3 Years after #Fukushima Nuclear Accident: Bags Used to Store Contaminated Soil Were Meant to Last 3 Years

Oopsy...

Or rather, mainstream media outlets like TV Asahi has waited three years to tell us about what many of us suspected from the beginning.

It has been a sad, familiar sight of bags upon bags that contain contaminated soil removed from people's homes, roadsides, gardens, parks, schools, farmlands, etc. in Fukushima Prefecture and areas in Kanto Region for the past three years in the name of "decontamination".

TV Asahi apparently reported in the morning news on March 11, 2014 that these black plastic bags were made to last 3 years, and the manufacturer told Asahi that they were not meant to hold radioactive materials, according to a tweet by ‏@k_reichan:

If you always thought they looked awfully like oversized garbage bags, you were probably right. The photo in another tweet by the same person shows the bags ripped and shredded:

This is supposed to be "news", or "scoop" by TV Asahi.

At Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant, there are a finite number of those huge tanks that are riveted together with the liner that was meant to last for 5 years but deteriorated in only two years. They are slowly being replaced by the welded tanks.

But these countless, seemingly infinite black plastic bags of soil that contain radioactive cesium whose half-life is 30 years, not 3? I wonder who came up with the idea to put the removed soil in these bags to begin with.

Now it is the 4th year since the start of the nuclear accident, and it feels Year 4 is just as relaxed as Year 3, Year 2, and even Year 1.

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58,000 Bq/Kg of Cesium in Recycled Farm Soil in Chiba: Unthinking, Mind-Numbing Urge to Recycle Even After Nuclear Disaster

A "third sector" company in Chiba was recycling the soil from the plastic greenhouses and selling it to plant nurseries, until 57,000 becquerels/kg of radioactive cesium was found recently.

From Jiji Tsushin (2/13/2012):

千葉県などが出資する第三セクター「千葉園芸プラスチック加工」（同県東金市）は１３日、県内農家から集めた使用済みビニールハウスから洗い落とした土１４０トンから、国が指定廃棄物として定める１キロ当たり８０００ベクレルの約７倍に当たる１キロ当たり最大５万８０００ベクレルの放射性セシウムが検出されたと発表した。

Chiba Engei Plastic Kako (Chiba Horticultural Plastic Processing) in Togane City in Chiba Prefecture, a third-sector company with investment from the Chiba prefectural government, announced on February 13 that the maximum 58,000 becquerels/kg of radioactive cesium was found from 140 tonnes of dirt that had been washed off from the used plastic greenhouses the company had collected from farmers in Chiba. The amount of radioactive cesium is more than 7 times the amount allowed by the national standard for regular disposal which is 8,000 becquerels/kg.

　同社は、使用済みビニールハウスを洗浄しリサイクル処理している。土は既に市内７カ所の植木畑に運び込まれているが、今後全て回収し、同社施設内で県の指導に従い保管する。洗浄に使った水は浄化処理をしており、放射性物質は検出されなかった。

The company washes down the dirt off the used plastic greenhouses and recycles the dirt collected. The dirt has already been brought in at 7 plant nurseries. The company plans to recall all the dirt, and will store it in the company's facilities according to the guidance from the prefectural government. The water used for washing was treated, and no radioactive materials were detected.

After I tweeted the Jiji news yesterday, people immediately dug up information of this company. It turns out the company is one of three that was partially owned and operated by the agricultural producer co-op, JA, in Chiba Prefecture. But on the JA Chiba's website, the company has gone missing. One person searched the cache, and found that the JA's site had this company on the page until January 29.

My guess is that's when they found out about radioactive cesium in the recycled dirt, but had kept quiet for 2 weeks.

The JA Chiba has two other "subsidiaries", no doubt third-sector companies: LPG (liquefied petroleum gas) company and a funeral home.

By the way, Chiba's governor is an ex-TV actor turned politician, a mind-numbingly unthinking person who uses his stage name instead of his real name (really, very pedestrian).

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University Researchers: Let's Dump Contaminated Soil into the Ocean!

Scholars who participated in the Ministry of Education's radiation mapping are proposing dumping the contaminated soil removed as the result of utterly useless "decontamination" efforts into the depth of the Pacific Ocean, 2000 meters deep.

(Along with some Russian nuclear subs, I guess.)

The researchers will propose their plan to the government as a practical solution to literally mountains of soil contaminated with cesium, plutonium, tellurium, radioactive silver, strontium...

And don't worry, the researchers did propose putting the soil in containers first.

Asahi Shinbun (12/5/2011) reports:

東京電力福島第一原発の事故で放射能に汚染された土を海に捨てる案が、一部の研究者の間で浮上している。除染のために削り取った土の保管・処分場所を確保することが難しいからだ。世論や国際社会の反発は必至だが、現実的な対応策の一つとして政府への提言を目指す。

An idea has surfaced among researchers to dump the soil contaminated by the Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant accident into the ocean, as it is difficult to secure the storage space to store the soil removed in decontamination efforts. The idea will certainly be greeted with strong criticism from the public both domestic and international, but the researchers plan to propose it to the national government as one of the practical solutions.

　除染は、被曝（ひばく）線量が年１ミリシーベルト以上の地域は国の責任で行う。土壌を削り取り、各市町村の仮置き場に保管した後、福島県内につくる中間貯蔵施設に運ぶ方針だ。県内だけで１５００万～３１００万立方メートルの汚染土が出る見込み。最終処分の方法が決まらなければ恒久的に置かれることになりかねず、用地確保の見通しは立っていない。

Decontamination is the responsibility of the national government in the areas where the annual cumulative radiation exposure would exceed 1 millisievert. The plan is to scrape off the top soil, store it in the temporary storage areas in the affected municipalities, and then transport it to an intermediary storage facility to be built somewhere in Fukushima Prefecture. It is expected that 15 to 31 million cubic meters of contaminated soil will be removed within the prefecture. If the final disposal plan remains undecided, the intermediary storage could become permanent. The government hasn't secured the land to create the intermediary storage facility.

　こうした現状を踏まえ、文部科学省の土壌汚染マップ作成に携わった大阪大核物理研究センターの谷畑勇夫教授、中井浩二・元東京理科大教授らのグループが３日、大阪大で開かれた研究会で、深海への処分を提案した。海水で腐食せず高い水圧に耐えられる容器に汚染土を入れ、日本近海の水深２千メートル以下に沈める方法が最適とした。

Considering this situation, a group of researchers who participated in the soil contamination mapping by the Ministry of Education and Science, including Professor Isao Tanihata of Osaka University Research Center for Nuclear Physics and Professor Koji Nakai of Tokyo University of Science, proposed the deep sea solution in a workshop held on December 3 at Osaka University. The best method, according to the group, would be to put the contaminated soil in containers that would withstand corrosion and high water pressure, and sink the containers in the coastal water more than 2000 meters deep.

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