Japanese Government Is Rumored to Revise Decontamination Target from 0.23 Microsievert/Hr to 0.4 to 0.6 Microsievert/Hr

Confusion and misunderstanding ensue, following the reporting on the Ministry of the Environment's plan (yet to be officially announced) to raise the radiation target level after decontamination in Fukushima from the current 0.23 microsievert/hour to 0.4-0.6 microsievert/hour.

The Ministry of the Environment (supposedly) says the additional exposure from the radiation under the new target level will be still under 1 millisievert per year.

The empirical data so far collected in Fukushima Prefecture (glass badges worn by residents, monitoring posts, actual measurements before and after decontamination, for example) seem to endorse the position by the Ministry, but this particular ministry unfortunately lacks credibility after having been headed by Goshi Hosono (DPJ) and now by Shintaro Ishihara's son who once wanted to ban the use of personal survey meters by citizens.

The Ministry and the municipal governments involved seem to be doing this for very wrong reason, if what Fukushima Central TV (FCT)'s reporting is correct.

To them, it is about cost-performance - too costly and time-consuming to decontaminate to the 0.23 microsievert/hr level. But again, this is according to the TV station reporting, and the official word from the Ministry is not expected for two to three months, according to Asahi Shinbun.

About this yet-to-be-official change in the government's decontamination policy, from Fukushima Central TV (FCT) (6/6/2014):

除染後の目標値　約２倍に引き上げを協議

Raising the target [radiation] level after decontamination to about twice the current level is being discussed

原発事故からの復興の前提となる除染について、環境省が新たな方針を自治体と協議していることがＦＣＴの取材で分かった。

FCT has found that the Ministry of the Environment has been discussing with the municipal governments [in Fukushima] on the new policy on decontamination which is considered to be prerequisite for recovery from the nuclear accident.

それは、除染で達成すべき空間放射線量の目標で、これまで１時間あたり０．２３マイクロシーベルトとしていたものを、およそ２倍に引き上げようというもの。

The new policy would raise the target ambient radiation level that decontamination should achieve from the current 0.23 microsievert/hour to about twice as high as the current level.

環境省は、除染ガイドラインで、除染後の空間放射線量を毎時０．２３マイクロシーベルトとする目標値を定めている。

In the decontamination guideline by the Ministry of the Environment, the target ambient radiation level after decontamination is set at 0.23 microsievert/hour.

この数値は、年間の追加被ばく線量の１ミリシーベルトから算出されている。

This number is calculated from the additional annual radiation exposure [target] of 1 millisievert.

環境省はこの目標値について、今のおよそ２倍の毎時０．４から０．６マイクロシーベルト前後に引き上げる方向で、自治体と協議を進めていることがＦＣＴの取材で分かった。

The Ministry of the Environment has been discussing with the municipal government involved to raise the target level to 0.4 to 0.6 microsievert/hour, which is about twice as high as the current level.

除染後の線量の目標については、県内の一部の自治体から「０．２３マイクロシーベルトの達成は難しい」として、環境省により現実的な目標に見直すよう要望が出ていた。

Some municipal governments in Fukushima Prefecture have requested the Ministry of the Environment to revise the target radiation level to something more realistic. The current target of 0.23 microsievert/hour is too difficult to achieve, according to these municipal governments.

環境省などでは、これまで目標値の毎時０．２３マイクロシーベルトを上回っても実際に被ばくする線量は年間１ミリ以下におさえられるとしていて、今月１５日にも自治体を集めて、除染目標の引き上げについて話し合いを行うとしている。

Officials at the Ministry of the Environment say the actual additional radiation exposure per year will still be under 1 millisievert even if the ambient radiation level after decontamination exceeds the current target level of 0.23 microsievert/hour. They will have a meeting on June 15 with the municipal governments involved to discuss raising the target level for decontamination.

The effective dose measured by glass badges is shown to be about half to one-third of the dose calculated by the Ministry of the Environment from the ambient radiation levels indicated by monitoring posts.

Here's a chart from the report by Date City in November 2013. Date City is located in Nakadori (middle third) of Fukushima Prefecture with elevated ambient radiation levels in western part of the city:

(English labels are by me)

The calculation used by the government (Ministry of the Environment) is as follows:

予測年間追加被ばく線量（mSv）＝空間線量率（μSv/h）× （8h ＋ 16 h × 0.4） × 365 (日)÷1000

Expected annual additional radiation exposure (mSv) = (ambient radiation - background radiation of 0.04 μSv/h) x (8h + 16h x 0.4) x 365 / 1000

In other words, expected annual additional radiation exposure in millisievert is calculated by:

(1) Subtract background radiation level of 0.04 μSv/h (pre-accident Fukushima average) from the current ambient radiation level.
(2) Multiply (1) by 8 hours as number of hours one stays outdoors per day.
(3) Multiply (1) by 16 hours as number of hours one stays indoors per day, then multiply by the coefficient 0.4 to account for shielding effect of the buildings (houses, offices, etc.).
(4) Add (2) and (3), then multiply it by 365 to come up with the annual additional exposure dosage in microsievert.
(5) Divide (4) by 1000 to come up with the number in millisievert.

Instead of saying "Decontaminating until the ambient radiation level drops to 0.23 microsievert/hr is too costly and near-impossible to achieve," the Ministry of the Environment could admit its mistake in setting the coefficient at 0.4 (to account for one- or two-story buildings made of wood, according to National Institute for Radiological Science).

Date City's result indicates that the coefficient of 0.2 (to account for one- or two-story concrete buildings) would be closer to the actual effective radiation dose. Children and adults in white-collar jobs may be spending the bulk of their time in buildings that are more than three-story high and made of concrete (schools, office buildings), and the coefficient for such buildings is 0.1.

We will have to wait for two to three months until Shintaro Ishihara's son (Minister of the Environment) officially announces the change, but Japanese Twitter is already full of people thinking that the national government is raising the additional radiation exposure per year allowed for Fukushima to 2 millisieverts.

(H/T @drsteppenwolf)

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Happy April Fools' Day! Residents Back in 20km Evacuation Zone in #Fukushima, TEPCO Manages to Contaminate Brand-New Tanks, 30-Year-Old STAP Cell Researcher Says She Meant Well When She Copied and Pasted for Nature Magazine Thesis

April 1st is the start of Japan's new fiscal year. Fitting, you might say.

Residents who were forced to leave their homes in Miyakoji District of Tamura City soon after the start of the nuclear accident on March 11, 2011 are allowed back, as of April 1st, 2014. They are the first in the former no-entry evacuation zone within 20-kilometer radius from Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant.

NBC News in the US has a Reuters article whose only sensationalism is in the title (Miyakoji was never "hot"); otherwise the article simply reports facts, and surprisingly, with numbers for radiation levels, which rarely happens in the articles in the US mainstream media on the Fukushima accident, or any nuclear accident.

It is still a joke. Not because the Japanese government is sending the residents back in the "hot zone" (as Reuters' article says, which is misleading) in 3 "short" years, but because the residents in Miyakoji should never have been forced to leave to begin with.

The radiation levels in Miyakoji, even though the town is inside the 20-kilometer radius, have generally been much lower than larger cities in the more populous middle-third of Fukushima Prefecture ("Nakadori"), where residents have never been forced to evacuate. It's all because of the unscientific, uninformed decision by the ministers of the Kan administration (PM Naoto Kan, Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano, Minister of Economy Banri Kaieda) to draw concentric circles around the plant to decide the evacuation zone - as if the nuclear plant accident were an atomic bomb detonation, and as if that had happened on a flat land on a day with no wind.

From NBC News quoting Reuters (4/1/2014; emphasis is mine):

Fukushima Families Return to Homes in 'Hot Zone'

The completion of decontamination work allowed residents of a small part of the Fukushima exclusion zone to return home Tuesday, just over three years after they were forced into exile.

The reopening of the Miyakoji area of Tamura, a city inland from the wrecked nuclear station, marks a tiny step for Japan as it attempts to recover from the 2011 disasters.

But the event is a major milestone for the 357 registered residents of the district. The trickle of returnees highlights both people's desire to return to the forested hamlet and the difficulty of returning to normal.

"Many of our friends and neighbors won't come back," said Kimiko Koyama, 69, speaking on her return to the large farmhouse she had occupied for 50 years, while her husband Toshio, 72, tried to fix a television antenna on the roof.

"There are no jobs. It's inconvenient and young people are scared of radiation," she said. "My daughter won't bring our grandsons here because of the radiation."

A few cars streamed into the town on Tuesday, where several TV news vans were set up. Some elderly women sat by the roadside, but there were no children or families in sight outside.

Schools open later this week, but seven children came to the local pre-school and four older children were also dropped off, as volunteers from nuclear plant operator Tokyo Electric Power (Tepco) removed ice and snow and leveled the playground.

Radiation levels in Miyakoji ranged from 0.11 microsieverts to 0.48 microsieverts per hour, February readings show.

