Monday, February 27, 2012

Schools Reopen in Former "Evacuation-Ready" Zone in Minami Soma City

This photo from Asahi Shinbun (2/28/2012) shows a giant radiation monitoring and display device on the school yard which looks like it has been "decontaminated". 0.227 microsievert/hour (most likely measuring only gamma rays), children, feel free to run around and kick up dust in the new and improved school yard...

(To recap, this is how they "decontaminate" in Minami Soma.)

This monitoring and display device was made by Fuji Electric. Alpha Tsushin (telecom), the company who was initially contracted by the government to build and install radiation monitoring and display devices throughout Fukushima Prefecture, was suddenly dropped from the contract in November last year because the reading of their device was "inaccurate" - meaning it was "too high" for the government.

The schools that re-opened in Minami Soma City are located in Haramachi District of Minami Soma City where the "black dust" on the road surfaces was found with 1 million becquerels/kg of radioactive cesium.

There are some very strange things going on over the "black dust" in Minami Soma, and I can't really quite get the whole picture yet. I'll report when I have a better understanding.

22 comments:

no6ody said...

Interesting. A sign displaying a number that indicates elevated radiation levels; and vulnerable, innocent children in the same area. WTF? Those little masks may offer some protection (but not enough). If the children MUST be there, why can't they wear gas masks with HEPA filters? Run, children, run! Your society may have gone crazy.

The black dust is puzzling. It seems to me that it must be some sort of ash, as that would explain the high levels of radioactivity (incinerating radioactive trash is common these days) and also why it is found along roadways (the passing cars push it to the roadside). I hope you can find out more, Areva!

Karen Sherry Brackett said...

No6ody agreed. This is insanity!

0.227 microsievert/hour = 22.7mRem/h
x 24 h/day
= 544.8 mRem/day!
x 365 day/year
= 198,852 mRem/year
or 198.9 Rem/year
Annual background dose rate in U.S. is 0.3 Rem
This is 663 times over normal background!

This is way over their limit for their organs, their eyes, skin, extrimities and whole body!
http://www.safety.vanderbilt.edu/rad/radiation-dosimetry.php

These government officials and scientists who are using these children as lab rats need to be held to judgement before a court of international peers for crimes against humanity. This is as bad as it gets. The Nazi didn't even think of anything worse than this and they thought of a lot of cruel and madly bad science.

The world has to step in and rescue these children! Radiation is hard to understand when you can't see it. But this is no different than putting children on a playground to play while raining down certain death upon them. They will not survive this.

World be very cautious about the merchandise you purchase for the rest of your lives and watch out for Japanese merchandise shipped through or partially completed in other countries to gain their "Made in Country" label as well because if they will do this to their own children? They will do far worse to the children of the world.

Anonymous said...

Have you come up with plans for Indians yet? Your blah blah blah about radioactive paper holders from "Japan" was an absolute rubbish.

Anonymous said...

It's a tragedy that some parents still can't afford to move, are ignorant about radiation, or both. I guess we'll see in the next few years what happens to these kids :( I hope they're at least getting safe food and water. I wish more could be done to help these families relocate. I wonder what the government is trying to get out of this in the short term, because in several years it will be obvious to everyone that young people shouldn't live here.

Anonymous said...

Karen, your grammar has deteriorated noticeably in your last post. Try to complete sentences without slapping a period in between. Dementia is a bitch, isn't it.

Anonymous said...

She can't read your comment right now 9:10 PM, American Idol is on.

Atomfritz said...

What an image! Radiation meters on the schoolyard where in other countries weather stations are. This the nuclear "normality" now.

I also had to think much about this black dust.
There are many possibilities. Abrasion from the road asphalt surfaces that sucked up the contamination? Tyre particles that likewise sucked up contaminants like a swab? Soil dust from the most-contaminated outer soil that was displaced by the wind?
Maybe a mixture of all this and other things.

Again, I have to remind that the Soviets regularly sprayed the roads in a wide area that was affected by Chernobyl fallout to avoid hot-particle dust to be mobilized like that black dust.
The Soviets also seeded grasses on the former agricultural fields in the controlled zone to immobilize the radioactive soil, just to minimize the radioactive dust being spread by wind. The Japanese do the opposite thing, plowing all surface and so releasing a lot of dust, calling this "decontamination"...

