Fukushima Crisis Thread

[agent46]

Last edited Mon Sep 30, 2013, 12:29 AM - Edit history (1)

Japan's irradiated fish worry B.C. experts

In June, 56 percent of Japanese fish catches tested by the Japanese government were contaminated with cesium-137 and -134. (Both are human-made radioactive isotopes—produced through nuclear fission—of the element cesium.)

And 9.3 percent of the catches exceeded Japan’s official ceiling for cesium, which is 100 becquerels per kilogram (Bq/kg). (A becquerel is a unit of radioactivity equal to one nuclear disintegration per second.)...

...Japan’s Fisheries Agency data is easily the most comprehensive on Fukushima’s radioactive impacts on the Pacific Ocean, home to the world’s biggest fishery and a major food source for more than a billion people.

The numbers show that far from dissipating with time, as government officials and scientists in Canada and elsewhere claimed they would, levels of radiation from Fukushima have stayed stubbornly high in fish. In June 2012, the average contaminated fish catch had 65 becquerels of cesium per kilo. That’s much higher than the average of five Bq/kg found in the days after the accident back in March 2011, before cesium from Fukushima had spread widely through the region’s food chain.

http://www.straight.com/life/post-fukushima-japans-irradiated-fish-worry-bc-experts

Millions of gallons per day are still being dumped into the Pacific waters around Japan. It is moving east toward Hawaii and will hit the Pacific coast of the US by 2017. Toxic effects of this kind of radiation are cumulative. Is there not a peep about this in the US media? Where are the FDA and EPA warning Americans about very real long term health risks of consuming Pacific (and Gulf of Mexico) food fish?

After mentally reviewing the cumulative toxic results of corporate policies worldwide and the long term plans of corporations and industries such as Monstanto, Big Oil, Big Pharma, The Nuclear Industry, mining and development corporations, international trading agreements that usurp national sovereignty on a basic level (TPP)...

I'm just wondering at what point do we start calling it negligent genocide?

We are no longer dealing with business as usual. We are in a crisis, people.

[pediatricmedic]

1. The cesium will naturally concentrate in the tissues of any animal that consumes it

Having a single meal of fish containing 100 Bq/kg is not really harmful or even noteworthy. Having the same fish as a staple in the diet every day will lead to long term health problems. Large clusters of cancer patients are to be expected from this.

[agent46]

2. Some theme graphics to go along

http://skeleeton.likes.com/10-shocking-photos-of-fukushima-mutants?pid=122551&utm_source=mylikes&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=ml&utm_term=27825061

[snagglepuss]

3. k and r

[agent46]

4. Stop Fukushima Radiation- Un Action Needed

This is a petition to request UN action.

Why this is important:

Since the earthquake/tsunami of March 2011, the wrecked reactors at Fukushima-Dai-ichi have been pouring 300 tons of radioactive water into the Pacific Ocean daily. It's getting worse. The buildings are unstable and the spent fuel pools could drain and start an unquenchable nuclear fire, leading to explosions that would threaten all life. We urge the United Nations General Assembly to Issue a Declaration that Fukushima constitutes a global emergency, and to appoint an international group of independent experts to assess, plan, gather resources, and implement remedies, working with Japan.

This is an urgent, escalating catastrophe that must be addressed ASAP. The costs of financing the containment/cleanup far exceed the capabilities of Japan; the world community has a collective responsibility to share the financial burden. We petition the UN to set up an international group, free from conflicts of interest, to manage the ongoing disaster. This group would: 1. prepare an innovative remediation plan 2. gather the appropriate and required resources for such remediation, drawing without limitation on funding from the entire world 3. streamline the operations at the site, working with Japan 4. provide regularly published progress reports including prevailing risks to the worldwide community. Legal Basis: The UN has a fiduciary duty to act immediately and decisively when collective human rights, basic livelihood, environmental security, and right to know are being jeopardized. Fukushima poses a risk of “omnicide” on a scale beyond our historical experience.