That was higher than the average 0.034 microsieverts per hour measured in central Tokyo on Monday, but comparable to background radiation of about 0.2 microsieverts per hour in Denver. A commercial flight between Tokyo and New York exposes passengers to about 10 microsieverts per hour.

People exposed to radiation typically have a higher chance of getting cancer if doses exceed 100 millisieverts (100,000 microsieverts), the World Health Organisation says.

Tuesday's homecoming is particularly difficult, as many residents worked at the Fukushima plant before the disaster and depended on Tepco for stable jobs.

"It was the only job out here and we were grateful," said Kimiko Koyama. "We worked hard to feed our three daughters. We worked and we built our life here."

The Koyamas, who helped to build the very nuclear reactors that have displaced them from their homes, are letting the city keep radioactive debris in an empty lot on their land in a bid to hasten the cleanup.

The Koyamas at their home, photo by Reuters:

In Japan, you don't actually hear much about fear of radiation as reason for not returning for these residents. Rather, the concern is not radiation (whose levels are lower than in cities like Fukushima and Koriyama in the middle third), but local economy.

As Reuters' article above briefly mentions, the employment in the district depended heavily on TEPCO. But it is not just employment. Residents used to go to neighboring Okuma-machi and Futaba-machi, both of which are inside the 20-kilometer radius evacuation zone and actually heavily contaminated, for shopping, seeing doctors, entertainment, etc. Both Okuma-machi and Futaba-machi are off-limits for years to come.

According to the latest measurement by Tamura City, Miyakoji District's radiation level as of March 30, 2014 was 0.14 microgray/hour (more or less the same as 0.14 microsievert/hour).

According to the real-time monitoring information compiled at Nuclear Regulation Authority, radiation levels in Koriyama City in the middle-third of Fukushima Prefecture range from 0.09 microsievert/hour to 0.595 microsievert/hour (which happens to be in a nursery school...). The levels in Miyakoji District in Tamura City look to be between 0.1 and 0.2 microsievert/hour.

One clarification about the radiation dose of 100 millisieverts mentioned in the article: it is about life-time cumulative dose.

Now, moving on to TEPCO, you will encounter a joke in the true sense of the word...

The stoppage of all three lines of ALPS was my last post in March, but since then the multi-nuclide removal system has been plagued with new leaks and other problems that cause constant stoppage.

The saddest and stupidest of all must be this (or at least it is for me): TEPCO unknowingly contaminated the brand-new 1,000-tonne welded tanks as they kept sending the water treated by ALPS, except ALPS wasn't treating the waste water properly (for reasons not yet clear) and left a significant amount of beta nuclides in the water.

TEPCO (or rather, Toshiba) didn't have a way to test the water treated by the three ALPS lines individually. Treated water from the three lines all goes to the same holding tank, from which the water is sent to the storage tanks.

There are 21 such brand-new, welded tanks, and TEPCO has admitted that 9 of them have been contaminated (10 million Bq/Liter of all beta). I have a suspicion that all 21 tanks have been contaminated. Why? Because these tanks are all connected by pipes and valves near the bottom of the tanks, and they keep the valves open to fill all tanks by pumping the treated water into one tank

Now, someone has to crawl inside the tanks from the inspection holes near the bottom, and scrub the inside clean.

From Tokyo Shinbun (3/26/2014; part):

東京電力福島第一原発の新型除染装置「ＡＬＰＳ（アルプス）」で不具合が起きているのに東電が運転を続けた結果、多数のタンクを高濃度の放射性物質で汚した。東電は「タンクの除染を始めた」というが、後始末をさせられるのは作業員。除染に当たった作業員らが語る現場は、過酷だった

TEPCO continued to operate ALPS, the multi-nuclide removal system at Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant, without noticing the problem. As the result, many tanks were contaminated by highly radioactive materials. TEPCO says it has started to "decontaminate the tanks", but the ones who do the actual decontamination are the workers. As told by the workers who did the decontamination, it was a hard labor.

除染されたのは、ＡＬＰＳで処理した水を一時的にためるため、装置脇にあるタンク一基。作業員らはタンク下部の側面に直径八十センチほどの点検孔を開け、高さ、直径ともに約十メートルあるタンクの中に入った。天板に二カ所ある点検孔を開け、そこから差し込むわずかな光と持ち込んだ発光ダイオード（ＬＥＤ）ライトの光だけが頼りだ。

Workers decontaminated one tank near ALPS which temporarily stores water treated by ALPS. They opened an inspection hole, 80 centimeters in diameter, at the side of the tank near the bottom to enter the tank with 10 meters in diameter and in height. They opened the two inspection hole on the ceiling to let the light. They also carried in the LED lights for the work.

すでに上部から高圧の水を吹きつけて洗浄してあるとはいえ、つい数日前まで一リットル当たり一〇〇〇万ベクレルと、放出基準の数十万倍もある放射性ストロンチウムなどを含む水が入っていた。ベータ線を発する物質で、被ばくの心配は少ないが、直接触れたり体内に取り込むと内部被ばくにつながる。

Even though the tank had been washed from above with high-pressure washer, until a few days ago it had stored water that contained 10 million becquerels per liter of radioactive materials including radioactive strontium, hundreds of thousands times the limit for discharge. They were beta nuclides so there was less worry for radiation exposure unless they came into direct contact or they were ingested.

防護服の上にかっぱを二枚重ねし、かっぱのフードを全面マスクの上からテープで密封。手はゴム手袋など四枚重ね。足元は長靴と完全防備だ。

Workers wore two [water-proof] jackets on top of the protective clothing [Tyvek, probably]. The hoods of the jackets were taped shut onto the full-face masks. They wore four layers of gloves including rubber gloves, and wore long boots.

Meanwhile, I hear that TEPCO's president, Mr. Hirose, was welling up as he welcomed new employees (new graduates) for the first time in three years. TEPCO on the road to recovery...

Now, moving on to surreal...

The 30-year old (so-called) researcher at RIKEN, one of the premier research institutions in Japan, who seems to have copied and pasted all the way to her current cushy position, claims her STAP cells are real, and copying and pasting she did to falsify the data was done with good intension - or at least with lack of bad intension.

So in her privileged mind, as long as she doesn't mean ill, she should be forgiven.

For those who are not familiar, she and her professor during her Harvard days, Professor Charles Vacanti, claim they have created a cell that can become any cell from an adult cell just by stressing it a little bit with acid bath or mechanical stress. One of the photographs critical to their claim and prominently featured and published in the prominent peer-reviewed magazine Nature turns out to be the same photograph from her doctoral dissertation from a totally different process.

RIKEN's top management (who happen to be top scientists, too, including a Nobel prize winner in chemistry) held a press conference on April 1st to announce their final findings: The researcher, Ms. Haruko Obokata, knowingly falsified.

Ms. Obokata, now being advised by not just one but THREE lawyers, has this to say (From none other than Nature Magazine, 4/1/2014):

In her letter, Obokata says the spliced gel lane did nothing to change the study’s results. “There was no merit in falsifying data, and I had no intention of doing so when I made the image. I only wanted to have a better image,” she writes. Use of the duplicated image was also “a simple mistake” made because the images were similar. Obokata says that she had already identified the mistakes and sent Nature a correction.

Except she didn't identify the mistakes. Net citizens did. Her "simple mistake" involved photoshopping the original image and editing the text beneath the photos. Such an innocent mistake, she actually claims. As long as the intention is good, she should be forgiven, she says.

RIKEN says it was presented with only two lab notes in the three years Ms. Obokata was with RIKEN, and the commissioners at the press conference said they were effectively just one note, and so poorly written, without dates, that they couldn't verify the data or the origin of the photos.

Ms. Obokata is doubling down, and says she will file a formal complaint with RIKEN, and probably sue them.

For what? No one knows. She probably liked the attention she got in her 15 minutes of fame. RIKEN is under heavy criticism for hiring this person who seems like a pathological liar if you read tabloid magazines and for allowing this to happen. She reportedly won the essay contest when she was in middle school by copying and pasting quotes from a very popular animation (Galaxy Express Three-Nine) and passing them as her own words.

So far, no one has accused Nature Magazine for its sloppy peer review.

Hope you had a fun April Fools' Day...

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(UPDATED) Reuters Special Report: Japan's Homeless Recruited for Murky Fukushima Clean-Up

(UPDATE 12/30/2013) It was almost amusing to view a tweet from someone apparently in Fukushima Prefecture quoting my tweet (in Japanese) about the Reuters article below, who said what a terrible translation my tweet was (probably without even seeing the English article). What part was terrible for this person? That there were 733 companies contracting decon work in Fukushima from the Ministry of the Environment, apparently. Go figure.

(UPDATE 12/30/2013) Short video news from Reuters on the subject:

=====================

Remember the State Secrecy Protection Law that passed on a Friday in November in Japan? One of my twitter followers commented, "Good timing. No one will remember it on Monday."

Sure enough, the Japanese national media almost completely dropped their coverage the next Monday. So much for the citizens' right to know, and freedom of the press that they harped about when the Upper House was debating the bill.

