Sunday, December 11, 2011

New York Times: Japan Split on Hope for Vast Radiation Cleanup

A very well-written article from New York Times by Martin Fackler, on December 6, 2011. I translated this article and posted on my Japanese blog, but the futility of so-called "decontamination" is best summarized, to me, by the photo that the New York Times put at the top of the article:

Even the ardent supporter for the residents' return by decontaminating the towns and cities, Professor Tatsuhiko Kodama of Tokyo University, has this to say:

“I believe it is possible to save Fukushima,” said the supporter, Tatsuhiko Kodama, director of the Radioisotope Center at the University of Tokyo. “But many evacuated residents must accept that it won’t happen in their lifetimes.”

The article correctly identifies Japan's urge or obsession with "decontamination" as a "proxy" war - to prove that Japan still matters in the world by showcasing the rebirth with determination and superior technology.

Well, that superior technology, we know now, consists of high-pressure washers, leaf collectors, bloom, gloves and rain boots, soil scrapers, bulldozers, shovels, and sheer manpower exposing the ordinary citizen volunteers to a pre-Fukushima annual radiation dosage level of a nuclear worker (50 millisieverts).

Determination, yes. But that is getting akin to fighting B29 (World War II bomber) with bamboo spears. You could say it's totally in line with what Dr. "Damashita" Yamashita said to the residents of Fukushima City as the radioactive plume was sweeping over the city on March 21 - "If you smile, radiation won't come to you."

From New York Times (12/6/2011; emphasis is mine):

FUTABA, Japan — Futaba is a modern-day ghost town — not a boomtown gone bust, not even entirely a victim of the devastating earthquake and tsunami that leveled other parts of Japan’s northeast coast.

Its traditional wooden homes have begun to sag and collapse since they were abandoned in March by residents fleeing the nuclear plant on the edge of town that began spiraling toward disaster. Roofs possibly damaged by the earth’s shaking have let rain seep in, starting the rot that is eating at the houses from the inside.

The roadway arch at the entrance to the empty town almost seems a taunt. It reads:

Nuclear energy: a correct understanding brings a prosperous lifestyle.

Those who fled Futaba are among the nearly 90,000 people evacuated from a 12-mile zone around the Fukushima Daiichi plant and another area to the northwest contaminated when a plume from the plant scattered radioactive cesium and iodine.

Now, Japan is drawing up plans for a cleanup that is both monumental and unprecedented, in the hopes that those displaced can go home.

The debate over whether to repopulate the area, if trial cleanups prove effective, has become a proxy for a larger battle over the future of Japan. Supporters see rehabilitating the area as a chance to showcase the country’s formidable determination and superior technical skills — proof that Japan is still a great power.

For them, the cleanup is a perfect metaphor for Japan’s rebirth.

Critics counter that the effort to clean Fukushima Prefecture could end up as perhaps the biggest of Japan’s white-elephant public works projects — and yet another example of post-disaster Japan reverting to the wasteful ways that have crippled economic growth for two decades.

So far, the government is following a pattern set since the nuclear accident, dismissing dangers, often prematurely, and laboring to minimize the scope of the catastrophe. Already, the trial cleanups have stalled: the government failed to anticipate communities’ reluctance to store tons of soil to be scraped from contaminated yards and fields.

And a radiation specialist who tested the results of an extensive local cleanup in a nearby city found that exposure levels remained above international safety standards for long-term habitation.

Even a vocal supporter of repatriation suggests that the government has not yet leveled with its people about the seriousness of their predicament.

“I believe it is possible to save Fukushima,” said the supporter, Tatsuhiko Kodama, director of the Radioisotope Center at the University of Tokyo. “But many evacuated residents must accept that it won’t happen in their lifetimes.”

To judge the huge scale of what Japan is contemplating, consider that experts say residents can return home safely only after thousands of buildings are scrubbed of radioactive particles and much of the topsoil from an area the size of Connecticut is replaced.

Even forested mountains will probably need to be decontaminated, which might necessitate clear-cutting and literally scraping them clean.

The Soviet Union did not attempt such a cleanup after the Chernobyl accident of 1986, the only nuclear disaster larger than that at Fukushima Daiichi. The government instead relocated about 300,000 people, abandoning vast tracts of farmland.

Many Japanese officials believe that they do not have that luxury; the area contaminated above an international safety standard for the general public covers more than an estimated 3 percent of the landmass of this densely populated nation.