https://secure.avaaz.org/en/petition/STOP_FUKUSHIMA_RADIATION_UN_ACTION_NEEDED/?dBELAfb

[proverbialwisdom]

5. More.

http://www.accessdata.fda.gov/cms_ia/importalert_621.html

Import Alert # 99-33

Published Date: 09/09/2013
Type: DWPE

Import Alert Name: Detention Without Physical Examination of Products from Japan Due to Radionuclide Contamination

Link from: http://enenews.com/fda-import-alert-u-s-bans-japans-agricultural-and-fishery-products-from-14-prefectures-due-to-fukushima-radionuclides-concern-over-contamination-is-spreading-to-most-countries-around-pacific

http://enenews.com/former-top-nuclear-official-fukushima-ultimately-unprecedented-legacy-contamination-very-different-other-radiological-disaster-world-history-video

Title: Jaczko, Johnson & Tsutsui, The Ongoing Fukushima Daiichi Crisis
Source: Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Japan
See: http://www.fccj.ne.jp/index.php?option=com_jevents&task=icalrepeat.detail&evid=500&Itemid=119&year=2013&month=09&day=24&title=p-c-jaczko-johnson-tsutsui-the-ongoing-fukushima-daiichi-crisis
Date: September 24, 2013

Gregory Jaczko, Former Chairman of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission:

"It’s extremely important to utilize all the resources that exist in Japan (...)

These challenges (...) are ultimately unprecedented.

The accident at Fukushima Daiichi has left a legacy of contamination that is very different from any other radiological disaster that has happened in the world."

[img]

[/img]
PRESS CONFERENCE: Jaczko, Johnson & Tsutsui, The Ongoing Fukushima Daiichi Crisis

More: http://michelekearneynuclearwire.blogspot.com/2013/09/pc-jaczko-johnson-tsutsui-ongoing.html

[proverbialwisdom]

6. Heard on C-SPAN's BOOK-TV.

DESCRIPTION:
http://www.booktv.org/Program/15010/Plutopia+Nuclear+Families+Atomic+Cities+and+the+Great+Soviet+and+American+Plutonium+Disasters.aspx

VIDEO:
http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/315104-1

Kate Brown talked about her book, Plutopia: Nuclear Families, Atomic Cities, and the Great Soviet and American Plutonium Disasters, in which she writes about the two cities, Richland, Washington and Ozersk, Russia, where plutonium was first produced. She said that because the programs to produce the plutonium were highly secret, both communities were largely insulated from the outside world. The accidents and corruption that occurred in both places were unknown for decades. Ms. Brown saidthat, in total, both cities contaminated their surrounding environments on a scale that dwarfed what happened during the Chernobyl disaster. This event was hosted by the Ivy Bookshop in Baltimore, Maryland.

1 hour, 6 minutes

http://www.amazon.com/gp/search?ie=UTF8&keywords=9780199855766&tag=bo0c-20&index=blended&linkCode=ur2&camp=1789&creative=9325

While many transnational histories of the nuclear arms race have been written, Kate Brown provides the first definitive account of the great plutonium disasters of the United States and the Soviet Union.

