#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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Video of Final Disposal Site in Shimada City, Shizuoka on a Rainy Day in February This Year

Or so the video description says. I have no way to verify. The mayor of Shimada City has become a darling of the Ministry of the Environment for having decided to bring in, burn and bury the disaster debris from Iwate Prefecture in his city despite opposition from the residents.

The video was taken on February 23, 2012 and uploaded on March 29.

The author of the video keeps referring the brownish lump at at the site as "fly ash", but I think the lump may be "bottom ash".

Toward the end, the author says he (or someone else) took the sediment from what looks like a settling tank to measure radioactivity, and the result was 300 becquerels/kg of radioactive cesium. In the comment section, the author tells a skeptic that soil samples of the surrounding area and the settling tank have been tested, and the result has been shared with the city government.

The water from the tank goes to the River Ooi, which flows through the agricultural and industrial lands to the Pacific Ocean. Yaizu Port at the river mouth is one of the largest fishing ports in Japan. The area near the port is also famous for "unagi" (eel) farming.

It looks like a mess of a final disposal site where the ashes from the disaster debris incineration will go. I don't think this is an exception only in Shimada City.

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