fukushima daiichi

[HD F250]

I am sure you wouldn't want to be anywhere near that place. I am retired Navy and was standing on the aircraft carrier when the EQ hit. Our ship rocked pier side for nearly a minute and the waterline dropped about 7 feet in the bay. It was definitely crazy times. I lived in a high rise condo and the 6-7 aftershocks in the middle of the night were scary as hell.

Backed to the humor....it's fukked!

[cays]

What is really disconcerting to me is this. Periodically I Google "Is Pacific seafood safe to eat?" What blows my mind that from early 2014-on, there is almost no science going on to answer that question. The Japanese gov't enacted a "State Secret" act to quash that so, OK. But here, you'd think our gov't would be testing, testing and retesting, but no...

[BMWrules7]

Originally Posted by cays

What is really disconcerting to me is this. Periodically I Google "Is Pacific seafood safe to eat?" What blows my mind that from early 2014-on, there is almost no science going on to answer that question. The Japanese gov't enacted a "State Secret" act to quash that so, OK. But here, you'd think our gov't would be testing, testing and retesting, but no...

Embarrassingly, I stopped eating seafood after the Japan incident.

[gtron]

I eat sushi at least once a week attempting to gain super powers or at least two brains.

[jtodd_fl]

Originally Posted by gtron

I eat sushi at least once a week attempting to gain super powers or at least two brains.

We'd be happy if you got one. *ba dum tss*

[Ric in RVA]

More appropriate for Fukushima.....

[gtron]

Originally Posted by jtodd_fl

We'd be happy if you got one. *ba dum tss*

You sir, have earned a smile.

[cays]

From Woods Hole (Dec. 2015)

Fears that ocean currents might carry Fukushima radiation across the Pacific Ocean to contaminate the coast of North America continue to be founded, even four and a half years since the onset of the disaster. New research out of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution shows not only that Fukushima radiation is still percolating along the U.S. West Coast, but that current levels are at the highest ever recorded.

In fact, readings from waters about 1,600 miles west of San Francisco represent the highest of all, where radioactive cesium isotopes were a significant 50 percent higher than any other samples collected along the West Coast.

While this is alarming, it's not yet reason to stop consuming seafood caught off the coast, said researchers. The radioactive materials are still more than 500 times lower than U.S. government safety limits for drinking water, and concentrations are too low to worry about swimming or boating.

“These new data are important for two reasons,” said Ken Buesseler, director of the Woods Hole Center for Marine and Environmental Radioactivity. “First, despite the fact that the levels of contamination off our shores remain well below government-established safety limits for human health or to marine life, the changing values underscore the need to more closely monitor contamination levels across the Pacific. Second, these long-lived radioisotopes will serve as markers for years to come for scientists studying ocean currents and mixing in coastal and offshore waters.”

Though better contained today, the Fukushima plant continues to leak radioactive material into the ocean. Concentrations off the coast of Japan are 10 to 100 times higher than those off the U.S. coast.

“Levels today off Japan are thousands of times lower than during the peak releases in 2011. That said, finding values that are still elevated off Fukushima confirms that there is continued release from the plant,” explained Buesseler.

A sobering look at the future of Fukushima (wnd.com Jan. 2014)

Much has been said about the Fukushima nuclear power-plant disaster, much of it true, some untrue. The problem with the news coming out of the troubled complex is that the operating company TEPCO, the Japanese government and international agencies are not being completely forthcoming. Some call it political spin, but others just say the world is being told lies.

The epitome of the falsehoods being told about Fukushima comes from no less than the Japanese prime minister himself. At the final International Olympic Committee meeting in Buenos Aires, the one deciding who would host the 2020 Summer Olympics, Shinzo Abe assured the IOC the “situation is under control.” Abe said there never was nor ever will be any damage to Tokyo as a result of the Fukushima disaster.

When pressed on the issue by Norwegian IOC Member Gerhard Heiberg, Abe doubled down and told the members, “It poses no problem whatsoever.” Abe went on to say that the contamination was limited to a small area and had been “completely blocked.”

The prime minister also stated, “There are no health-related problems until now, nor will there be in the future, I make the statement to you in the most emphatic and unequivocal way.” According to the IOC, Abe’s assurances were the deciding factor in giving the 2020 Summer Games to Toky rather than Madrid.

But just six days after Abe’s statement, Kazuhiko Yamashita, an executive officer of Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO) contradicted the prime minister by saying, “We regard the current situation as not being under control.” For its part, TEPCO hasn’t been a model of disclosure either. Last summer, it came to light that more than 300 tons of radioactive water has leaked out of a storage tank on the site.

The leak added another and possibly more dangerous dimension to the problems associated with the disaster. The water leaking from the tank into the ocean is heavily contaminated with strontium-90, cesium-137. The radiation was so high that a person standing less than two feet away would receive, in one hour, five times the acceptable annual dosage for nuclear workers. After 10 hours, the exposed person would develop radiation sickness, with symptoms ranging from nausea and vomiting to hair loss and fatigue.

TEPCO reported that the leak “somehow” went undetected for as long as a month. During this period 2,400 gallons of water a day leaked out of the tanks. Even with the disclosure, many industry experts are concerned that the problem is a good deal worse than what TEPCO or the Japanese government is willing to admit.

When the tank leaks were first reported, Ken Buesseler, senior scientist of marine chemistry & geochemistry at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, shared his concern. “It is not over yet by a long shot, Chernobyl was in many ways a one-week, fire-explosive event, nothing with the potential of this right on the ocean.”

