes in Miyako City"

But according to the Tokyo Shinbun article (http://ex-skf-jp.blogspot.com/2011/10/blog-post_04.html) 4895 Bq/Kg was the maximum found in Miyako and Rikuzentakata ashes. Since Rikuzentakata is much closer to the hotspot around Ichinoseki, I would assume that the maximum was found there, not in Miyako.

If we look at the results from the garbage processing plants (http://www.pref.iwate.jp/view.rbz?cd=34614), the areas that show higher levels, specially in fly ash, are Oshu and Ichinoseki. Miyako has only been measured once in July as far as I know. The results are: 40 for bulk ash, 240 for fly ash.

But this is around 10 or 20 times lower than what was being detected in garbage ash from Tokyo around the same time, specially in Adachi-ku, Katsushika-ku and Edogawa-ku: http://www.union.tokyo23-seisou.lg.jp/topics/data/shokyakubai-230711.pdf

So, what should be done is to differentiate between contaminated areas and less contaminated areas (maybe the 8000 Bq/Kg limit is too high, that I don't know.) But it seems that, at least in the case of Miyako debris, it would actually be an improvement for Tokyo, if only because that would mean burning stuff that apparently is less contaminated than the garbage that has been being burned daily in the city for months already.

arevamirpal::laprimavera said...

@anon at 5:15PM You could assume, but the article doesn't say it is Rikuzentakata either.

As to "improvement" you say for Tokyo, I fail to see why adding radioactive debris, however low (or high) in radiation, to the existing radioactive sludge and garbage that Tokyo has been burning. It's not like Tokyo stops burning these and burying when they burn Iwate's (and soon Miyagi's) debris.

Anonymous said...

It is certainly NOT an improvement because Tokyo never stops burning their own radioactive crap. Iwate's crap is on top of that.

Anonymous said...

Improvement since it would mean burning less radioactive stuff for a change. And it hasn't been proved that there are releases from the incineration plants. There are at least a dozen incineration plants around Tokyo-to alone and no one has detected increased radiation levels around them. We have Yamauchi-sensei's report for Koto-ku, but Koto-ku is in the east, closer to Edogawa and probably more contaminated to being with, so maybe the higher radiation levels he detected back in May were already there because of the fallout, not because of the sludge plant.

So, before protesting against the distribution of tsunami debris, what has to be done is to study the possible releases from the garbage and sewage sludge plants. If those are a source of radioactive contamination they must be stopped, whatever the government decides to do with the rubble from Miyako (which seems to be less contaminated than anything being burnt in Tokyo, not to talk about Matsudo or Kashiwa in Chiba.)

Anonymous said...

You must be really, really dense or you work for the Tokyo government. Burning less radioactive stuff ON TOP OF more radioactive stuff is an improvement? Give me a break.

Anonymous said...

OK, let the people from Iwate die among the ruins of their lives just cause I don't feel like checking if the incineration plants actually represent a problem or not.

Anonymous said...

10:01,

why refer to "possible releases" from burning radioactive materials?

How to scrub for that stuff?
Doesn't exist, or prove their method?
Surely not assuming they do??

nelson311 said...

"OK, let the people from Iwate die among the ruins of their lives just cause I don't feel like checking if the incineration plants actually represent a problem or not."

oh yes ... I am sure they will check every cm of 500 000 tons of debris ... NOT! 7 months later, they barely came up with a map showing Plutonium (45km) and Strontium (89km)... Strontium in Yokohama ... they dont even have the enough proper gear to measure such particles. So what on earth makes you think that they will not spew this atrocity back into our atmosphere? On top of that this incompetent government believes eating p<lutonium is ok ...LOL. I mean come on people ... take a very very very deep breath and hold it for a very very very long time. This is nothing short than a "a collective effort serving a mass delusion" as I always refer it to.

Anonymous said...

But is it going to be impossible to measure radioactive releases from incineration plants? You go to one, you get air samples, you measure it.

They have been burning radioactive stuff for months, why do people start loosing their minds when ruble from an area way less contaminated than Tokyo is going to arrive?

Anonymous said...

Freakishly revealing, we aware people know about it, but put black on white like this gives the same effect as that last little cup of sake you should have refused... When I see trucks carrying soil, I can't help looking at the driver in the eye at the traffic light as I cross the street. Social distrust:not only government and big business, but anyone who has to make a living, fishermen, rice cultivators, restaurant owners... Like in Nazi Germany, we’ll look back on these days when almost everybody was a coward and part of the issue.

Anonymous said...

On the same topic with links to our dear Hosono-san (will he be revered in Yasukuni jinja when he dies):

http://survivaljapan.wordpress.com/2011/09/29/tokyo-imports-500000000-kg-of-nuclear-waste/

Anonymous said...

October 17, 2011 2:51 PM Anonymous said.......But according to the Tokyo Shinbun article ... I would assume that the maximum was found there, not in Miyako."

On what planet yall living?

...25 yrs ago Chrenobyl - the still bubbling metdown - blanketed the globe (Hello, is japan on this globe? Yes? No?)

...with Strontium Sr-90. And you 'keep assuming.' Cant you see how deep-programmed you are? Yes? No?

Anonymous said...

"October 18, 2011 3:38 AM
nelson311 said... This is nothing short than a "a collective effort serving a mass delusion" as I always refer it to."

Papal Mass. According their own published goals, evenly published for the deluded. Its funny how human brain always refuses the Truth, loves the mass...

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