31,000 Bq/Kg of #Radioactive Cesium in Wild Mushrooms in Nikko City, Tochigi Prefecture, Highest "Official" Measurement Ever

As one of the readers noted in the other post, the radiation contamination in Tochigi and Gunma Prefectures (northern Kanto) has been little noted.

The highest official measurement for wild mushrooms was last year, when 28,000 Bq/kg of radioactive cesium was found in wild mushrooms in Fukushima Prefecture.

The reason for the quotation marks for the word "official" in the blog post title is that there were unofficial measurements done last year by private entities with much higher numbers. One of them was done by NHK when the crew, including Dr. Shinzo Kimura, went to Fukushima soon after the accident and started measuring radiation levels and warning residents who still remained in the high-radiation areas. They found 420,000 becquerels/kg of radioactive cesium in mushrooms harvested in Akougi District of Namie-machi on March 28, 2011. (For snapshots of the NHK Documentary aired on May 18, 2011, go here. In Japanese.)

From Nikkei Shinbun quoting Kyodo (8/6/2012):

野生キノコから最高値のセシウム

Highest level of cesium detected in wild mushroom

栃木県は６日、日光市で採取した野生チチタケから国の基準値（１キログラム当たり100ベクレル）を大幅に超える３万１千ベクレルの放射性セシウムを検出したと発表した。同市の野生キノコは既に出荷制限されており、県は採取して食べないよう呼び掛ける。

Tochigi Prefecture announced on August 6 that 31,000 Bq/kg of radioactive cesium was detected in wild "Lactarius volemus" (tawny milkcap mushroom) harvested in Nikko City, far exceeding the national safety standard (100 Bq/kg). Shipment of wild mushrooms from the city have been already restricted, and the prefectural government is advising citizens not to harvest and eat the wild mushrooms.

厚生労働省によると、野生キノコでは昨年９月に福島県棚倉町のチチタケで検出した２万８千ベクレルを上回り最高値となる。栃木県は「土壌からの吸収が大きいと思うが、周囲の樹木に残る放射性物質の影響も考えられる」としている。

According to the Ministry of Health and Welfare, it is the highest level exceeding the amount detected in "Lactarius volemus" harvested in Tanakura-machi in Fukushima Prefecture in September last year, which measured 28,000 Bq/kg. The Tochigi prefectural government says, "We believe the cesium absorption was largely from the soil, but radioactive materials from the surrounding trees may also have affected it."

If you think by now, 17 months after the accident and at least one full year since it became widely known that certain food items were more contaminated than others (mushrooms are on the top of the list), people do not harvest, not to mention eat wild mushrooms or any mushrooms, you're very wrong.

On a separate piece of news at Asahi Shinbun medical news section, WBC (Whole Body Counter) testing revealed that a 70-year-old man in Fukushima Prefecture had 20,000 becquerels/body radioactive cesium as of July 2012. It turned out that he and his wife had been eating mushrooms, vegetables (including wild mountain vegetables) and fruits every day that they or people nearby grew or they harvested from the wild. They didn't even think that they were contaminated, and those food items were never tested. The medical doctor who wrote the article, Dr. Masaharu Tsubokura, says it is the highest that he has ever seen since he started helping people in Fukushima after the nuclear accident, and that it is the level often seen in Belarus.

As to the highly radioactive mushrooms in Nikko City, shipment is "restricted" (i.e. banned) but there is no one enforcing it. Besides, what the prefectural governments do is only to tell the producer not to ship outside the prefecture. There is nothing they do (or are willing to do) to stop these food items from being consumed or distributed inside the prefecture.

Nikko City is circled in red on the map by MEXT, from the revised 8/30/2011 map. The highest contamination of the soil, according to MEXT, is 100,000 to 300,000 becquerels/square meter for radioactive cesium (134+137):

Nikko by the way is a popular destination for summer schools for elementary schools and junior high schools in Kanto Region, as it always has been for decades.

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24 Bq/kg of #Radioactive Cesium from Green Tea (Brewed) in Kanuma City, Tochigi, Highest Level So Far This Year

If the old testing method is used, this tea could contain 2,400 Bq/kg of radioactive cesium in dry leaves.