In Plutopia, Brown draws on official records and dozens of interviews to tell the extraordinary stories of Richland, Washington and Ozersk, Russia-the first two cities in the world to produce plutonium. To contain secrets, American and Soviet leaders created plutopias--communities of nuclear families living in highly-subsidized, limited-access atomic cities. Fully employed and medically monitored, the residents of Richland and Ozersk enjoyed all the pleasures of consumer society, while nearby, migrants, prisoners, and soldiers were banned from plutopia--they lived in temporary "staging grounds" and often performed the most dangerous work at the plant. Brown shows that the plants' segregation of permanent and temporary workers and of nuclear and non-nuclear zones created a bubble of immunity, where dumps and accidents were glossed over and plant managers freely embezzled and polluted. In four decades, the Hanford plant near Richland and the Maiak plant near Ozersk each issued at least 200 million curies of radioactive isotopes into the surrounding environment--equaling four Chernobyls--laying waste to hundreds of square miles and contaminating rivers, fields, forests, and food supplies. Because of the decades of secrecy, downwind and downriver neighbors of the plutonium plants had difficulty proving what they suspected, that the rash of illnesses, cancers, and birth defects in their communities were caused by the plants' radioactive emissions. Plutopia was successful because in its zoned-off isolation it appeared to deliver the promises of the American dream and Soviet communism; in reality, it concealed disasters that remain highly unstable and threatening today.

An untold and profoundly important piece of Cold War history, Plutopia invites readers to consider the nuclear footprint left by the arms race and the enormous price of paying for it.

[agent46]

7. My Radiation Story - Blog

This is a blog I came across. A guy who vacationed in Tokyo comes down with radiation sickness. This is anecdotal and I can't seem to ID him, but it is interesting.

http://myradiationstory.wordpress.com/

[Art_from_Ark]

17. As someone who actually spends a great deal of time in Tokyo

(in fact, I am in Tokyo now), I think this blog is BS.

[agent46]

18. You're probably right

But there is discussion about the general population there being exposed.

[Art_from_Ark]

20. I am part of the "general population"

I actually live on a straight line between Tokyo and Fukushima Dai-ichi and was here when the ambient radiation levels were 10 times normal levels, right after the explosions.

[agent46]

21. Yes, I know from your past posts

I know from your past posts you're in Japan. You must have your finger on the pulse there. What seems to be the general sense of concern at this point? Are people talking about this? Are they worried about how the crisis is being handled? Are you worried?

[Art_from_Ark]

23. I really don't sense too much concern about radiation from Fukushima per se

here in the Tokyo area. For example, while it was touch-and-go in March through May 2011, official ambient radiation readings throughout Tokyo and vicinity today show very normal levels. And there is quite a building boom going in my city 100 miles south of Fukushima, with no apparent problem finding occupants for new apartment buildings and houses. The biggest concern seems to be about food fish that might have been caught in a contaminated area or have radiation levels that might come close to or even exceed maximum acceptable levels. And of course, there seems to be a lot of opposition to restarting idled nuclear power plants.

[agent46]

8. Videos - Medical and Ecological Consequences of Fukushima

Video proceedings from the March 11-12, 2013 Symposium on Medical and Ecological Consequences of Fukushima

A unique, two-day symposium at which an international panel of leading medical and biological scientists, nuclear engineers, and policy experts will make presentations on and discuss the bio-medical and ecological consequences of the Fukushima disaster, will be held at The New York Academy of Medicine on March 11-12, 2013, the second anniversary of the accident.

A project of The Helen Caldicott Foundation, the symposium is being co-sponsored by Physicians for Social Responsibility.

The Medical and Ecological Consequences of the Fukushima Nuclear Accident, Day 1
http://www.totalwebcasting.com/view/?id=hcf

The Medical and Ecological Consequences of the Fukushima Nuclear Accident, Day 2
http://www.totalwebcasting.com/view/?id=hcf

[Rex]

9. I don't know why this is not an international crisis on a global scale.

TEPCO still lying?

[agent46]

10. I think the answers to that question

Last edited Mon Sep 30, 2013, 10:16 AM - Edit history (2)

I think the answers to that question are many but disturbingly simple.

No one wants accountability or responsibility.

No one wants the public outcry that will come if the crisis is dealt with openly.
No one wants accountability when the cancer rates spike and people begin to die.
No one in the entire food chain of nuclear energy technology wants to be responsible or held accountable for failures of safety planning, negligence and corruption.
No politician in the pockets of big energy wants to answer questions or be held responsible for not alerting the public.
No one in the fishing industry wants to crash their fisheries.
No one in the tourism industry wants shut down those revenues.
No one in the fish restaurant and sushi industries wants to shut their doors.
No one wants to pay for the cleanup - if cleanup is even possible at this point.