“We’ve been saying since 2011 that the reactor site is still leaking whether that’s the buildings and the ground water or these new tank releases. There’s no way to really contain all of this radioactive water on site,” Buesseler said. “Once it gets into the ground water, like a river flowing to the sea, you can’t really stop a ground water flow. You can pump out water, but how many tanks can you keep putting on site?”

There is also concern that the committee originally formed to oversee the cleanup is comprised of individuals who have a vested interest in putting the situation at Fukushima in the best possible light. Members of the committee included officials with the Ministry of Trade, the agency charged with promoting nuclear energy, and nuclear reactor manufacturers like Toshiba and Hitachi. From the start of the cleanup effort, outside experts predicted the water leakage problem, but TEPCO and government officials rejected pleas to include experts or companies with more cleanup experience.

TEPCO also rejected initial remediation proposals given by experts, such as building a concrete wall 60 feet into the ground to prevent groundwater leakage. They chose instead to build hurriedly constructed plastic- and clay-lined underground water storage pits that eventually developed leaks. It was only after the discovery of leaks through the barrier that a member of Japan’s nuclear regulatory agency was added as a member of the clean-up committee.

TEPCO dumped contaminated water into the ocean in 2011 as a way of dealing with its “water problem,” which was not revealed to the public until after the fact. While some experts argue that the water discharge was safe, the fact that it was done without public knowledge left the impression that TEPCO had something to hide. The lack of faith in the operating company over non-disclosures led to even greater outcry when plans were announced to release even more water into the sea.

Some believe that TEPCO’s actions during the cleanup show that officials are in “over their heads.” The critics are calling for the formation of a separate company that would have the sole purpose of cleaning up the site. It’s a job that could last “for generations.” It is not just TEPCO and the Japanese prime minister who seem to be hiding the truth. The Japanese government apparently is making a concerted effort to hide the facts surrounding the nuclear plant disaster.

In March 2012 the Japan Times reported the government of then-Prime Minister Naoto Kan sequestered a report that painted a bleak, worst-case scenario for the Fukushima nuclear crisis. The report was kept under wraps until the end of 2012. “The content was so shocking that we decided to treat it as if it didn’t exist,” a senior government official said. The scenario was based on assumption that a hydrogen explosion would tear through the No. 1 reactor’s containment vessel, necessitating a complete evacuation of all plant personnel.

The scenario showed that if the worst case did happen, residents within a minimum of a 100-mile radius of the plant would be forced to evacuate. Those living between a 100- and 150-mile radius of the plant could chose to evacuate if they wished. Tokyo lies within the voluntary evacuation radius, 140 miles from Fukushima.

After the document was shown to a small group of government officials at the prime minister’s office, the administration decided to quietly bury it, the sources said. “When the document was presented (in March), a discussion ensued about keeping its existence secret,” a government source said.

The National Diet, Japan’s legislature, recently passed the unpopular State Secrets Act that has been dubbed the “fuk ‘hush’ shima” act. Many in the media fear that the new law will hamper a journalist’s ability to investigate official misdeeds, including the complicity between the government, regulators and TEPCO that led to the 2011 Fukushima plant meltdown.

“Basically, this bill raises the possibility that the kind of information about which the public should be informed is kept secret eternally,” Tadaaki Muto, a lawyer and member of a task force on the bill at the Japan Federation of Bar Associations, told Reuters.

Under the bill, the administrative branch can set the range of information that is kept secret at its own discretion. “This may very well be Abe’s true intention – coverup of mistaken state actions regarding the Fukushima disaste,” said Sophia University political science professor Koichi Nakano.

Like many such laws passed since 9/11, “terrorism” defined in the most sweeping terms is used to justify the law. Chapter 5, Article 12 refers to terrorism as “politically imposing differing ideologies on the country or the citizens.”

JFBA lawyer Tsutomu Shimizu told the Japan Times that “such activities as the anti-nuclear rallies in front of the prime minister’s office could hence be categorized as terrorist acts.” “It seems very clear that the law would have a chilling effect on journalism in Japan,” said Lawrence Repeta, a law professor at Meiji University.

As an example, an in-house study by an independent government panel determined that a major factor in the plant meltdowns was the collusion between regulators and the nuclear power industry. If classified as “secret” by Japan’s nuclear regulatory agency, divulging the information could put a journalist in prison.

[cays]

Check here to see the environmental radiation levels near you in real time:

http://www.radiationnetwork.com/DetailMaps.htm

http://radiationnetwork.com/

[cays]

ABC Australia, May 24, 2016: Fukushima clean-up chief still hunting for 600 tonnes of melted radioactive fuel… [TEPCO] has revealed that 600 tonnes of reactor fuel melted during the disaster, and that the exact location of the highly radioactive blobs remains a mystery… [C]hief of decommissioning at Fukushima, Naohiro Masuda, said the company hoped to… begin removing it from 2021… “But unfortunately, we don’t know exactly where (the fuel) is” [said Masuda]. [Gregory Jaczko, Chairman of the US NRC] at the time of the meltdowns at Fukushima doubts the fuel can be retrieved… “Nobody really knows where the fuel is… It may be possible that we’re never able to remove the fuel. You may just have to wind up leaving it there and somehow entomb it as it is.”… For the first time, TEPCO has revealed just how much of the mostly uranium fuel melted down… [Masuda said] “about 600 tonnes of melted debris fuel and a mixture of concrete and other metals are likely to be there.”

http://enenews.com/tv-unsettling-dis...leaving-molten