They said, almost all of them, "If the law passes, the coverage of the Fukushima nuclear accident will be suppressed by the government."

Well the Japanese media doesn't need the secrecy law to stop writing about the nuclear accident, as no one in the Japanese national media ever writes about what the US Reuters just wrote about.

Reuters reports that Japan's homeless continue to be recruited to work in the decontamination jobs in Fukushima Prefecture, and some of them are forced to go into debt by doing so. Five companies in the Ministry of the Environment registry for decontamination jobs cannot even be identified, says Reuters.

Taxpayers' money at work, and no report, no naming names in the Japanese media.

From Reuters (12/29/2013; part, emphasis is mine):

Special Report: Japan's homeless recruited for murky Fukushima clean-up

By Mari Saito and Antoni Slodkowski

(Reuters) - Seiji Sasa hits the train station in this northern Japanese city before dawn most mornings to prowl for homeless men.

He isn't a social worker. He's a recruiter. The men in Sendai Station are potential laborers that Sasa can dispatch to contractors in Japan's nuclear disaster zone for a bounty of $100 a head.

"This is how labor recruiters like me come in every day," Sasa says, as he strides past men sleeping on cardboard and clutching at their coats against the early winter cold.

It's also how Japan finds people willing to accept minimum wage for one of the most undesirable jobs in the industrialized world: working on the $35 billion, taxpayer-funded effort to clean up radioactive fallout across an area of northern Japan larger than Hong Kong.

Almost three years ago, a massive earthquake and tsunami leveled villages across Japan's northeast coast and set off multiple meltdowns at the Fukushima nuclear plant. Today, the most ambitious radiation clean-up ever attempted is running behind schedule. The effort is being dogged by both a lack of oversight and a shortage of workers, according to a Reuters analysis of contracts and interviews with dozens of those involved.

In January, October and November, Japanese gangsters were arrested on charges of infiltrating construction giant Obayashi Corp's network of decontamination subcontractors and illegally sending workers to the government-funded project.

In the October case, homeless men were rounded up at Sendai's train station by Sasa, then put to work clearing radioactive soil and debris in Fukushima City for less than minimum wage, according to police and accounts of those involved. The men reported up through a chain of three other companies to Obayashi, Japan's second-largest construction company.

Obayashi, which is one of more than 20 major contractors involved in government-funded radiation removal projects, has not been accused of any wrongdoing. But the spate of arrests has shown that members of Japan's three largest criminal syndicates - Yamaguchi-gumi, Sumiyoshi-kai and Inagawa-kai - had set up black-market recruiting agencies under Obayashi.

...

OVERSIGHT LEFT TO TOP CONTRACTORS

Part of the problem in monitoring taxpayer money in Fukushima is the sheer number of companies involved in decontamination, extending from the major contractors at the top to tiny subcontractors many layers below them. The total number has not been announced. But in the 10 most contaminated towns and a highway that runs north past the gates of the wrecked plant in Fukushima, Reuters found 733 companies were performing work for the Ministry of Environment, according to partial contract terms released by the ministry in August under Japan's information disclosure law.

Reuters found 56 subcontractors listed on environment ministry contracts worth a total of $2.5 billion in the most radiated areas of Fukushima that would have been barred from traditional public works because they had not been vetted by the construction ministry.

The 2011 law that regulates decontamination put control under the environment ministry, the largest spending program ever managed by the 10-year-old agency. The same law also effectively loosened controls on bidders, making it possible for firms to win radiation removal contracts without the basic disclosure and certification required for participating in public works such as road construction.

Reuters also found five firms working for the Ministry of Environment that could not be identified. They had no construction ministry registration, no listed phone number or website, and Reuters could not find a basic corporate registration disclosing ownership. There was also no record of the firms in the database of Japan's largest credit research firm, Teikoku Databank.

"As a general matter, in cases like this, we would have to start by looking at whether a company like this is real," said Shigenobu Abe, a researcher at Teikoku Databank. "After that, it would be necessary to look at whether this is an active company and at the background of its executive and directors."

Responsibility for monitoring the hiring, safety records and suitability of hundreds of small firms involved in Fukushima's decontamination rests with the top contractors, including Kajima Corp, Taisei Corp and Shimizu Corp, officials said.

"In reality, major contractors manage each work site," said Hide Motonaga, deputy director of the radiation clean-up division of the environment ministry.

But, as a practical matter, many of the construction companies involved in the clean-up say it is impossible to monitor what is happening on the ground because of the multiple layers of contracts for each job that keep the top contractors removed from those doing the work.

"If you started looking at every single person, the project wouldn't move forward. You wouldn't get a tenth of the people you need," said Yukio Suganuma, president of Aisogo Service, a construction company that was hired in 2012 to clean up radioactive fallout from streets in the town of Tamura.

...
Seiji Sasa, 67, a broad-shouldered former wrestling promoter, was photographed by undercover police recruiting homeless men at the Sendai train station to work in the nuclear cleanup. The workers were then handed off through a chain of companies reporting up to Obayashi, as part of a $1.4 million contract to decontaminate roads in Fukushima, police say.

"I don't ask questions; that's not my job," Sasa said in an interview with Reuters. "I just find people and send them to work. I send them and get money in exchange. That's it. I don't get involved in what happens after that."

Only a third of the money allocated for wages by Obayashi's top contractor made it to the workers Sasa had found. The rest was skimmed by middlemen, police say. After deductions for food and lodging, that left workers with an hourly rate of about $6, just below the minimum wage equal to about $6.50 per hour in Fukushima, according to wage data provided by police. Some of the homeless men ended up in debt after fees for food and housing were deducted, police say.

Sasa was arrested in November and released without being charged. Police were after his client, Mitsunori Nishimura, a local Inagawa-kai gangster. Nishimura housed workers in cramped dorms on the edge of Sendai and skimmed an estimated $10,000 of public funding intended for their wages each month, police say.

...
UNPAID WAGE CLAIMS

In Fukushima, Shuto has faced at least two claims with local labor regulators over unpaid wages, according to Kaneda. In a separate case, a 55-year-old homeless man reported being paid the equivalent of $10 for a full month of work at Shuto. The worker's paystub, reviewed by Reuters, showed charges for food, accommodation and laundry were docked from his monthly pay equivalent to about $1,500, leaving him with $10 at the end of the August.

The man turned up broke and homeless at Sendai Station in October after working for Shuto, but disappeared soon afterwards, according to Yasuhiro Aoki, a Baptist pastor and homeless advocate.

Kaneda confirmed the man had worked for her but said she treats her workers fairly. She said Shuto Kogyo pays workers at least $80 for a day's work while docking the equivalent of $35 for food. Many of her workers end up borrowing from her to make ends meet, she said. One of them had owed her $20,000 before beginning work in Fukushima, she says. The balance has come down recently, but then he borrowed another $2,000 for the year-end holidays.

"He will never be able to pay me back," she said.

The problem of workers running themselves into debt is widespread. "Many homeless people are just put into dormitories, and the fees for lodging and food are automatically docked from their wages," said Aoki, the pastor. "Then at the end of the month, they're left with no pay at all."

Shizuya Nishiyama, 57, says he briefly worked for Shuto clearing rubble. He now sleeps on a cardboard box in Sendai Station. He says he left after a dispute over wages, one of several he has had with construction firms, including two handling decontamination jobs.

Nishiyama's first employer in Sendai offered him $90 a day for his first job clearing tsunami debris. But he was made to pay as much as $50 a day for food and lodging. He also was not paid on the days he was unable to work. On those days, though, he would still be charged for room and board. He decided he was better off living on the street than going into debt.

"We're an easy target for recruiters," Nishiyama said. "We turn up here with all our bags, wheeling them around and we're easy to spot. They say to us, are you looking for work? Are you hungry? And if we haven't eaten, they offer to find us a job."

(Full article at the link)

Shuto, in the article, is a contractor who hires and sends workers to Fukushima. Ms. Kaneda, who generously lends money to workers to make ends meet after her firm deducts a ton of money from their pay, was arrested in 2009 for charging illegally high interest rates on loans to pensioners, says Reuters.

Most people in Japan continue to look toward the horizon longingly where the beautiful nuclear-free future is supposed to lie, while pretending not to know the not-so-pleasant details of the nuclear accident.

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Decontamination in #Fukushima Prefecture Is About Mowing and Delimbing

So says a flyer advertising the position, as tweeted by an independent journalist. Little more than general cleaning.

There is no mention of radiation or radioactive materials.

Looking for Decontamination Workers!!
Easy job of mostly mowing, delimbing, and removing the top soil.

Age: 18 to 60

Job locations:
1) Koriyama City, Nishigo-mura, and other locations in Fukushima Prefecture
2) Hamadori [ocean third of the prefecture];
3) Minamisoma City

Work hours: 8AM to 5PM, with breaks

Pay:
12,000 yen and up for locations in 1)
15,500 yen and up for 2), with dormitory
11,500 yen and up for 3)

Benefits: 5,000 to 25,500 yen

Possible to earn more than 300,000 yen per month. Call us now. Please bring your resume.