The other sample from Kanuma City in Tochigi Prefecture also exceeded the new safety limit for brewed tea (10 Bq/kg), with 12 Bq/kg of cesium.

Checking the Kanuma City's website, there is no mention of this test result, even though it was in the news on May 18, 2012 (Shimotsuke Shinbun). Instead, the page for Kanuma's agricultural products has this interesting mention of how to take care of the tea plantations while the shipment of the tea from the city is halted (it has been halted since June last year, after the fresh leaves of tea from the city tested above the provisional safety limit):

茶畑の管理について

通常通り行うことが望ましいと考えられます。刈り取った茶葉、せん定枝は農地に埋却してもかまいません。

Management of the tea plantations

It is considered desirable to do as you have normally done. As for the tea leaves and branches that have been pruned, there is no problem burying them in the farm land.

I believe many tea growers in Kanto did the deep pruning after their tea was found with high radioactive cesium last year. But if they buried the contaminated cuttings in the soil, they may have simply (re-)introduced radioactive cesium in soil which has been absorbed by the tea plants.

There are people (including Professor Hayakawa of Gunma University) who are speculating that radioactive cesium in green tea this year is the result of strong winds in spring that have blown dust particles off the land which landed on the tea leaves. And there are people who argue radioactive cesium was absorbed through the surfaces of old leaves and sent to the roots, so it is now in the tea plants.

In case of Kanuma City, it may have been absorbed from the roots, in addition to the absorption from old leaves from last year.

To freshen up your memory, Kanuma City in Tochigi Prefecture was the one that fed elementary school children with local beef last October as a PR stunt to prove how safe their beef was. More recently, the city's mayor is very eager to accept the ashes from disaster debris incineration because the national government would foot the bill for upgrading the city's aging final disposal site that needs major repairs.

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Tochigi's Tactics to Sell Its Beef: Make Children Eat to "Prove" It's Safe

One of the very popular propaganda campaigns by the governments is to use children to appeal safety. Since the national government, prefectural governments, municipal governments all do it, producers and wholesalers must feel they are not just allowed but encouraged to do the same, and they join in with the governments to exploit small children so that they (think they) can sell their stuff, whatever they are peddling.

Here's the latest from Tochigi Prefecture, where radioactive cesium in the beef exceeded the national provisional safety limit by wide margin and the shipment of the meat had been halted in August, as reported cheerfully by NHK News Japanese (Tokyo Metropolitan version) on October 3, 2011. The link has since been deleted, but the article has been copied at Tokyo Brown Tabby's site, from which I quote in full:

栃木県産牛を給食にしてＰＲ

PR of Tochigi Beef using school lunch

出荷停止の措置が解除された栃木県産の牛の肉を食べてもらおうと、栃木県鹿沼市で小学校の給食に牛肉が入ったハヤシライスが出されました。

To encourage consumers to buy and eat beef made in Tochigi Prefecture, where the shipment ban has been lifted, Kanuma City in Tochigi Prefecture served "hashed beef over rice" as school lunches in the city's elementary schools.

栃木県産の牛は、肉から国の暫定基準値を超える放射性セシウムが検出され、ことし８月、およそ３週間にわたって出荷が停止されました。

Radioactive cesium exceeding the national provisional safety limit was detected in the beef from cows raised in Tochigi Prefecture, and the shipment of the cows was halted for 3 weeks in August.

給食は畜産が盛んな地域のひとつ、鹿沼市と地元のＪＡが、出荷停止が解除された県産の牛肉の安全性をＰＲしようと行ったもので、市内８つの小学校に牛肉が入ったハヤシライス、合わせて５０００食が出されました。

This school lunch using the local beef was a PR campaign by Kanuma City and the local JA (agricultural producer co-op) to appeal the safety of the Tochigi beef. Total 5,000 "hashed beef over rice" dishes were served in 8 elementary schools, featuring the local beef.

このうち市立東小学校の１年生の教室には、鹿沼市の佐藤信市長や地元の畜産農家などが集まり、３９人の児童といっしょに給食を食べました。

In the classroom of 1st graders at Higashi Elementary School, Kanuma's Mayor Shin Sato and local cattle farmers joined the 39 pupils for the lunch.

