#Fukushima I Nuke Plant Accident: Contamination in Ojika Peninsula in NE Miyagi May Be Specifically from Reactor 1, Tokyo University Researcher Says

Ojika Peninsula is located in the northeast part of Miyagi Prefecture, where towns like Ishinomaki City and Onagawa-machi are located (see the map at the bottom of the post). Tokyo Municipal government has been importing the disaster debris from Onagawa and burning it in the regular garbage incinerators (many of which are located in the middle of residential areas) all over the central Tokyo since March 2012.

The Tokyo University researcher who was the first to measure Neptunium-239 in Iitate-mura in early April 2011 says he thinks he has been able to identify the radiation contamination in Ojika Peninsula to have happened on March 12, 2011, from Reactor 1.

Radioactive materials such as iodine-131, cesium-137 and tellurium-132 started to leak hours before the Reactor 1 venting operation in the early afternoon and the hydrogen explosion in late afternoon on March 12, 2011.

From Dr. Shouzugawa's tweets to other researchers who were discussing the Fukushima nuclear accident and the resultant contamination in various locations in Kanto and Tohoku:

牡鹿半島は12日の1号機汚染であることを実証する結果が得られましたので論文化して査読中です。その他、福島県内の2,3号機の寄与を分けていますが、まだ完全なものではありません。

I have obtained the result that proves the contamination in Ojika Peninsula is from Reactor 1 on [March] 12. The paper is currently in review process. I have also been trying to attribute contamination in various parts in Fukushima to Reactor 2 and Reactor 3, but this is not yet complete.

1号機建屋内の汚染水と牡鹿半島で採取した土壌に含まれる核種の放射能比が一致し、かつ、この値が他の炉のデータとは明らかに異なったことが根拠です。

The activity ratio of nuclides in the contaminated water taken from the Reactor 1 building matched that in the soil sample taken in Ojika Peninsula, and this activity ratio is distinctively different from the activity ratios for the other reactors.

22 months after the start of the accident, painstakingly slowly, the picture may emerge of the radiation contamination mechanism. About time, but it is exciting nonetheless.

I'm searching for the available data at TEPCO's site, but if you want to beat me to it, feel free and post the links in the comment section. (It is possible though that the Reactor 1 data is only available in detail to researchers.)

(Let's see, who was that university professor who claimed there was no radiation contamination in the disaster debris from Ojika Peninsula...?)

From Professor Yukio Hayakawa's Radiation Contour Map Version 7, location of Ojika Peninsula:

Professor Hayakawa puts contamination of Ojika Peninsula just past the midnight, at 1:50AM on March 13, 2011 (according to the backside of the Version 7 map).

That's when the radiation measured at Onagawa Nuclear Power Plant jumped to 21 microsieverts/hour.

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Minor Damage Found on Channel Box (That Contains Fuel Bundles) in Onagawa Nuke Plant Reactor 3 Spent Fuel Pool, Says Tohoku Electric

It's been a long time since we heard anything about other nuclear power plants on the Pacific Ocean side of Japan. Tohoku Electric Power Company released the monthly report for Onagawa Nuclear Power Plant in Miyagi Prefecture for June 2012, and said a very minor damage was found in one of the channel boxes (that contains fuel bundles).

It looks one of the top corners of the channel box in question had cracked and the portion had been chipped away (1.9 centimeter piece).

It was discovered on June 15, 2012 during the inspection of the spent fuel pool of Reactor 3 using a submerged video camera. The company checked other channel boxes, and found several others with potentially similar damages, according to the June 2012 report on Onagawa Nuke Plant, released on July 7, 2012, page 21:

It's not clear from the document whether these channel boxes were in the reactor when the earthquake hit and later removed to the Spent Fuel Pool, but Mainichi Shinbun (7/10/2012) says they were, and there are more than 10 of them damaged in a similar way.

Tohoku Electric says there is no problem with the functionality of the channel boxes found with damages, and there is no leak of radioactive materials.

There was a spike in radiation level at the monitoring posts at Onagawa Nuclear Power Plant in the early hours on March 13, 2011. The highest was 21 microsieverts/hour. At that time, Tohoku Electric announced that it was not from Onagawa Nuke Plant, which had achieved cold shutdown on all reactors. It was concluded that the spike was caused by a radioactive plume from Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant.

Attachment to Tohoku Electric's announcement on March 13 last year:

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Tokyo Starts to Burn Onagawa Debris in Earnest at Incineration Plants for Regular Household Garbage in 23 Special Wards

Residents of those 23 Special Wards ("ku") had zero say in the decision. The decision was unanimously reached by the Assembly of Mayors of the 23 Special Wards, and the decision was quickly welcomed by the Tokyo Metropolitan government and the project of burning the disaster (radioactive) debris from Onagawa-machi in Miyagi Prefecture immediately started in December with the test incineration.

After the so-called "explanation" to the residents was done in the Special Wards, now the formality has been over. It's time to burn the debris no matter what. The first containers arrived at Chuo Waste Management Plant in Chuo-ku on March 2.

The governor of Tokyo and the mayors of the 23 Special Wards of Tokyo are so eager to "help out" people in the disaster-affected areas in Tohoku (where the radioactive fallout also landed) that they are willing to burn the disaster debris with radioactive materials, toxic chemicals, arsenic, asbestos, and no one knows what else, in the incineration plants with no special facilities to treat radioactive materials. These plants are often located in the middle of crowded residential/commercial areas with single-family homes, apartments, shops, schools, hospitals, small factories. When they are located on the landfills on Tokyo Bay, they are often close to public facilities like parks, schools, hotels.