The list goes on. It's about money over people. Money over everything.

[Rex]

13. So true, sadly you are right on the money.

So until we are all threatened by this crisis, is when we will do something about it. Sigh. Humanity sure is shallow sometimes.

[agent46]

11. Link - Nuclear Information and Resource Service

Fukushima-related information is regularly covered in our Nuclear Newsreel section on the front page of our website. This Fukushima crisis page is reserved for studies, reports and other in-depth information.

Fukushima Crisis Page
http://www.nirs.org/fukushima/crisis.htm

[agent46]

12. Fukushima Could be 15,000x Worse than Hiroshima

Breaking: Fukushima Could be 15,000x Worse than Hiroshima with Removal of Fuel Rods

A Yale Professor is compelling the world to wake up from its nuclear slumber and face some cold-hard facts, “All of humanity will be threatened for thousands of years” if the Fukushima Unit 4 pool can’t be kept cool. Your worries about eating cesium-contaminated fish from the Pacific Ocean are grounded in fact, but this is a world-wide disaster of the most epic proportions just waiting to happen. If nothing else, it points to the necessity of nuclear-free power to fuel the planet, but in the meantime, more than 1,535 fuel rods must be meticulously removed from Unit 4, which in all likelihood is crumbling.

Charles Perrow, Professor Emeritus of Sociology from Yale University cautions:

“Conditions in the unit 4 pool, 100 feet from the ground, are perilous, and if any two of the rods touch it could cause a nuclear reaction that would be uncontrollable. The radiation emitted from all these rods, if they are not continually cool and kept separate, would require the evacuation of surrounding areas including Tokyo. Because of the radiation at the site the 6,375 rods in the common storage pool could not be continuously cooled; they would fission and all of humanity will be threatened, for thousands of years. [...]”

http://naturalsociety.com/breaking-fukushima-15000-times-worse-hiroshima-removal-fuel-rods/#ixzz2gJGS2C2P

[RobertEarl]

14. It is troubling

There seems to be no recourse available to the scientists. They have a problem which no money has ever been spent on researching, so they are scrambling with what is basically a grand science experiment.

Let us hope they can somehow seal off the place and end the radiation escaping the area. Because if they don't, the place will become ever more dangerous. It already is so dangerous that not even robots can survive to do work.

There is a citizen and news based website that has been covering this situation from almost day one. It is ENEnews.com.

Lets keep our fingers crossed, and hope the scientists pull one out of the hat to save us. Because radiation is not something that goes away very fast due to half lives and all that. The world is filling up fast with man-made radiation and it is unnatural and deadly, we can't live with much more.

[agent46]

15. Thanks RobertEarl

In fact, I came across that news site not five minutes before reading your post.

Posting a list of Fukushima headlines below.

[agent46]

16. This Crisis is Real - Headlines on FUKUSHIMA

Many more headlines and links here:
http://enenews.com/

Latest Headlines:
07:33 PM EST on September 30th, 2013
Kaku: Gov’t will have to send military to Fukushima plant — Japan Professors: It’s a “slow-motion nuclear war”; World’s militaries are only ones able to cope with such disaster

06:37 PM EST on September 30th, 2013
AP: Fukushima unleashed radiation that will affect region’s health for decades — Book: Effects seem to be rapidly increasing

05:38 PM EST on September 30th, 2013
Official blasts Japan Gov’t over Fukushima: Such immoral people — Let radioactive substances flow out freely and said nothing while contaminating ocean — It’s just absurd — Now they’re trying to cover up the whole thing

04:21 PM EST on September 30th, 2013
Media finally gets it right? Bloomberg: “Before Fukushima, Chernobyl was ranked the world’s worst nuclear accident”