子どもたちは久しぶりに牛肉が入ったメニューをうれしそうに味わっていました。

Children looked happy to eat the dish with beef, which hasn't been used in lunch [since radioactive cesium was detected].

女の子のひとりは、「お肉がやわらかくておいしかったです。もっと食べたいです」と話していました。

One girl said, "The meat was so tender and delicious. I'd like to eat more".

畜産農家の瓦井義男さんは「子どもたちが牛肉を食べる日を楽しみにしてくれていてうれしかったです。これからも安全な牛を生産するので安心して食べてほしい」と話していました。

Yoshio Kawarai, cattle farmer, said "I am glad that children were looking forward to eating the beef. We will continue to raise safe cows, so we want them to feel safe eating the beef".

Needless to say, Tabby is incensed. I feel dizzy with high blood pressure translating the text of the news. They served 1st graders with possibly radioactive beef, and the mayor of the city and cattle farmers were there with the small children to make sure they all ate lunch.

Well, was it radioactive or not? No one will ever know, because Tochigi Prefecture has clearly decided to go Miyagi Prefecture's way - that is, if the measurement is below the provisional safety limit of 500 becquerels/kg for radioactive cesium, the government does not bother to tell you how many becquerels.

Here's Tochigi's latest "test" of its beef, on October 3, 2011. Note the right-most column, which shows the amount of radioactive cesium detected. It's all "暫定規制値以下" - "Below the provisional safety limit". It could be ND, it could be 499, but no one's supposed to know and they don't bother to tell.

The same arrogance has been shown by the Miyagi governor who declared that no one needs to know the detailed number as long as it is below 500 becquerels/kg for radioactive cesium.

As Professor Kunihiko Takeda said in his October 3 post, the governments of all levels are in it, the producers and sellers are in it in exploiting small children so that they can "sell" radioactive foods, they shout down the mothers who want to feed their children with radiation-free food, while the fathers strangely look the other way. Professor Takeda pleads with the fathers to join the fight and join the mothers, but the prospect looks bleak so far. Pro-nuke propaganda since 1991 has been a resounding success with the fathers. (Links are in Japanese.)

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#Radioactive Rice Hay in Tochigi: 106,000 Becquerels/Kg Cesium

The Tochigi prefectural government announced the number on July 25. 106,000 becquerels/kg of cesium in the hay is the highest level so far found outside Fukushima Prefecture. If reconstituted, it would be 24,246 becquerels/kg. The safety limit for the cattle feed is 300 becquerels/kg.

The rice hay was collected in a dairy farm in Nasu Shiobara (more than 100 kilometers southwest of Fukushima I Nuke Plant) and sold to the cattle farm in the same City. Something doesn't quite add up to the story of the both sides, though. According to Asahi Shinbun (7/24/2011):

The seller (dairy farmer):

He received the rice hay from a nearby rice farmer in exchange for the manure. He rolled the rice hay into 38 rolls and left them outside. The rice farmer had kept the rice hay in the rice fields after the harvest last fall.

He then sold the rolled rice hay to the cattle farmer via his acquaintance, by saying "it cannot be used as feed". "I never imagined the hay would be fed to the cows."

The buyer (cattle farmer):

"I was never told that the hay was rolled on March 20. If I had known, I wouldn't have bought it."

The middleman:

He got 16 rolls of rice hay from the dairy farmer on April 4 to sell them to the cattle farmer. The dairy farmer told him that the hay was probably radioactive, but the middleman, the dairy farmer's acquaintance, answered that the cattle farmer would use it for composting.

As it's reported by Asahi, the middleman looks bad, but all of them may have changed stories once radioactive cesium was found from the meat and the hay.

Even if they all changed stories, that's nothing compared to the story-changing by the Japanese government since the nuclear disaster started. The national government was the one who propagated their "truth" that the further away from Fukushima I Nuke Plant one got, the safer and the less exposure to the radiation. No need to worry at all, said Dr. Shunichi "100 millisieverts are safe" Yamashita, to the residents living outside 30 kilometer radius.

Farmers in Nasu Shiobara in Tochigi Prefecture, located more than 100 kilometers southwest from the nuke plant, probably had little reason to believe their fields were contaminated, unless they happened to be looking up information on the Internet.

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