Minamisoma City is in Hamadori - ocean-third - too, but the pay is lower than in Nakadori - middle-third - where Koriyama City and Nishigo-mura are located. Hmmm.

Hamadori locations with dormitory must be inside the former evacuation zones, where the national government wants the evacuees to return, with a cash incentive of 900,000 yen (US$9,000) per person.

Note that, unlike workers hired by subcontractors 6 or 7th degree removed from the main contractors at Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant, they will get benefits.

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Six, Not One, Rad Waste Tanks Are Leaking at Hanford, Washington Governor Says

Governor Jay Inslee had said a week ago that one tank was found leaking (see my 2/16/2013 post).

Now it turns out there are six tanks leaking extremely toxic liquid, but they don't know which six, out of 177 tanks.

From Fox News quoting AP (2/22/2013; emphasis is mine):

6 underground Hanford nuclear tanks leaking, Washington governor says

Six underground tanks that hold a brew of radioactive and toxic waste at the nation's most contaminated nuclear site are leaking, Washington Gov. Jay Inslee announced Friday.

The leaking tanks strike another blow to federal efforts to clean up south-central Washington's Hanford nuclear reservation, where any successes often are overshadowed by delays, budget overruns and technological challenges.

State officials just last week announced that one of Hanford's 177 underground tanks was leaking in the range of 150 to 300 gallons a year, posing a risk to groundwater and rivers. So far, nearby wells haven't detected higher radioactivity levels.

Inslee traveled to Washington, D.C., this week to discuss the problem with federal officials. He said Friday he learned during meetings that six tanks are leaking waste.

"We received very disturbing news today," the governor said. "I think that we are going to have a course of new action and that will be vigorously pursued in the next several weeks."

Inslee noted there are legal and ethical considerations to cleaning up the Hanford site, both at the state and national level. He also stressed the state would impose a "zero-tolerance" policy on leaking radioactive waste into the soil and insisted that the Department of Energy fully clean up the site.

The tanks already are long past their intended 20-year life span. They hold millions of gallons of a highly radioactive stew left from decades of plutonium production for nuclear weapons.

The leaking tanks were missed because graphs that monitor the waste levels were evaluated only over a short period, rather than a longer period that might have shown the levels changing, Inslee said.

"It's like if you're trying to determine if climate change is happening, only looking at the data for today," he said. "Perhaps human error, the protocol did not call for it. But that's not the most important thing at the moment. The important thing now is to find and address the leakers."

The federal government created Hanford in the 1940s as part of the top-secret Manhattan Project to build the atomic bomb. The government spends $2 billion each year on Hanford cleanup -- one-third of its entire budget for nuclear cleanup nationally. The cleanup is expected to last decades.

Central to the effort is the construction of a plant to convert millions of gallons of waste into glasslike logs for safe, secure storage. The $12.3 billion plant is billions of dollars over budget and behind schedule.

Inslee and Oregon Gov. John Kitzhaber have championed building additional tanks to ensure safe storage of the waste until the plant is completed. Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon said earlier this week that he shares their concerns about the integrity of the tanks, but that he wants more scientific information to determine it's the correct way to spend scarce money.

Wyden noted the nation's most contaminated nuclear site -- and the challenges associated with ridding it of its toxic legacy -- will be a subject of upcoming hearings and a higher priority in Washington, D.C.

Tanks as they were being installed, (from Wikipedia on Hanford):

These tanks were made of carbon steel, not stainless steel, and surrounded by reinforced concrete. According to a non-profit organization called Hanford Challenge (emphasis is original):

The tanks are leaking due to poor tank integrity – the waste is corroding the carbon steel lining. When the tanks were built during the World War II, a shortage of stainless steel necessitated the use of cheaper, less robust carbon steel – this practice continued long after stainless steel was again available.

Carbon steel corrodes in highly acidic environments like those in Hanford’s tanks, so large amounts of other chemicals were added to neutralize the pH in the tanks, minimizing the corrosion problem but making the waste very difficult to stabilize.

The tanks were built to last 20 years. They were never designed to permanently store high-level radioactive waste. Most of these tanks, 149 of them, are single-shelled and built between 1943 and 1964. These have far exceeded this 20-year projection. It is no surprise that they are failing. The double-shell tanks, 28 of them, are double-shelled, built between 1977 and 1986. The double shell tanks are more robust, but are also made of carbon steel. To date, none of the double-shell tanks have leaked, but a more secure solution is needed to contain this waste and prevent even more waste from leaking into the groundwater.

I'll go find out what kind of containers used in AREVA's decontamination system (which has been shut down for more than a year now), Kurion's cesium absorption system (also shut down), and Toshiba's SARRY (in operation) at Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant.

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At Hanford, Rad Waste Tank Is Leaking Liquids as Bechtel's Waste Treatment Plant Lags

From Christian Science Monitor citing AP (2/16/2013; emphasis is mine):

Hanford nuclear tank in Washington State is leaking liquids

The long-delayed cleanup of the nation's most contaminated nuclear site became the subject of more bad news Friday, when it was announced that a radioactive waste tank is leaking.

The long-delayed cleanup of the nation's most contaminated nuclear site became the subject of more bad news Friday, when Washington Gov. Jay Inslee announced that a radioactive waste tank there is leaking.

The news raises concerns about the integrity of similar tanks at south-central Washington's Hanford nuclear reservation and puts added pressure on the federal government to resolve construction problems with the plant being built to alleviate environmental and safety risks from the waste.

The tanks, which are already long past their intended 20-year life span, hold millions of gallons of a highly radioactive stew left from decades of plutonium production for nuclear weapons.

On Friday, the U.S. Department of Energy said liquid levels are decreasing in one of 177 underground tanks at the site. Monitoring wells near the tank have not detected higher radiation levels, but Gov. Inslee said the leak could be in the range of 150 gallons to 300 gallons over the course of a year and poses a potential long-term threat to groundwater and rivers.

"I am alarmed about this on many levels," Inslee said at a news conference. "This raises concerns, not only about the existing leak ... but also concerning the integrity of the other single shell tanks of this age."

Inslee said the state was assured years ago that such problems had been dealt with and he warned that spending cuts — particularly due to a budget fight in Congress — would create further risks at Hanford. Inslee said the cleanup must be a priority for the federal government.

"We are willing to exercise our rights using the legal system at the appropriate time. That should be clear," Inslee said.

Inslee said the state has a good partner in Energy Secretary Steven Chu but that he's concerned about whether Congress is committed to clean up the highly contaminated site.

The tank in question contains about 447,000 gallons of sludge, a mixture of solids and liquids with a mud-like consistency. The tank, built in the 1940s, is known to have leaked in the past, but was stabilized in 1995 when all liquids that could be pumped out of it were removed.

Inslee said the tank is the first to have been documented to be losing liquids since all Hanford tanks were stabilized in 2005. His staff said the federal government is working to assess other tanks.

At the height of World War II, the federal government created Hanford in the remote sagebrush of eastern Washington as part of a hush-hush project to build the atomic bomb. The site ultimately produced plutonium for the world's first atomic blast and for one of two atomic bombs dropped on Japan, effectively ending the war.

Plutonium production continued there through the Cold War. Today, Hanford is the nation's most contaminated nuclear site. Cleanup will cost billions of dollars and last decades.

Central to that cleanup is the removal of millions of gallons of a highly toxic, radioactive stew — enough to fill dozens of Olympic-size swimming pools — from 177 aging, underground tanks. Many of those tanks have leaked over time — an estimated 1 million gallons of waste — threatening the groundwater and the neighboring Columbia River, the largest waterway in the Pacific Northwest.

Twenty- eight of those tanks have double walls, allowing the Energy Department to pump waste from leaking single-shell tanks into them. However, there is very little space left in those double-shell tanks today.

In addition, construction of a $12.3 billion plant to convert the waste to a safe, stable form is years behind schedule and billions of dollars over budget. Technical problems have slowed the project, and several workers have filed lawsuits in recent months, claiming they were retaliated against for raising concerns about the plant's design and safety.

"We're out of time, obviously. These tanks are starting to fail now," said Tom Carpenter of the Hanford watchdog group Hanford Challenge. "We've got a problem. This is big."

Inslee said he would be traveling to Washington D.C. next week to discuss the problem further.

Uh... billions of dollars? That's it?

The Hanford Tank Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant (WTP) is being built by none other than Bechtel.

From the special site for WTP, recent press releases shows Bechtel's gift to the welfare of the local community:

Bechtel National gives $250,000 to build Delta High School
Wed, January 30, 2013

RICHLAND, Wash.–Bechtel National Inc. provided a $250,000 gift today to the Washington State STEM Education Foundation for the Delta High School capital campaign.

Vit Plant employees donate $20,000 to Toys for Tots
Thu, December 13, 2012

RICHLAND, Wash. — Employees at the Hanford Waste Treatment Plant, also known as the Vit Plant, donated toys, 1,000 bicycles and nearly $20,000 in cash to the U.S. Marine Corps Reserves' Toys for Tots campaign at the construction site this morning. Marines were present to accept the donation.