“We are different from Chernobyl,” said Toshitsuna Watanabe, 64, the mayor of Okuma, one of the towns that was evacuated. “We are determined to go back. Japan has the will and the technology to do this.”

Such resolve reflects, in part, a deep attachment to home for rural Japanese like Mr. Watanabe, whose family has lived in Okuma for 19 generations. Their heartfelt appeals to go back have won wide sympathy across Japan, making it hard for people to oppose their wishes.

But quiet resistance has begun to grow, both among those who were displaced and those who fear the country will need to sacrifice too much without guarantees that a multibillion-dollar cleanup will provide enough protection.

Soothing pronouncements by local governments and academics about the eventual ability to live safely near the ruined plant can seem to be based on little more than hope.

No one knows how much exposure to low doses of radiation causes a significant risk of premature death. That means Japanese living in contaminated areas are likely to become the subjects of future studies — the second time in seven decades that Japanese have become a test case for the effects of radiation exposure, after the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

The national government has declared itself responsible for cleaning up only the towns in the evacuation zone; local governments have already begun cleaning cities and towns outside that area.

Inside the 12-mile ring, which includes Futaba, the Environmental Ministry has pledged to reduce radiation levels by half within two years — a relatively easy goal because short-lived isotopes will deteriorate. The bigger question is how long it will take to reach the ultimate goal of bringing levels down to about 1 millisievert per year, the annual limit for the general public from artificial sources of radiation that is recommended by the International Commission on Radiological Protection. That is a much more daunting task given that it will require removing cesium 137, an isotope that will remain radioactive for decades.

Trial cleanups have been delayed for months by the search for a storage site for enough contaminated dirt to fill 33 domed football stadiums. Even evacuated communities have refused to accept it.

And Tomoya Yamauchi, the radiation expert from Kobe University who performed tests in Fukushima City after extensive remediation efforts, found that radiation levels inside homes had dropped by only about 25 percent. That left parts of the city with levels of radiation four times higher than the recommended maximum exposure.

We can only conclude that these efforts have so far been a failure,” he said.

Minamisoma, a small city whose center sits about 15 miles from the nuclear plant, is a good place to get a sense of the likely limitations of decontamination efforts.

The city has cleaned dozens of schools, parks and sports facilities in hopes of enticing back the 30,000 of its 70,000 residents who have yet to return since the accident. On a recent morning, a small army of bulldozers and dump trucks were resurfacing a high school soccer field and baseball diamond with a layer of reddish brown dirt. Workers buried the old topsoil in a deep hole in a corner of the soccer field. The crew’s overseer, Masahiro Sakura, said readings at the field had dropped substantially, but he remains anxious because many parts of the city were not expected to be decontaminated for at least two years.

These days, he lets his three young daughters outdoors only to go to school and play in a resurfaced park. “Is it realistic to live like this?” he asked.

The challenges are sure to be more intense inside the 12-mile zone, where radiation levels in some places have reached nearly 510 millisieverts a year, 25 times above the cutoff for evacuation.

Already, the proposed repatriation has opened rifts among those who have been displaced. The 11,500 displaced residents of Okuma — many of whom now live in rows of prefabricated homes 60 miles inland — are enduring just such a divide.

The mayor, Mr. Watanabe, has directed the town to draw up its own plan to return to its original location within three to five years by building a new town on farmland in Okuma’s less contaminated western edge.

Although Mr. Watanabe won a recent election, his challenger found significant support among residents with small children for his plan to relocate to a different part of Japan. Mitsue Ikeda, one supporter, said she would never go home, especially after a medical exam showed that her 8-year-old son, Yuma, had ingested cesium.

“It’s too dangerous,” Ms. Ikeda, 47, said. “How are we supposed to live, by wearing face masks all the time?”

She, like many other evacuees, berated the government, saying it was fixated on cleaning up to avoid paying compensation.

Many older residents, by contrast, said they should be allowed to return.

“Smoking cigarettes is more dangerous than radiation,” said Eiichi Tsukamoto, 70, who worked at the Daiichi plant for 40 years as a repairman. “We can make Okuma a model to the world of how to restore a community after a nuclear accident.”

But even Mr. Kodama, the radiation expert who supports a government cleanup, said such a victory would be hollow, and short-lived if young people did not return. He suggested that the government start rebuilding communities by rebuilding trust eroded over months of official evasion.

