Friday, August 24, 2012

#Radioactive Japan: Final Disposal Site for Highly Contaminated #Fukushima Soil and Debris May Be on Southern-Most Tip of Kyushu


(UPDATE) IWJ Kagoshima will netcast a protest against building the final disposal site in Minami Osumi-cho in Kagoshima, from 1:30PM today in Japan (August 25, 2012).

Japan Times says "Goshi Hosono denies nuke disposal report", but the title is not quite reflecting what it actually is. It is more like "Goshi Hosono doesn't deny nuke disposal report, does say it is not yet official."

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It makes absolutely no sense, but since when anything that the Japanese government (or any government these days) does make any sense?

TBS News reported that there has been a secret talk between the national government and the local officials in Minami Osumi in Kagoshima Prefecture to create the final disposal site for the radioactive waste from Fukushima Prefecture, 1,500 kilometers away from Fukushima.

The town of Minami Osumi has 9,000 residents and untouched, pristine mountains and the ocean.


Summary from TBS/JNN News (8/23/2012; link may not last):

A strong candidate for the final disposal site for the soil contaminated with radioactive materials from the Fukushima nuclear accident has finally been revealed, and it is the mountains in Minami Osumi-cho in Kagoshima Prefecture.


The national government has already been talking with the town's leaders.

Minami Osumi-cho is about 1,500 kilometers away from Fukushima I Nuclear Power plant, population less than 9,000. The town's industries are agriculture and fishery.

[In the map to the right, "A" is where the nuke plant is located, and "B" is Minami Osumi-cho.]

Decontamination work has been on-going in Fukushima Prefecture to remove radioactive materials from the nuclear accident. Currently, the soil removed in the decontamination is stored in temporary storage locations in the municipalities in Fukushima, but the residents do not want the storage sites in their midst.

The national government plan is to store the contaminated soil from decontamination in temporary storage locations in the municipalities. It will then be transferred to interim storage facilities inside Fukushima Prefecture, and within 30 years it will be removed to a final disposal site which is to be created outside Fukushima.

Mayor Idogawa of Futaba-machi, Fukushima:
"We can't even begin to negotiate [over the temporary storage] unless it's necessary, safe, and [the contaminated waste] is moved outside Fukushima."

Mayor Morita of Minami Osumi-cho, Kagoshima:
"No, we haven't been formally approached by the national government yet." [The keyword here is "formally", in my opinion.]

Governor Itoh of Kagoshima:
"No, no word from the national government. We have no room to accept, we have no intention to accept." [The problem is that it's not up to the governor; it's on the municipal level.]

Residents of Minami Osumi-cho:
"It's difficult, but we can't just say no." [Why not?]
"I don't want it here, but someone has to do something for the people in Fukushima..."

A government source telling TBS/JNN:
"Minami Osumi-cho is the one and only, largest final disposal site candidate."


The latest from TBS (8/25/2012; link may not last) is that this final disposal site is modeled after the storage site for low-level rad waste from nuclear power plants in Rokkasho-mura in Aomori Prefecture. The municipalities around Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant are welcoming the prospect of the final disposal site outside Fukushima, according to TBS.

What the article doesn't say is that the rad waste in Rokkasho is probably far, far less contaminated than the waste from "decontamination" in Fukushima Prefecture.

The most logical place for the final disposal site for contaminated soil and debris from Fukushima is Fukushima, close to Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant, but since when the Japanese have been logical? You are not supposed to even suggest that it is a logical place.

Browsing through the tweets from Professor Yukio Hayakawa, he is being attacked for dare suggesting Fukushima Prefecture is contaminated.

Instead, the talk, if TBS/JNN is correct, is to transport all the contamination by sea to a small town on the southern tip of Japan mainland 1,500 kilometers away.

17 comments:

Anonymous said...

Had to check the calendar to make sure it wasn't April 1. This is absolute nonsense. The waste stays in Fukushima, forever.

Mayors of already polluted towns may say "over my dead body." But that's OK too. It can "temporarily" stay in Fukushima until all those opponents of keeping it there die off. Then it can permanently stay in Fukushima.

However if Hosono and his accomplices think Kagoshima and Kyushu people are going to allow their island to be despoiled, they should think again. Such radioactive waste will never be accepted there once the public knows the plan.

CaptD said...

BIG M☢NEY means BIG Problems for this part of Japan!