Bechtel donates $100,000 to build Columbia Basin College Planetarium Facility (
Fri, June 29, 2012

Richland, Wash. — The proposed planetarium at Columbia Basin College should be open for students in October thanks to a $100,000 donation by Bechtel National Inc.

And about the safety of the waste treatment plant:

Bechtel responds to DOE internal memo regarding safety of waste treatment plant design
Thu, August 30, 2012

RESTON, VA, August 29, 2012— Bechtel today responded to a memo that questions the company’s ability to safely design the Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant (WTP), also known as the Vit Plant. The facility will treat 56 million gallons of radioactive waste currently stored in underground tanks in Washington state.

Bechtel’s Waste Treatment Plant Project receives VPP Superior Star Award
Wed, September 19, 2012

Hanford, Washington — Earlier this month, the Department of Energy awarded the Voluntary Protection Program's (VPP) "Superior" Star to Bechtel National, Inc.'s Waste Treatment Plant Project. This is the second year BNI has received this recognition.

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#Radioactive Japan: Decontamination Burned Down a House in #Fukushima City

Decon workers dispatched by Fukushima City used a blowtorch to melt snow in order to decontaminate a house. Instead of decontaminating, they managed to burn down the entire house.

Blowtorch?? Yes, decon contractors are free to use any method, including blowtorch, as there is no rule or regulation as to how they are supposed to remove snow in the decon manual.

Why they are doing this decon stuff in the snowy winter is a mystery to me.

From Yomiuri Shinbun (2/10/2013):

除染のためガスバーナーで融雪、空き家を全焼

Workers used blowtorch to melt snow in order to decontaminate, uninhabited house burned down

９日午前１０時４０分頃、福島市浜田町の空き家から出火、木造平屋約１７６平方メートルを全焼した。火は約１時間後に消し止められ、けが人はなかった。

At 10:40AM on February 9, there was a fire from an uninhabited house in Hamada-machi in Fukushima City. The fire burned down the single-story wooden house of about 176 square meters. The fire was extinguished about an hour later, and there was no injury.

同市によると、空き家の庭で行われていた同市の除染作業で、ガスバーナーを使って積もった雪を溶かしていたといい、福島署で関連を慎重に調べている。

According to the city, workers were using a blowtorch to melt the snow in the city-ordered decontamination work in the yard of the house. The Fukushima local police is carefully assessing the situation.

同署などによると、空き家は同市鳥谷野、飲食店経営大沼しづ子さん（６２）の所有。国道４号近くの住宅街にあり、約５０メートル離れた保育園では子どもたち８人を避難させるなど、周囲は一時騒然となった。一方、市では除染作業に伴う除雪については規定を設けておらず、業者に事情を聴いている。

According to the police, the house belongs to Ms. Shizuko Onuma (age 62), a restaurant owner in the city. The house is in a residential area along the Route 4. There is a kindergarten 50 meters from the house, and at one point 8 kindergarteners were evacuated. There is no regulation as to how to remove snow as part of the decontamination work. The city is asking the contractor for details.

(Totally unrelated video, other than the title of the song)

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NY Times on Japan's Slow and Flawed Decontamination: "Japan Seems to Want to Do It By Themselves", Says US Expert, "Japan's Soil Is Different", Says Japanese Official

That official is none other than Mr. Hidehiko Nishiyama, Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency spokesman in much of the early days of the Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant accident, and was removed from the post after he was caught fooling around with a young female subordinate of his in the Ministry.

In the New York Times article by the Tokyo-based reporter Hiroko Tabuchi, Mr. Nishiyama says, of collaboration with foreign companies in decontaminating Fukushima Prefecture,

“Even if a method works overseas, the soil in Japan is different, for example,” said Hidehiko Nishiyama, deputy director at the environment ministry, who is in charge of the Fukushima cleanup. “And if we have foreigners roaming around Fukushima, they might scare the old grandmas and granddads there.”

Yes, I remember the Japanese snow was also different, thus ski wax made in France should not be allowed to be sold.

From New York Times (1/7/2013; part, emphasis is mine):

In Japan, a Painfully Slow Sweep

By HIROKO TABUCHI

(Photo by Ko Sasaki for NYT)

NARAHA, Japan — The decontamination crews at a deserted elementary school here are at the forefront of what Japan says is the most ambitious radiological cleanup the world has seen, one that promised to draw on cutting-edge technology from across the globe.

But much of the work at the Naraha-Minami Elementary School, about 12 miles away from the ravaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, tells another story. For eight hours a day, construction workers blast buildings with water, cut grass and shovel dirt and foliage into big black plastic bags — which, with nowhere to go, dot Naraha’s landscape like funeral mounds.

More than a year and a half since the nuclear crisis, much of Japan’s post-Fukushima cleanup remains primitive, slapdash and bereft of the cleanup methods lauded by government scientists as effective in removing harmful radioactive cesium from the environment.

Local businesses that responded to a government call to research and develop decontamination methods have found themselves largely left out. American and other foreign companies with proven expertise in environmental remediation, invited to Japan in June to show off their technologies, have similarly found little scope to participate.

Recent reports in the local media of cleanup crews dumping contaminated soil and leaves into rivers has focused attention on the sloppiness of the cleanup.

“What’s happening on the ground is a disgrace,” said Masafumi Shiga, president of Shiga Toso, a refurbishing company based in Iwaki, Fukushima. The company developed a more effective and safer way to remove cesium from concrete without using water, which could repollute the environment. “We’ve been ready to help for ages, but they say they’ve got their own way of cleaning up,” he said.

Shiga Toso’s technology was tested and identified by government scientists as “fit to deploy immediately,” but it has been used only at two small locations, including a concrete drain at the Naraha-Minami school.

Instead, both the central and local governments have handed over much of the 1 trillion yen decontamination effort to Japan’s largest construction companies. The politically connected companies have little radiological cleanup expertise and critics say they have cut corners to employ primitive — even potentially hazardous — techniques.

... Also worrying, industry experts say, are cleanup methods used by the construction companies that create loose contamination that can become airborne or enter the water.

At many sites, contaminated runoff from cleanup projects is not fully recovered and is being released into the environment, multiple people involved in the decontamination work said.

In addition, there are no concrete plans about storing the vast amounts of contaminated soil and foliage the cleanup is generating, which the environment ministry estimates will amount to at least 29 million cubic meters, or more than a billion cubic feet.

The contaminated dirt lies in bags on roadsides, in abandoned fields and on the coastline, where experts say they are at risk from high waves or another tsunami.

“This isn’t decontamination — it’s sweeping up dirt and leaves and absolutely irresponsible,” said Tomoya Yamauchi, an expert in radiation measurement at Kobe University who has been helping Fukushima communities test the effectiveness of various decontamination methods. “Japan has started up its big public works machine, and the cleanup has become an end in itself. It’s a way for the government to appear to be doing something for Fukushima.”

... The Japanese government also made an initial effort to contact foreign companies for decontamination support. It invited 32 companies from the United States that specialize in remediation technologies like strip-painting and waste minimization, to show off their expertise to Japanese government officials, experts and companies involved in the cleanup.

Opinions on the trip’s effectiveness vary among participants, but in the six months since, not a single foreign company has been employed in Japan’s cleanup, according to the trip’s participants and Japan’s Environment Ministry.

“Japan has a rich history in nuclear energy, but as you know, the U.S. has a much more diverse experience in dealing with the cleanup of very complicated nuclear processing facilities. We’ve been cleaning it up since World War II,” said Casey Bunker, a director at RJ Lee, a scientific consulting company based in Pennsylvania that took part in the visit.

“There was a little of, ‘Hey, bring your tools over and show us how it works.’ But they ultimately wanted to do it themselves, to fix things themselves,” Mr. Bunker said. “There didn’t seem to be a lot of interest in a consultative relationship moving forward.”

Japanese officials said adapting overseas technologies presented a particular challenge.

“Even if a method works overseas, the soil in Japan is different, for example,” said Hidehiko Nishiyama, deputy director at the environment ministry, who is in charge of the Fukushima cleanup. “And if we have foreigners roaming around Fukushima, they might scare the old grandmas and granddads there.”

Some local residents are losing faith in the decontamination effort.

“I thought Japan was a technologically advanced country. I thought we’d be able to clean up better than this,” said Yoshiko Suganami, a legal worker who was forced to abandon her home and office over two miles from the Fukushima Daiichi plant. “It’s clear the decontamination drive isn’t really about us any more.”

(Full article at the link)

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#Radioactive Japan: Mayor of Iitate-mura in Fukushima Wants Residents Back in 2014

There are neptunium and plutonium in Iitate-mura's soil, spiders are concentrating radioactive silver. Back in early April last year, IAEA said they had found 20 million becquerels/kg of iodine-131 from the soil.

Never you mind.

The highly political mayor of Iitate-mura says he will declare that the residents of this highly contaminated village return to the village in the fall of 2014. At the latest, by the spring of 2015.

