Tuesday, June 12, 2012

#Radioactive Japan: Village in Gunma Prefecture Recycles Contaminated Soil and Uses It in the Village Soccer Field


There is a short poem ("haiku") by Master Basho Matsuo that goes like this in English:

If I say some things
My words get frozen on my lips
In the autumnal wind


It means, "So what's the point of saying?"

Replace the word "autumnal" with "perpetual" and that's been Japan since March 2011.

The latest idiocy comes from a village in Gunma Prefecture where many have pointed out that the radiation levels are rather high.

Villagers "decontaminated" the public places in the village by removing the contaminated soil. What then did the village do with the contaminated soil? They used it in the soccer field.

From Sankei Shinbun local version for Gunma (6/13/2012):

除染で撤去の土、サッカー場使用 川場村「問題ない」 

Soil removed by decontamination work was used in the soccer field, and Kawaba-mura says "No problem"

川場村の村民有志らが「除染」のため村内で取り除いたセシウムを含む土が、村が造成したサッカー場の盛り土に利用されていたことが12日、県議会放射能対策特別委員会で明らかになった。

It was revealed during the June 12 meeting of the [Gunma] prefectural assembly special committee on radiation countermeasures that the soil contaminated with radioactive cesium that had been removed by the volunteers in Kawaba-mura was used as filling to raise the ground level of the soccer field that the village was building.

 昨年夏の県の調査では、国の埋め立て基準(1キロ当たり8千ベクレル)を下回る約1300ベクレルのセシウムが検出され、完成後の周囲の放射線量も低く、同村は「安全上問題はない」と説明している。

According to the survey done by the prefectural government last summer, 1,300 becquerels/kg of radioactive cesium was detected, which was below the national standard for burying safely in the landfill (8,000 becquerels/kg). Since the soccer field was completed, the [air] radiation levels on the perimeter of the field have been low. The village says, "There is no problem of safety."

 県と同村によると、村民有志らが昨年8月、村内で比較的高い空間放射線量が測定された川場小学校校庭など計4カ所で、地表の土約40トンを取り除いた。村は土を村有地で一時保管していたが、周辺住民から苦情が寄せられ、同9月、造成していたサッカーグラウンドの盛り土として、約50センチ地中に埋めた。

According to Gunma Prefecture and the village, volunteers in the village removed about 40 tonnes of surface soil in August last year from 4 locations in the village that were found with relatively high levels of air radiation, including the schoolyard of Kawaba Elementary School. The village was temporarily storing the removed soil on the land owned by the village. However, after the residents living nearby complained, the village buried the soil about 50 centimeter deep in the soccer field it was building in September.


Kawaba-mura's official radiation levels are between 0.1 to 0.5 microsievert/hour. People who actually went there and measure various locations in the village report much higher numbers. Professor Yukio Hayakawa considers Kawaba-mura as one of the hot spots in Kanto Region. Setagaya-ku in Tokyo continues to send school children to the "summer school" in Kawaba-mura.

11 comments:

Anonymous said...

Decisions like this will turn towns like Kawaba-mura into radiological ghettos. When the current generations pass on, only the poor and destitute would want to live in such a place. Young people who can afford to move away, will move away, and their parents will encourage them.

If citizens and officials of a contaminated town want to ensure the survival of their communities, it is vital that they adopt the same definitions of radioactive waste that existed before the TEPCO disaster. It is vital that they treat this waste with the same care that was practiced before the TEPCO disaster. And it is vital that they not burn debris from Tohoku that was contaminated by the TEPCO disaster.

Anything less and your town will become a refuse dump. It will eventually be depopulated and become home only to the poorest people who cannot afford to live anywhere else. You will have no tax base and will be completely dependent on handouts from the prefectural and federal government.

Very sorry to say that you must spend the money now to treat the nuclear waste as nuclear waste was treated before the DPJ changed the definitions of nuclear waste. It will be expensive. TEPCO probably won't pay. But if you don't, your town, like Okuma, Tomioka and Futaba, will become eventually a ghost town.

Only your careful action and investment now can save your town.

TechDud said...

If I say "ground-water"
My words get frozen on my lips
In the perpetual wind :(

Anonymous said...