These plants are not even for industrial waste; they burn regular garbage from households.

From Google Maps, some of the incineration plants in Tokyo's 23 Wards. The first two are the lucky two to receive the first batch of tsunami-soaked wood chips from Onagawa for the month of March:

Koto-ku:

Chuo-ku:

Katsushika-ku:


Edogawa-ku:

Adachi-ku:

Setagaya-ku:

Suginami-ku:

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Disaster Debris from Onagawa, Miyagi: 133 Bq/Kg of Radioactive Cesium

which, if incinerated all by itself, would become ashes with maximum 4389 becquerels/kg of radioactive cesium, using the calculation by the Ministry of the (Destruction of) the Environment (multiply by 33).

The image below is from the information handed out to the residents who live near the incineration plants in Ota-ku and Shinagawa-ku in Tokyo, where the disaster debris from Onagawa-cho, Miyagi Prefecture was taken and burned in December. The entity in charge of burning the disaster radioactive debris from Miyagi in the 23 Special Wards ("ku") in Tokyo is the Clean Association Tokyo 23, who created the handout.

As you see, in the test conducted at Ishinomaki Clean Center, Onagawa-cho's regular waste is already radioactive, resulting in fly ashes with 2,200 becquerels/kg of radioactive cesium. Then, they measured the radioactivity by mixing the disaster debris to the regular waste, with 20% of the mix from the disaster debris, and burning. That resulted in fly ashes with 2,300 becquerels/kg of radioactive cesium.

This official information doesn't say whether the radioactivity of the disaster debris is the average or from one sample, or whether it was wood, plastic, or something else. It doesn't even say whether it was the debris with 133 becquerels/kg that was mixed and burned.

Now, many people who are all for bringing disaster debris from Miyagi and Iwate to Tokyo argue that since Tokyo is contaminated so much already, it doesn't make any difference, that Miyagi's disaster debris is less radioactive than Tokyo's regular garbage.

Is it?

Here's the latest test result (December 2011) of fly ashes at the municipal incinerators under the management of the Clean Association:

There are only three incineration plants whose radioactive cesium in fly ashes exceeds that of Onagawa-cho (circled in red), with two of them exceeding the level of Onagawa debris.

If we listen to those who believe it is logical to bring low-contamination debris/garbage to high-contamination areas and process, then most of the regular garbage should be shipped to Miyagi and be burned and buried there.

The mayor of Rikuzen Takata City in Iwate Prefecture thought it would be much better to process disaster debris in the city and wanted to build a new plant dedicated to disaster debris. He consulted the Prefectural government who turned down his request by saying the application procedure alone would take at least 2 years.

Disaster debris is as good as money. There are enough municipalities throughout Japan in a dire financial condition and willing to accept debris in exchange for subsidies. As Haruki Madarame of the Nuclear Safety Commission said 7 years ago, "It's all about money, isn't it?" He was talking about nuclear waste then.

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#Japan #Earthquake April 7 Aftershock: Diesel Generators at Nuke Plants Didn't Work, Still Don't Work, But Don't Worry It Is So Safe

Luckily the external power has been restored to these "safe" nuclear power plants in Tohoku after the strong aftershock on April 7. However, Asahi Shinbun reports that the emergency backup power hardly worked in two of the nuclear power plants, and there is no plan to do anything about it anytime soon.

As one nuclear medicine specialist in Japan (of all places, from Nagasaki) had said to the worried audience in Fukushima last month, "Radiation is good for you, and only the pessimistic people will be affected negatively by radiation. So be cheerful. Trust me." (More on this government researcher later.)

Points from Asahi Shinbun (11:29PM JST 4/8/2011):

Tohoku Electric Power's Higashi-Doori Nuclear Power Plant (1 reactor):

• 2 external power lines (that's all they have) shut down after the April 7 aftershock, and switched to emergency diesel power

• There are 3 emergency diesel power generators at the plant, but 2 of them are in maintenance and cannot be used, and weren't used during the power outage.

• The remaining 1 diesel generator was used to cool the Spent Fuel Pool even after the external power was restored at about 3:30AM on April 8. However, the fuel was found leaking from the generator so it had to be shut down at 2:00PM on April 8.

• There is no plan to replace or add diesel generators.

Tohoku Electric Power's Onagawa Nuclear Power Plant:

• 2 of the 3 external power line shut down after the April 7 aftershock

• In the Reactor 1, 1 of the 2 emergency diesel power generators had been broken since April 1.

• During the power outage, the plant operated on 1 external power, and 1 diesel power generator.

• Water from the Spent Fuel Pool spilled because of the shaking from the aftershock, which they wiped off with a special cloth. [Brilliant design to have an open pool near the top of the Reactor building.]

For both plants, Tohoku Electric Power Company has no plan to do anything about the emergency diesel power generators. If the external power goes down again for any reason, Tohoku Electric says the power generating vehicles at the plant, which were sent to the plant after the Fukushima I Nuke Plant accident, would be sufficient to do the minimum cooling.

So Tohoku Electric may be just as "good" as TEPCO when it comes to a disaster planning.

And the citizens of Japan are required to feel "safe".

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#Japan #Earthquake: Photo of Town of Onagawa in Miyagi Prefecture

A car on top of a three-story building. The photo is from Yomiuri Shinbun.

Onagawa-cho (town) in Miyagi Prefecture, famous for its fishing industry, has Onagawa Nuclear Power Plant, operated by Tohoku Electric Company.

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