Mayor Sugano is planning to have the villagers back three and a half years after the worst nuclear accident in Japan. The national government will be delighted, as that will mean the end of paying the compensations to the villagers.

From Yomiuri Shinbun (12/11/2012):

東京電力福島第一原発事故で全村避難が続く福島県飯舘村の菅野典雄村長は１１日、住民に帰還を呼びかける帰村宣言を出す時期について、「２０１４年秋頃」と語り、初めて見通しを示した。

As evacuation after the Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant continues in Iitate-mura in Fukushima Prefecture, Mayor Norio Sugano mentioned the timing of issuing his declaration for the villagers to return to the village for the first time, saying it would be "around the fall of 2014".

村議会の一般質問で答えた。

He was answering the general question during the Village Assembly on December 11.

国は１４年３月までに除染を完了させるとしているが、菅野村長は「遅れる可能性がある」との認識を示し、「１４年秋か、遅くとも１５年春には宣言を出したい」と述べた。宣言に合わせ、福島市に避難している役場も村に戻す。

The national government plans to finish decontamination by March 2014. Mayor Sugano acknowledged that it may be delayed, but said "I want to issue the declaration [for the return] in the fall of 2014, or the spring of 2015 at the latest." Once he issues the declaration, the village office, currently evacuated to Fukushima City, will return to the village.

飯舘村は昨年４月、計画的避難区域に指定され、今年７月、空間放射線量に応じて３区域に再編された。国は、村内２０行政区のうち、「避難指示解除準備区域」と「居住制限区域」の計１６地区の避難指示を解除する時期の見込みを、１４年３月と設定している。

Iitate-mura was designated as planned evacuation zone in April last year, and was reorganized into three zones this July depending on the air radiation levels. The national government has set the target date to lift the evacuation order in 16 districts in the village currently designated as "zone to prepare for the lifting of the evacuation order" and "zone with restriction in dwelling". There are 20 districts in the village.

Iitate-mura is one of the municipalities in Fukushima Prefecture where the national government is in charge of the so-called "decontamination". The decon project in Iitate-mura has been awarded to one of the largest general contractors in Japan (Taisei), but faced with the reality the scope of the project has narrowed significantly. All the government is doing and will do is to remove surface soil in the agricultural land (rice paddies, crop fields) and to clean up around residences. Forests and mountains won't even be touched.

Even the decontamination of the farm land only makes sense in the minds of bureaucrats in the central government who have never worked a single day in the real world (like farm land). The government decontaminates (i.e. removes surface soil) the rice paddies, for example, BUT NOT the footpaths between the rice paddies. No decon work will be done on the footpaths, because the government's decon plan doesn't say anything about the footpaths, according to one of the very frustrated Iitate farmers who tweet.

On December 7 when M7.3 earthquake hit Tohoku and Kanto, a man in his 50s apparently died of a heart attack in Iitate-mura when he tried to escape. He was working at a factory in Iitate-mura, which has been kept open and operational despite the nuclear accident. There are a few, large-scale machining factories in Iitate-mura which have continued to employ hundreds of Iitate villagers since the nuclear accident. One of the reason why it took until late April last year for the evacuation to take effect in Iitate-mura has been rumored to be Mayor Sugano's negotiating with the national government to make these factories exempt and allow them to continue to operate, employing the villagers as before.

Many Iitate villagers on Twitter have been tweeting the high radiation levels in Iitate-mura. One of them, Mr. Ito, recently tweeted that the national government is creating a "temporary" storage area for the highly contaminated soil removed from farmland. Where is it? Right above the reservoir that feeds water to farmland.

Outside the village, no one seem to care any more.

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#Radioactive Japan with No Money Part 1: Chiba's Kashiwa City Mayor to Have Residents Decontaminate, Says "It's a Great Learning Opportunity"

It all boils down to the governments of all sizes in Japan not having the rainy-day funds they could spend. They don't have any savings (budget surplus) at all, and the borrowed money they are willing to spend is on "decontamination" and "sharing the pain" by spreading disaster debris, both of which have been contracted out to the largest general contractors in the nation.

First, the mayor of Kashiwa City in Chiba Prefecture in the high-radiation Tokatsu area where over 650,000 Bq/kg of radioactive cesium was found in the soil (dry) in the city-owned land in the storm drain in October last year has decided that the "decontamination" effort in his city is to be done by the residents themselves. Yes, the city will help, by providing promotional videos.

Mayor Akimoto, 44-year-old ex-Bain management consultant, says, "In order to eradicate the fear of radiation, it's best that the residents themselves do the decontamination and experience firsthand what radiation is about." According to the mayor, it is a learning opportunity for the residents, and decontaminating one's own home is just a light work.

Talk about a spin by a management consultant. What Kashiwa City has is "contamination from radiation", not "fear of radiation".

From Tokyo Shinbun Chiba Local Version (11/23/2012):

民有地除染「市民で」　柏市長方針　来月に支援強化

Kashiwa City Mayor's policy is for the city residents to decontaminate privately-owned properties, extra support starting next month

柏市の秋山浩保市長は二十二日の記者会見で、住宅など民有地の除染問題について「放射線不安の払拭（ふっしょく）には市民に実感していただくことが大切」と述べ、業者などを派遣せず市民の手による除染を進める方針をあらためて示した。市は十二月から道具の貸し出しや除染方法を説明する映像の公開などを通じ、除染支援を強化する。

In the press conference on November 22, Mayor Hiroyasu Akiyama of Kashiwa City said about the decontamination of privately-owned properties such as houses, "In order to eradicate the fear of radiation, it is important for the residents to have firsthand experience", stressing again his policy to proceed with the decontamination by the residents instead of using contractors.

　民有地除染をめぐっては、県内で汚染状況重点調査地域に指定された九市のうち、松戸、流山、野田、我孫子、印西、白井の六市が業者派遣など市主体の除染を実施している。柏市も同様の対応を求める声があったが、国の財政支援の対象が不十分で効果が見込めないことなどを理由に、市民主体で進める考えを示していた。

In Chiba Prefecture, 9 cities have been designated as "areas that need special attention to the contamination", and 6 of them, Matsudo, Nagareyama, Noda, Abiko, Inzai, Shiroi, are employing businesses to do the decontamination. There were people who asked for the same approach in Kashiwa City, but [the mayor] said his intention was to have the city residents to do the decontamination, because the financial support from the national government would not be enough.

　秋山市長は会見で、住宅周りの除染は市民で可能な軽作業と指摘し、「除染は放射線の知識を深めるチャンス。イメージではなくきちんと理解してほしい」と協力を求めた。

In the press conference, Mayor Akiyama pointed out that the decontamination of one's home is a light work that residents can do themselves, and asked for cooperation. "Doing the decontamination is a great opportunity to deepen one's knowledge of radiation. I would like [the city residents] to fully understand [by experience], instead of understanding as a concept."

　除染方法の映像は十二月一日から市ホームページで公開する。

The video of how to decontaminate will be available in the city's homepage starting December 1st.

What neither the mayor nor the residents acknowledge is that Kashiwa City has no money. Only 60% of the city budget is funded by tax revenue (still better than the national government budget, 50% of which is funded by tax revenue), and the rest comes from government subsidies and municipal bonds.

If a favorite refrain of many in Japan, "National debt? We owe it to ourselves, not a problem", is true, well, print away. Debt does not matter, right?

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10-Day "Genki" (Cheer and Vitality) Festival in One of the Most Contaminated Districts in Fukushima City

It's in the realm of the surreal.

Hot-blooded men! Come to Fukushima!

From December 1st to 10th, in Onami District in Fukushima City! Real deal!

What's the "Festival" for? Decontaminating one of the most contaminated districts in Fukushima City with the district residents for 10 days, according to the organizer's website for the "Festival".

Where is Onami District? It is where the rice containing 1,270 becquerels/kg of radioactive cesium was found last year. It's the same district that well-meaning volunteers from all over Japan descended in October last year to "decontaminate". Unlike districts in the neighboring Date City, none of the districts in Fukushima

Here's part of the organizer's message about radiation and radiation exposure from the decontamination in Oonami District:

(emphasis is mine)

防護服は全員分手配しています。防護服の着用は個人の自由ですが、防護服を着用して作業を行うということは、住民に不安や威圧感を与えてしまうということを十分に理解した上、判断して下さい。大波地区の住民は作業場所内にも防護服なしで住んでいるということを忘れないで下さい。

We will arrange for the protective clothing for all participants. You are free to wear it, but use your own judgment if you wear it, and understand fully that by wearing the protective clothing and doing the decontamination you may cause fear and intimidation among the local residents. Please don't forget the residents of Onami District live there, in the areas designated for decontamination, without any protective clothing.

...尚、繰り返しになりますが、怪我や事故・活動終了後に起こった病気等、放射線障害等・その他のトラブル等はすべて自己責任となりますので、ご理解の上、お申し込みください。

...Also, just to remind you, injuries and accidents, sicknesses after the work, radiation damages, and other problems are all your responsibility. Please apply, with full understanding of this fact.