Disgusting and disappointing. What's the point in decontaminating if they're just going to slap it in a public place afterwards? F'n FAIL.

I still find it hard to believe that this kind of stupidity is happening in the digital age... and in Japan, of all places. No amount of technological wonder can enhance the incredulous ignorance and stupidity of the human populace. Tools are only as useful as those who use them.

I mean, it's not like there hasn't been any documentation of radioactive effects on humans over the past CENTURY. Don't any of these people know how to look anything up on the internet? I wouldn't be surprised to find that their search engines are censored...

Chibaguy said...

Like a broken record I have been on record as to how Chiba is reacting. First, they remove the soil and then bury it next to the 1st grade classroom. Secondly, they remove all soil from parks and just leave the removed soil in vinyl bags closest to the nearest fence. Guess what, kids play on these mounds of soil. Regardless, I am amazed how parents think this is just fine. Denial??

m a x l i said...

Like a bizarre movie that will end up tragic...

Digging up soil here at A...putting it there at B...someone complains...ok, no problem...we remove it from B and bring it to C...

I wonder, why anyone even begins to touch a shovel, as long as no one has the the slightest idea what the big plan is.

I may be wrong, but I think I might know a little bit, how you Japanese like to do things: You follow someone you respect. There will be no long discussion. You try the first step. You do it together in a group, because it feels good. Let's see where we go! Something good will come out of it.

But now it does not work any more. It is not always good to follow the crowd and do what everyone else does. You need to use your brain and ask a few simple questions: Why do we dig anything up? Where will we put it in the end? How does doing so benefit us?

I hate to lecture someone, but you surely are in need of advice. Let me tell you: You can not "clean up" radioactive contamination. The best you can do is to remove it partially from A and put it on B, where it still remains radioactive. If you live close to Fukushima-Daiichi, then heightened radioactivity is everywhere around you, it is in your soil, your trees, your crops, your animals, your air, you water, your rain, your snow, in yourself, in your children... How will you manage to dig up all your soil, your houses, your streets, your woods, your rivers, your cows, your pigs... and make it all disappear? If radioactivity was not invisible, but would leave ugly red stains in the landscape, you would have packed and left long ago.

Every dose of radiation you receive increases your risk of becoming all kinds of sicknesses - which might need years to take effect. So, if you feel fine for now, it does not prove that everything is ok! For every day you stay in that environment, you increase your dose - so it still makes sense to leave. Go anywhere far! It is secondary that you loose your house, your job, your everything. No amount of money can help you to regain you health, when you become sick.

To get some education you could read this:
http://www.independentaustralia.net/2012/life/health/low-dose-ionising-radiation-is-harmful-to-health/
It is about how radiation effected the Japanese atomic bomb survivors. As it turns out you are the next test objects to be studied.

Wake up! Throw away the shovel! What you are digging is your grave.

Anonymous said...

Fuckin stupid people the japanese to allow this to go on like this and not self educate themselves about radiation and its effects...

Apolline said...

Another OT (sorry, I am specialist..)

Stange colour in Osaka water, near sardine mega-fish kill.
Fukushima ?

http://theextinctionprotocol.wordpress.com/2012/06/13/omen-waters-near-osaka-bay-japan-turn-pale-yellow/

Friendly

Anonymous said...

"i shot the soccer ball so high,
when it crashed back down,
the ground under my feet ..split in two."

arevamirpal::laprimavera said...

Someone said on Twitter that Setagaya-ku's elementary school children are there, doing a "soccer camp".

Anonymous said...

The nuclear industry is a satanic conspiracy. They made the power plants to make the ingredients to make a-bombs to kill people. Electricity is just a by product. Eventually all plants will run amok and the world will be de populated.

Anonymous said...

Anonymous at 8:02: Your action this summer can help prevent this. Japan is at a crossroads. If we can make it through this summer without the nukes, the nuclear industry will be defeated in Japan. They are doing all they can to get at least one reactor restarted.

Please visit a Japanese consulate in your country. Tell them how angry you are about their poisoning of the Pacific ocean. Tell them how nonsensical it is that they have 50 nuclear power plants in the world's most seismically active place. Tell them that nuclear power is evil and that they are serving as agents of evil.

Tell them now.

If not now, when?

Please fight with us. Please do what you can.

If not now, when?

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