“Saving Fukushima requires not just money and effort, but also faith,” he said. “There is no point if only older people go back.”

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: December 9, 2011

An earlier version of this article said the evacuation zone covered more than 3 percent of Japan’s landmass; in fact it is the area contaminated above an international safety standard for the general public that covers roughly 3 percent of the country’s landmass.

Professor Kodama's last remark doesn't make sense to me. He said earlier that in some locations in Fukushima, going back won't happen in people's lifetimes. But then at the end he says it's no use if only older people go back. Well, after 30 years or so, today's young people, in their 20s and 30s, will be in 50s and 60s. No longer young. If they have children, they will have grown up to be in their 20s and 30s. Would they want to go back to Fukushima?

8 comments:

Atomfritz said...

There are some question I didn't find an answer to.
Does somebody know?

First: These 3 percent that the evacuation zone represents from Japan's land mass - how much percent of the agriculturally usable land represents this land?

Second: If you look at Prof. Hayakawa's radiation map, you see that a large part of the country is color-marked into radiation zones. Already the lowest, light-green-marked areas would have being evacuated according to EU laws. How much of the total land area and how much of the agriculturally usable land would be wasted, if this are would be evacuated?

(This is factually a theoretical question, as a small country like Japan sadly has no possibility to move so many people, and it would be difficult to abandon such a large part of the agriculture land.)

Anyway, does anybody know exact figures so that we can see how big the damage really is?


BTW, if you want to get some inspiration how the future perspectives for the children in big areas of Japan could possibly look, look the video "Nuclear Controversies" from about minute 8:23. Look at the nuclear lobbyists' faces as they try to silence the evidence. Can you trust these people?


Video link "Nuclear Controversies (full length)": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MZR_Fvp3RrQ

STeVe the JeW said...

-- "No one knows how much exposure to low doses of radiation causes a significant risk of premature death."

the ny times is so full of shit.

memo to marty fuckler: the consequences of low-dose ionizing radiation are well understood... as are the high doses.

no6ody said...

"Would they want to go back to Fukushima?"

Galadriel: If our folk had been exiled long and far from Lothlorien, who of the Galadhrim, even Celeborn the Wise, would pass nigh and would not wish to look upon their ancient home, though it had become an abode of dragons?

Anonymous said...

Anyone staying even remotely close to the reactors is absolutely crazy. The reactor operators and Japanese government have proven untruthful and people will only find out about the sad state of their exposure long after the damage is done. Are the Japanese really such lemmings that they'll believe their government on such a critical life/death matter and move their families back into irradiated areas? Plus, the reactors are, last I saw, still leaking and unsafe.

arevamirpal::laprimavera said...

Well, Galadriel, Celeborn, Elrond, they are immortals, though they could die in a battle.

The Fuku-I plant seems like the land of Mordor where the shadows lie.

Morgaine said...

"I say we take off and nuke the site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure"--Ripley, movie "Aliens"

-----------

In the movie, "Aliens," Ripley (played by Sigourney Weaver), and the expedition for which she was an advisor, faced a species of critters that had thoroughly kicked their kiesters, killing many in the expedition in the process. Worse, if not eliminated with finality, they would undoubtedly both kill all on the expedition, but once they spread to other populated areas, would likely wipe out those civilizations, as well.

The "company man" on the expedition wanted to protect the company's investment in the facility. His primary, unknown motive, however, was to take back one of the kiester-kickin' critters back to earth for study.

The parallels between the scenario in "Aliens" and the nuclear disaster in Japan are horrifying. The Japanese citizens are like the innocent colonists on the Alien-contaminated planet. They are victims of the avarice and greed of the TepcoJapanese government, hwo seem to think lying to its people is the first, most important, and sometimes ONLY, approach to solving the Fukushima-D holocaust.

I think the stakes in this game played by the TepcoJapanese government are pretty high. The entire world could end up going environmentally and genetically bust if it is allowed to continue.

The TepcoJapanese government's approach to it is to pretend if some obviously useless approaches to decontamination ("rituals," really... they are so unsuited to the mammoth task ahead, and are actually making it worse in some cases) are taken, the evacuated can simply return to their homes and get on with life.