Bad-ass looking, long-haired, broad-shouldered real "men" like the manga illustration above will not need any protection, will they? (Oh he has dirty-blond hair, on top of that.)

The caution about protective clothing causing fear among the locals is what the current chairman of Japan's Nuclear Regulatory Commission Shunichi Tanaka told the decon volunteers last year in Date City, Fukushima, where he was one of the radiation experts advising the city.

The organizer, On the Road Fukushima, wants 1,000 volunteers for 10 days (100 volunteers per day), at their own risk, to go to Onami District and impart cheer and vitality to the suffering residents.

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TEPCO Says It May Take 10 Trillion Yen (US$125 Billion) to Decon and Compensate, Needs Government Support

In the land of make-believe (aka Japan), TEPCO says it will take 10 trillion yen, or US$125 billion, to decontaminate and compensate people and businesses that suffered the consequence of the Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant accident.

Decommissioning the reactors is totally separate. TEPCO says the company is allocating 1 trillion yen ($12.5 billion) to decommission Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant (or at least Reactors 1, 2, 3 and 4). $3 billion each, a generous enough amount if it were a normal reactor.

As AFP article below notes, Japan's national government budget is about 90 trillion yen, of which only 50% of expenditure is paid by revenues from income tax and stamp tax, according to the charts by the Ministry of Finance. The rest is all borrowing, and 24% of the budget has to be set aside to pay the interests to the bond holders (11%) and to retire the debt (13%).

Japanese always wanted their government and the central bank to just print away to cause inflation. Here's their chance.

From AFP (11/7/2012):

Fukushima operator warns clean-up 'may cost $125 bn'

TOKYO — The cost of the clean-up and compensation after Japan's Fukushima nuclear power plant disaster may double to $125 billion, the plant's operator warned Wednesday.

Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) said decontamination of irradiated areas and compensating those whose jobs or home lives have been affected would cost much more than the five trillion yen it estimated in April.

"There is a view that we may need the same amount (again) of additional money for the decontamination of low-level radiation areas and costs of temporary facilities for storing waste," the company said in a statement.

The utility -- one of the world's biggest -- received one trillion yen of public cash in April in exchange for granting the government a controlling stake.

The money was on top of previous grants and loans. It was intended to prevent the company, which generates and supplies electricity to millions of people, including in and around Tokyo, from going under.

But on Wednesday, as it presented a new management plan, TEPCO said it was looking at a bill of up to 10 trillion yen ($125 billion) -- equal to around two percent of Japan's gross domestic product or 11 percent of the country's annual budget.

The company said it would need more government help to meet the colossal figure.

TEPCO also said it had already set aside one trillion yen of its own capital to decommission the plant's broken reactors, which is in addition to the clean-up and compensation bill, but it was possible this may also rise.

"We are awaiting the government's instructions and are aware the total cost, including of removing fuel debris and final disposal, could be considerably larger than we have previously allowed for," it said in a statement.

Company chairman Kazuhiko Shimokobe told reporters TEPCO could become a shell, existing only to sort out the mess left by the tsunami-sparked disaster and dependent on the government for money.

"If we address the swelling costs by doubling the amount of government bond issuance (to 10 trillion), our firm will become an entity only for the purpose of dealing with post-accident issues," a company statement said.

"It will become difficult for us to raise money from the private sector so we will have to rely on the goverment for the financing of all of our business."

Shimokobe stressed that he believed TEPCO should be revived as a fully-fledged private-sector entity, to achieve its mission of compensating those affected by the disaster and providing a stable supply of energy.

TEPCO said Wednesday it would build a new office in Fukushima to try to speed up processing of compensation claims, whose slow pace has been much criticised, and to provide more than 4,000 jobs in Fukushima prefecture.

It also said it is looking at shaving extra 100 billion yen in costs annually.

Last month the Tokyo-listed TEPCO -- the one-time standard bearer of widows' and orphans' stocks -- said it expects to lose 45 billion yen this year, a figure well down on the 160 billion yen initially forecast.

The devastating tsunami of March 2011 swamped cooling systems at the Fukushima plant, sending reactors into meltdown and spewing radiation over a large area.

The clean-up is expected to take decades, with scientists warning that some settlements may have to be abandoned.

In October TEPCO admitted it had played down known tsunami risks for fear of the political, financial and reputational cost.

The confession was one of the starkest yet by a company that has fallen very far out of favour in Japan and has been criticised for trying to shirk responsibility for the worst nuclear disaster in a generation.

The massive natural disaster claimed nearly 19,000 lives when a huge undersea quake generated a massive tsunami that wreaked havoc along a stretch of coast in northeast Japan.

But the emergency at Fukushima is not officially recorded as having directly caused any deaths, although it has made tens of thousands of people homeless and rendered swathes of Japan's agricultural belt unfarmable.

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#Radioactive Japan: Government to Send Emperor and Empress to Fukushima to Observe Decontamination Work

It's clearly not enough for the power that be in Japan to have peaches grown in one of the more contaminated areas in Fukushima offered to the Imperial Family. Now the government will send the Emperor and the Empress to the areas in Fukushima to observe the decontamination work.

From Mainichi Shinbun (9/20/2012):

両陛下:除染活動を視察へ

Emperor and Empress to observe decontamination work

天皇、皇后両陛下が東京電力福島第１原発事故で汚染された土地の除染活動を視察するため、来月１３日に福島県を訪れる方向であることが宮内庁関係者への取材で分かった。両陛下が除染活動を視察するのは初めて。宮内庁はスケジュールを検討している。

Our paper found out from the source in the Imperial Household Agency that the Emperor and the Empress intend to visit Fukushima Prefecture on October 13 in order to observe the work to decontaminate the areas contaminated by the Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant accident. It will be the first time for the Emperor and the Empress to observe the decontamination work. The Imperial Household Agency is currently scheduling the visit.

　関係者によると、両陛下の訪問は日帰りになる見通し。両陛下は昨年４〜５月、東日本大震災で甚大な被害を受けた宮城、岩手、福島県を相次いで訪問するなど被災者に心を寄せてきた。

According to the source, the visit will be a day trip. The Emperor and the Empress visited Miyagi, Iwate, and Fukushima in April and May last year, and expressed deep sympathy to the victims.

　今年３月の１周年追悼式では、天皇陛下がお言葉で「危険な区域に住む人々は住み慣れた、そして生活の場としていた地域から離れざるを得なくなりました。再びそこに安全に住むためには放射能の問題を克服しなければならないという困難な問題が起こっています」と原発事故に言及していた。

In the one-year anniversary ceremony this March, the Emperor referred to the nuclear accident by saying "People had to evacuate from areas made dangerous by the nuclear accident, where they had lived and worked for many years. In order for them to go back and live safely there, we have a difficult problem of radiation contamination to overcome."

The emperor was the only person among those who spoke in the ceremony who mentioned radiation, who talked to the deceased, and expressed genuine concern for the people who had to leave their homes because of the nuclear accident.

One response from a person supposedly living in Fukushima, on the Emperor's visit to the decon site:

"What's wrong with that?"

I briefly thought of replying, but I quickly dropped the thought.

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Japan's Reconstruction Agency Says Infra Will Be Ready in 2 Years in Former Evacuation Zone in Fukushima So That People Can Return, Now That the Agency Has "Grand Design"

The country is either in denial, or in delusion, or in both. Or in the same mental state when many truly believed that bamboo spears wielded by young girls could down the B29 bombers. It may have taken 26 years for the Ukrainian government to contemplate redeveloping part of the evacuation zone around Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, but the Japanese will do better than that and do it in three years since the start of the accident.

The Reconstruction Agency, modeled after the one that was set up right after the devastation of Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923, says it now has a "Grand Design" (or Gurando Dezain in English that has a meaning only in Japan) for the recovery and reconstruction of the areas around Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant.

Well, the problem is that people have already started returning, whether the infra is ready or not, or whether the national government has a "Grand Design" or not.

From Tokyo Shinbun Evening Edition (part, link won't last long; 9/4/2012):

復興庁　２年後には帰還可能に

Reconstruction Agency says evacuees can return in 2 years

復興庁は四日、東京電力福島第一原発事故に伴い避難区域などが設定された福島県十二市町村の復興の在り方を示した「グランドデザイン（取り組み方針）」を決定した。避難指示を解除した区域では二年後には帰還可能な環境を整備すると明記した。そのためのインフラ整備や長期避難者への生活支援、地域経済再生に向け、国は「長期にわたって十分な財源を確保する」とした。

On September 4, the Reconstruction Agency finalized its "Grand Design" that lays out the reconstruction of 12 municipalities in Fukushima Prefecture which have been designated as "evacuation areas" of one kind or another after the Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant accident. The plan explicitly says the environment that will allow the residents to return will be in place in 2 years in the areas where evacuation orders have been lifted. To do so, infrastructure improvement, support for long-term evacuees and recovery of local economy will be necessary, and the report further says the national government "will secure ample, long-term funding to achieve them".