Anonymous said...

Might we suggest that the nuclear waste stays where it is and the people move to Kyushu? I understand the emotional ties to the land that go back generations, but it's time to get over this emotional block.

Anonymous said...

APEE News:

Today Japan's top politicians announced a plan to transfer radioactive soil from Fukushima to Kagoshima. The reason given is that both places have the word "island" in their name, thus it was thought to be a rational random reason. Top lawbreakers in the Nuclear Mafia will actually put the soil in their mouths and then fly first class on JAL to the final disposal site and spit it out. The project is expected to cost 100 trillion yen but as one lawbreaker said, mimicking Madeleine Albright, "it is a high price but we think the price is worth it, and we can drink champagne to wash our mouths out." Citizens groups supported the plan on the basis that top lawbreakers can no longer talk s**t all day long and will have to put their muddy where their mouth is.

Anonymous said...

Yes, I hope the public rejects this, what a load of rubbish!

Anonymous said...

Japan is a failed country.

Anonymous said...

Why aren't Osumi-cho residents fiercely opposing this plan?
Are they been offered a multiple of the commercial value of their land or something?
I can't believe they do it just on the promise of some new road, a new town hall or, why not, some facility to treat cancer (see Onagawa for an example of the latter, I can't make this up by myself).
Give the money to the people of Fukushima and store the waste as close as possible to Fukushima Daiichi (without paying a penny to Tepco of course), that place is lost anyways for the duration of the life of anyone alive today.
Beppe

Anonymous said...

Don't the clowns that came up with this waste site know that shit rolls down hill?

John said...

I gave up my entire life in Tokyo and have been unemployed ever since so I could move my family to Kyushu on March 17, 2011. Who is more stupid? The clowns moving the radioactive waste to Kyushu or me for undertaking needless financial ruin in a vain attempt to protect my family?

P.S. I have been banned from other sites for posting comments like this. I am grateful I can still post here.

Anonymous said...

More stupidity from our great leaders. Without oil in the future much of Hokkaido and Tohoku will be unihabitable anyway. The population is already slowly migrating to western Japan, more births and jobs and declining in the perishing north. Japan had better to turn Fukushima into a nuke dump and hope they can make the best of it through some kind of weird tourism like Hiroshima and Nagasaki rather than contaminate the habitable zones of japan.
But politicians are only considering their reelection chances. Hosono, btw, looks like a terrified schoolboy when he comes on to field questions from the press and the people. Clueless tripe.

Anonymous said...

keep it in fukushima and call it mt.fukushima
you know they will dump most of it in the ocean.
put a camera with a harbor view i don't trust
no japan and tepco lie lie lie shame on you

enoughalready45 said...

If they spread radiation all over the country then the cancer rate will increase all over the country. Then the increases in Fukushima will not look that extreme. This is diabolical plan. Is it just some in the Japanese government who came up with it or is it a plan hatched by the global nuclear industry? The IAEA has been noticeably absent on Fukushima maybe they are just spending their time working behind the scenes?

Anonymous said...

The Japanese Right Wing Kills Japan

Atomfritz said...

This is so depressing.
Japanese people, please stop this government madness destroying your wonderful country. PLEASE!

Anonymous said...

John,
I share you pain. Acquaintances of mine who chose to leave Tokyo left the country altogether; they were lucky enough to work for a large company who could relocate them abroad. One of them sold a house he bought 6 months before.
I do not work for a company that can relocate me therefore I chose to start spending a fortune on food from abroad, or at least from Kansai and Kyuushu. Everyday I pray I am doing the right thing for my kids.
As you say, the folks in Kasumigaseki seem to be working hard to make this an uphill battle; I would not call them clowns though, because you them the benefit of incompetence.
Beppe

Anonymous said...

Anon 11:45

If you have to pray because you think you are doing the wrong thing for your family then guess what? You need to migrate. Central Japan is suitable only for Godzilla. There is no viable survival plan in a toxic zone.

Anonymous said...

Hey Ultraman... here the guy that gives hints.

Another one that could prove useful to translate into Japanese and present it to the bureaucrats in the Kagoshima town:

http://www.intoeternitythemovie.com/

If you can please watch this, ok?

Y.

In oneself lies the whole world and if you know how to look and learn, the door is there and the key is in your hand. Nobody on earth can give you either the key or the door to open, except yourself.

Jiddu Krishnamurti

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