Meanwhile, the TepcoJapanese government's handling of the Fukushima-D;s site and reactors is ensuring even MORE contamination occurs.

Some of the contamination is from strontium, which can produce horrific genetic birth defects in the offspring of those exposed. These offspring then carry the genetically damaged code which is later passed on to their own offspring....with the cycle repeating in each subsequent generation.

This will eventually contaminate the planet's populations which have offspring sired by those Japanese contaminated by Fukushima-D.

How long before all of Japan is contaminated? As products grown, harvested and produced spread throughout the country? As workers--who cannot be completely contaminated--go home for visits, move on to other jobs, etc?

I believe Japan needs to move on to the (metaphorical) "nuclear option." I believe the vast majority of the country should be declared morbid, and either evacuated, or the residents held in quarantine.

All exports from Japan should be stopped. ALL. When the TepcoJapanese government allowed infant formula to be produced during the Fukushima-D initial disaster, NOTHING coming from the island can be trusted.

Had the TepcoJapanese government even acted as responsibly as the Russian government did with Chernobyl, we would not be having this conversation.

But a government that allows itself to be controlled by one corporation, to the detriment of its people and the people of the world, is--on all levels--incompetent to make the right decisions about a disaster that is such a world-wide threat.

The TepcoJapanese government's incompetent flailing around has allowed the contamination to spread and, indeed, to actually increase.

I apologize for such strong statements, but we cannot allow this to spread to the rest of the world.

Morgaine said...

"I say we take off and nuke the site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure"--Ripley, movie "Aliens"

-----------

In the movie, "Aliens," Ripley (played by Sigourney Weaver), and the expedition for which she was an advisor, faced a species of critters that had thoroughly kicked their kiesters, killing many in the expedition in the process. Worse, if not eliminated with finality, they would undoubtedly both kill all on the expedition, but once they spread to other populated areas, would likely wipe out those civilizations, as well.

The "company man" on the expedition wanted to protect the company's investment in the facility. His primary, unknown motive, however, was to take back one of the kiester-kickin' critters back to earth for study.

The parallels between the scenario in "Aliens" and the nuclear disaster in Japan are horrifying. The Japanese citizens are like the innocent colonists on the Alien-contaminated planet. They are victims of the avarice and greed of the TepcoJapanese government, hwo seem to think lying to its people is the first, most important, and sometimes ONLY, approach to solving the Fukushima-D holocaust.

I think the stakes in this game played by the TepcoJapanese government are pretty high. The entire world could end up going environmentally and genetically bust if it is allowed to continue.

The TepcoJapanese government's approach to it is to pretend if some obviously useless approaches to decontamination ("rituals," really... they are so unsuited to the mammoth task ahead, and are actually making it worse in some cases) are taken, the evacuated can simply return to their homes and get on with life.

Meanwhile, the TepcoJapanese government's handling of the Fukushima-D;s site and reactors is ensuring even MORE contamination occurs.

Some of the contamination is from strontium, which can produce horrific genetic birth defects in the offspring of those exposed. These offspring then carry the genetically damaged code which is later passed on to their own offspring....with the cycle repeating in each subsequent generation.

This will eventually contaminate the planet's populations which have offspring sired by those Japanese contaminated by Fukushima-D.

How long before all of Japan is contaminated? As products grown, harvested and produced spread throughout the country? As workers--who cannot be completely contaminated--go home for visits, move on to other jobs, etc?

I believe Japan needs to move on to the (metaphorical) "nuclear option." I believe the vast majority of the country should be declared morbid, and either evacuated, or the residents held in quarantine.

All exports from Japan should be stopped. ALL. When the TepcoJapanese government allowed infant formula to be produced during the Fukushima-D initial disaster, NOTHING coming from the island can be trusted.

Had the TepcoJapanese government even acted as responsibly as the Russian government did with Chernobyl, we would not be having this conversation.

But a government that allows itself to be controlled by one corporation, to the detriment of its people and the people of the world, is--on all levels--incompetent to make the right decisions about a disaster that is such a world-wide threat.

The TepcoJapanese government's incompetent flailing around has allowed the contamination to spread and, indeed, to actually increase.

I apologize for such strong statements, but we cannot allow this to spread to the rest of the world.

Anonymous said...

"All exports from Japan should be stopped. ALL. "

All food products. Instead we'll have the State Dept. assist the criminals in distributing their poison to the unsuspecting.

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