...

目標として二年後を目安とした短期は、避難指示解除準備区域の上下水道、道路を含むインフラ復旧を進める。五年後の中期は産業振興や営農支援により復興を加速。十年後以降の長期は雇用規模の回復に取り組む。

The 2-year short-term targets will include the rebuilding of the infrastructure such as water and sewer services and roads in the areas where the evacuation orders have been lifted. In the 5-year medium term, the reconstruction is to accelerate by industrial development and support for the farmers. After the 10th year, the plan will address the long-term goal of employment recovery.

除染の長期目標も示し、十二市町村のうち住民の帰還を先行して進める地域を優先し、自然放射線を除いた追加被ばく線量を年一ミリシーベルト以下に抑える。

The long-term goal of decontamination is also stated [in the Grand Design]. In the 12 municipalities, decontamination will be done in the areas where the evacuees will return, so that the additional radiation exposure above the natural background is limited to 1 millisievert per year or lower.

また、長期避難を強いられる自治体の住民が帰還まで他地域に集まって暮らす「仮の町」構想でも、国が受け入れ側の自治体に対し協力依頼や財政支援を行う。

As to the "temporary town" plan where the residents of the municipalities will live together until their return home, the national government will ask the host municipalities for cooperation and provide them with financial support.

It will be incredibly costly. What's worse, it probably will not work the way they plan.

What's even worse, in the areas where the evacuation order has been lifted, the residents are already returning to their homes without any electricity and running water. Their homes and lands haven't been decontaminated at all. When the national government started to "decontaminate" the evacuation zone last year, all they did was to send general contractors (who sent their subcons) and Self Defense Force soldiers to the towns and villages inside the evacuation zone and decontaminate the municipal government offices. What good is that for the returning residents?

The worker who has been tweeting since March last year from Fukushima I Nuke Plant was clearly distressed (I think it was either July or August this year) when he saw people who had just returned to their home in Naraha-machi (that's where J-Village, the staging area for Fukushima I Nuke Plant work, is located). He tweeted that these people were washing things in the nearby river. He told the husband and wife that they shouldn't be doing it (to which they answered they didn't have running water so they had no choice), and that they should wait till he came back with clean water.

He tweeted, "Their home is not even decontaminated! Why do the government return these people?"

So that the government/TEPCO (now one and the same, financially) does not have to pay compensation, I guess. I can't come up with any other good reason.

(Speaking of the Great Kanto Earthquake, the massacre of Korean residents after the quake was triggered by the rumor which was intentionally spread by Matsutaro Shoriki when he worked for the Tokyo Metropolitan Police. Shoriki became the owner of Yomiuri Shinbun immediately after he resigned from the Police the next year. He was also a known CIA asset after the war. It fits, doesn't it?)

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#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.

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TEPCO's Space-Age Decon Tool Can Visualize Nuclide, Direction and Intensity of Radiation

Finally there's something sort of "high-tech" about the whole "decontamination" business which has boasted screw drivers, brooms and blue tarp as effective decon tools outside Fukushima I Nuke Plant, and vacuuming and strip-painting inside the plant compound. One of the "high-tech" items is GPS used to map the contaminated areas (see my previous post), and the other is a Compton camera developed by Japan's space agency.

TEPCO has been doing the GPS survey assisting the government research institutions OUTSIDE the plant to identify the radiation contamination. Examples of the survey were announced at the press conference on June 15, 2012.

Browsing through the press handout on June 15 titled "Developing Technology on Monitoring Radioactive Materials and Decontamination", I found a very interesting picture taken by a "super-wide angle Compton Camera" developed by JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency).

According to TEPCO's explanation (page 5 of the handout),

The utilization of the Compton camera experimentally produced by JAXA for decontamination is currently under consideration (JAEA and TEPCO). A “super-wide angle Compton camera” allows to visualize radioactive materials such as cesium-134 and cesium-137 by identifying the nuclide, direction and intensity of radioactive materials excluding the air dose rate of the environment (See below).

It is a bit unnerving to "see" the radiation.

From JAXA's English website, the press release on March 29, 2012:

Visualization of Radioactive Substances
with JAXA's 'Ultra-wide-angle Compton Camera'

The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) has constructed a prototype of a new device called the "Ultra-wide-angle Compton Camera," which can visualize radioactive substances that emit gamma rays. The camera was developed by applying technology for a gamma-ray observation sensor that will be installed in the next generation X-ray astronomy satellite "ASTRO-H."

This device combines the power of a wide-angle vision covering almost 180 degrees, and a nuclide whose unique feature is identification of gamma-rays, in order to visualize the distribution of Cesium 137 (Cs-137) and 134 (Cs-134) in any plot of ground or a house lot. Hence it can be utilized to obtain images of radioactive substances accumulated on rooftops and other raised locations that are difficult to survey using conventional investigation methods by human beings with a survey meter.

On February 11, JAXA, the Japan Atomic Energy Agency (JAEA) and Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) conducted a demonstration of dosimetry and imaging using the Ultra-wide-angle Compton Camera in Kusano district, Iidate Village, Fukushima Prefecture, an area which is designated as a planned evacuation zone. We were able to successfully capture high precision images of radioactive Cesium distribution with a much wider view as compared to that of a conventional gamma-ray camera.

JAXA and JAEA, in cooperation with TEPCO, will carry out further studies of possible practical uses of the Ultra-wide-angle Compton Camera for decontamination of radioactive substances and other related operations. 

Attachment-1
Attachment-2

Reference link: http://www.astro.isas.jaxa.jp/~takahasi/index-e.html

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US Ambassador to Japan in #Fukushima: "Presence of US Citizens in Fukushima Will Appeal to the World That Fukushima Is Safe"

Mr. John Roos, US Ambassador to Japan, is visiting Fukushima with officials from 30 US companies in decontamination business, promising full cooperation in Fukushima's effort to have the residents come back to their homes in the areas contaminated with radioactive materials from the Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant accident.

He also put in a word that the presence of the US citizens, working on the decontamination projects in Fukushima, will be beneficial as it will appeal to the world that Fukushima is now safe.

It was Mr. Roos who recommended the US citizens in Japan to leave the 50-mile (or 80-kilometer) radius from the plant, right after the accident started on March 11, 2011. But now, the US businessmen can be "safely" in Fukushima. After all, US college kids and high school kids have already been in Fukushima, doing cultural exchange and volunteer cleanup work.

So of course it is safe for adults...

From Fukushima Minpo (6/28/2012; emphasis is mine):

除染業務　米国が全面協力　ルース駐日大使が佐藤知事に約束

US will cooperate in all aspects of decontamination work, US Ambassador to Japan Roos promises Fukushima Governor Sato

　米国のルース駐日大使は２７日、県庁で佐藤雄平知事と懇談し、米国の技術を生かし、除染事業に全面協力する考えを示した。米国の除染関係企業３０社の関係者が一緒に訪れた。

US Ambassador to Japan Roos met with Fukushima Governor Yuhei Sato on June 27 at the Fukushima prefectural government office, and told him that the US will cooperate in all aspects of decontamination work utilizing the US technologies. Officials from 30 US companies in decontamination businesses accompanied Ambassador Roos.

　ルース大使は「米国は除染分野で最先端の技術を有しており、福島が抱える問題を解決するパートナーになれる。ここにいる人たちも福島のために何かできないか考えている」と述べた。さらに「米国民が福島に居ることで、全世界に（福島が）安全な場所であることをアピールできる」と語った。

Ambassador Roos said, "The US possesses the cutting-edge technologies in decontamination, and can be a good partner to solve problems that Fukushima faces. All these people here [probably referring to the businessmen who accompanied him] are also thinking of what they can do to help Fukushima." He further said, "By having the US citizens in Fukushima, we can appeal to the entire world that [Fukushima] is safe."

　佐藤知事は東日本大震災後の米国からの支援に感謝した上で「県民の帰還を進める上で除染は大きな課題。今回の来県を通して技術を高めてほしい」と期待を寄せた。

Governor Sato thanked the ambassador for the help from the US after the March 11, 2011 earthquake/tsunami, and said "Decontamination is a huge task as we proceed on having the residents return home. I hope the visit to Fukushima this time will [further?] enhance your [decontamination] technologies."

　一行は、福島市の杉妻会館で県と福島市の担当者から県内の除染の現状や進捗（しんちょく）状況の説明を受けた。
　引き続き、福島市の南向台、大波両地区と伊達市の除染現場を視察した。

The group was briefed on the progress of decontamination work in the prefecture by the officials from the prefectural government and the Fukushima City government in Sugitsuma Kaikan [conference center and lodge run by the Fukushima prefectural government] in Fukushima City. Afterwards, they visited the decontamination sites in Nankodai and Onami Districts in Fukushima City and in Date City.

Ambassador Roos visited Fukushima in January this year, and spent more than one hour talking to residents from Okuma-machi in their temporary housing in Iwaki City. That's much more than most Japanese government politicians have done.

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