Hiyodori said...

Karen, 0.227 microSievert/hr = 0.0227 mRem/hr. Which is 1000 times less than you state.

Assuming that the measurement shown in the photo is correct, and that a child remains outside on the playground 24 hours a day, each day for a year, his/her dose would be around 199 mRem, or 0.199 Rem, which is less than the background dose rate of 0.3 Rem that you mention.

Anonymous said...

The Russians also tried "decontamination" by plowing under the contaminated soil. Turns out, soil is a living thing. The bacteria and worms and plant roots brought up that cesium again right sharpish.

farfromhome said...

So, this is the new norm for Japanese children? At
least in the Tohoku and Kanto areas?

Atomfritz said...

anon 3:18 is right. Even worse, recent Ukrainian studies show that the surface contamination after 25 years still increases because the radionuclides are being pulled upwards by the plants and stay at the surface when the plants die and decompose.

I'll post the link when I find it again.

Anonymous said...

1000 microSv = 100 mRem

0.227 microSv = 0.0227 mRem, NOT 22.7 mRem !

You've calculated it backwards, Karen. NO, you wouldn't pass the math test you have to take to register at Zero Hedge.

Anonymous said...

World be very cautious about the merchandise you purchase for the rest of your lives and watch out for Japanese merchandise shipped through or partially completed in other countries to gain their "Made in Country" label as well because if they will do this to their own children? They will do far worse to the children of the world.

I would, instead, you dumbass, watch out for low grade radioactive scrap metal shipped from the UNITED STATES to China and India where it is morfed into household items and shipped back to the UNITED STATES and elsewhere.

Anonymous said...

Your home state, Karen? Tennessee?


DOE To Allow Release Of
Radioactive Materials Into The Marketplace

http://www.ratical.org/radiation/BNFL+DOE.html

Anonymous said...

More on radioactive scrap metal recycling in the UNITED STATES.

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1295/is_n10_v62/ai_21200692/

Anonymous said...

Why the hate for Karen? So she made a calculation mistake. No need to get hostle.

Anonymous said...

Hostle? Oh, you mean hostile.

Sure there is. Maybe you should review all her posts.

Anonymous said...

Why the hate for Karen? So she made a calculation mistake. No need to get hostle.

She's a former nuke fuel operator for Nuclear Fuel Services in Tennessee and she can't do simple math.

Atomfritz said...

Reuse of radioactively contaminated metals is as old as the nuclear industry. It's one of the tabooes that pro-nuclearists hate to be talked about.

On the Leningrad NPP area there is even a large illegal iron works recycling metals from Russian nuclear installations which gets tolerated for political reasons. See here for example: http://www.bellona.org/english_import_area/international/russia/npps/leningrad/41254

In Germany, concrete from demolished nuclear plants usually gets crushed and used for road beds.
Nuke plant steel that is not too radioactive gets recycled.
Steel that is too radioactive just gets exported to Russia.
For example, such radioactive recycled steel was used as rebar for the Prague Metro; some tunnels there have slightly elevated background levels.

Karen Sherry Brackett said...

LOL, what did I do? Yep, you are right. I mistook micro for milli. This is exactly why we need an international standard. Ugh! The Rem system is so much easier than Seiverts. Well, Bloody Hell why are they making children wear dosimeters and hard hats for?

Anonymous said...

"This is exactly why we need an international standard."

There is an international standard, it's SIEVERTS.

Atomfritz said...

It's a bit more complicated.
In Russia, for example, the original unit Roentgen is still being used. In USA the NRC CFR ruling makes the use of rem mandatory for nuclearists' internal usage and it has precedence over the other (conflicting) rules to use SI units.

The background seems to me that everybody associates Roentgen with penetrating radiation (-> X-ray pics, which are called Roentgen pics in non-english-speaking countries).
This uncanny association is, of course, very undesirable to the powerful nuclear lobby.

So after the Chernobyl accident much effort was done to push people away from the Roentgens (rads, rems) toward the neutral-sounding Sievert unit, which was rarely used before.

This psychological manipulation helps much to bagatellize radiation.
The associated confusion between units also is very helpful.

The old rule "when you measure one milliroentgen, RUN AWAY" has so been sort of neutralized.
A reading of 10 microsieverts sounds way more harmless than the (equivalent) 1 milliroentgen, doesn't it?

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