08:43 PM EST on September 29th, 2013
Fukushima Cover-Up: Extraordinary amount of kids have thyroid cancer — Officials say NOT caused by Fukushima since Chernobyl’s cancers took 4-5 yrs to appear — Yet data shows it started soon after ’86 meltdown… number of cases still rising 25 years later

01:47 PM EST on September 29th, 2013
Nuclear Expert in California: They’re dumping huge amounts of Fukushima contamination in Pacific; “We could have large numbers of cancer” from eating fish — Newspaper: Japan Prime Minister ‘put to shame’

10:23 AM EST on September 29th, 2013
Former Top U.S. Nuclear Official: Fukushima is “ultimately unprecedented” — It’s “legacy of contamination is very different from any other radiological disaster” in history (VIDEO)

09:23 AM EST on September 29th, 2013
Kaku: Human civilization may destroy itself, “I mean, look at Fukushima” — Liquefication of 3 nuclear reactor cores… First time any core ever liquefied — It’s still out of control, 3/11 disaster could start all over again (VIDEO)

04:35 PM EST on September 28th, 2013
TV: Mysterious black substance flew all the way to Tokyo area from Fukushima ten days after first explosion — Since then, they’ve been shrouded in horror — “Everyone here looks somewhat damaged by the radiation” (VIDEO)

[Art_from_Ark]

19. I think the article is being a little disingenuous

This download link is for the latest datasheet released a few days ago by the Japanese Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, on 10,975 fish that were caught and tested in Eastern Japan-- from Hokkaido down to Tokyo and including some inland areas as well. The three columns that are highlighted in brown represent, respectively, Total Cesium, Cesium-134, and Cesium-137 levels. The data that are highlighted in yellow represent values that are above the Japanese maximum limit of 100 becquerels. The highest is 1000 becquerels for a fish that was caught in Hitachi, about 70 miles down the coast from Fukushima Dai-ichi, but nearly all of the other yellow values (and there aren't so many, relative to the total number) are much lower than that. Furthermore, nearly all of the other yellow-highlighted data are from fish that were caught off the Pacific coast of Fukushima, with just a handful caught in other areas, including freshwater lakes and streams.

In this file, Fukushima is designated as 福島県 in Column E.
The Japanese characters 検出限界未満 in the first brown column (I-- total cesium) mean "below the detectable threshold".

http://www.jfa.maff.go.jp/j/housyanou/other/130930_result.xls

[agent46]

22. I see this as taking a water sample

I see this as taking a water sample from a running river. It's just a sample. The levels will continue to elevate and over the course of the next few years, people eating irradiated fish will experience a build up of radiation in their bodies. Depending on your reading of it this may not seem like much but the crisis is ongoing and stands to get worse.

[Art_from_Ark]

24. I can see your point

And a lot of people here in Eastern Japan also seem to have that concern, and the more fish they eat, I would guess, the greater the cause for concern. It will undoubtedly get worse, especially in the Fukushima area, but at this point, more than 2 1/2 years after the disasters, the fish contamination problem seems to be still concentrated in the Fukushima area.

[intaglio]

25. Wondering why the - errr - hobbit hasn't chimed in yet

or the musical person who thinks that 300 tonnes of contaminated water is "just a couple of buckets"

[chervilant]

26. Thank you for posting this.

I find it distressing (but not surprising) that few of us are actively following this situation, and fewer still understand the potential catastrophic results of another 'accident' during the removal of the spent rods that are "one hundred feet above the ground."

While it's human nature to minimize frightening situations (eg, assertions that consuming a fish contaminated with 100 becquerels of cesium-137 radiation is relatively harmless), we must bear in mind that the pro-nuke sycophants have routinely lied about the threat of nuclear waste, nuclear accidents, and "relatively harmless" nuclear contamination. And, they will continue to lie, as they struggle to 'clean up' Fukushima.