New York Times: Japan Split on Hope for Vast Radiation Cleanup

A very well-written article from New York Times by Martin Fackler, on December 6, 2011. I translated this article and posted on my Japanese blog, but the futility of so-called "decontamination" is best summarized, to me, by the photo that the New York Times put at the top of the article:

Even the ardent supporter for the residents' return by decontaminating the towns and cities, Professor Tatsuhiko Kodama of Tokyo University, has this to say:

“I believe it is possible to save Fukushima,” said the supporter, Tatsuhiko Kodama, director of the Radioisotope Center at the University of Tokyo. “But many evacuated residents must accept that it won’t happen in their lifetimes.”

The article correctly identifies Japan's urge or obsession with "decontamination" as a "proxy" war - to prove that Japan still matters in the world by showcasing the rebirth with determination and superior technology.

Well, that superior technology, we know now, consists of high-pressure washers, leaf collectors, bloom, gloves and rain boots, soil scrapers, bulldozers, shovels, and sheer manpower exposing the ordinary citizen volunteers to a pre-Fukushima annual radiation dosage level of a nuclear worker (50 millisieverts).

Determination, yes. But that is getting akin to fighting B29 (World War II bomber) with bamboo spears. You could say it's totally in line with what Dr. "Damashita" Yamashita said to the residents of Fukushima City as the radioactive plume was sweeping over the city on March 21 - "If you smile, radiation won't come to you."

FUTABA, Japan — Futaba is a modern-day ghost town — not a boomtown gone bust, not even entirely a victim of the devastating earthquake and tsunami that leveled other parts of Japan’s northeast coast.

Its traditional wooden homes have begun to sag and collapse since they were abandoned in March by residents fleeing the nuclear plant on the edge of town that began spiraling toward disaster. Roofs possibly damaged by the earth’s shaking have let rain seep in, starting the rot that is eating at the houses from the inside.

The roadway arch at the entrance to the empty town almost seems a taunt. It reads:

Those who fled Futaba are among the nearly 90,000 people evacuated from a 12-mile zone around the Fukushima Daiichi plant and another area to the northwest contaminated when a plume from the plant scattered radioactive cesium and iodine.

Now, Japan is drawing up plans for a cleanup that is both monumental and unprecedented, in the hopes that those displaced can go home.

The debate over whether to repopulate the area, if trial cleanups prove effective, has become a proxy for a larger battle over the future of Japan. Supporters see rehabilitating the area as a chance to showcase the country’s formidable determination and superior technical skills — proof that Japan is still a great power.

Critics counter that the effort to clean Fukushima Prefecture could end up as perhaps the biggest of Japan’s white-elephant public works projects — and yet another example of post-disaster Japan reverting to the wasteful ways that have crippled economic growth for two decades.

So far, the government is following a pattern set since the nuclear accident, dismissing dangers, often prematurely, and laboring to minimize the scope of the catastrophe. Already, the trial cleanups have stalled: the government failed to anticipate communities’ reluctance to store tons of soil to be scraped from contaminated yards and fields.

And a radiation specialist who tested the results of an extensive local cleanup in a nearby city found that exposure levels remained above international safety standards for long-term habitation.

Even a vocal supporter of repatriation suggests that the government has not yet leveled with its people about the seriousness of their predicament.

To judge the huge scale of what Japan is contemplating, consider that experts say residents can return home safely only after thousands of buildings are scrubbed of radioactive particles and much of the topsoil from an area the size of Connecticut is replaced.

Even forested mountains will probably need to be decontaminated, which might necessitate clear-cutting and literally scraping them clean.

The Soviet Union did not attempt such a cleanup after the Chernobyl accident of 1986, the only nuclear disaster larger than that at Fukushima Daiichi. The government instead relocated about 300,000 people, abandoning vast tracts of farmland.

Many Japanese officials believe that they do not have that luxury; the area contaminated above an international safety standard for the general public covers more than an estimated 3 percent of the landmass of this densely populated nation.

“We are different from Chernobyl,” said Toshitsuna Watanabe, 64, the mayor of Okuma, one of the towns that was evacuated. “We are determined to go back. Japan has the will and the technology to do this.”

Such resolve reflects, in part, a deep attachment to home for rural Japanese like Mr. Watanabe, whose family has lived in Okuma for 19 generations. Their heartfelt appeals to go back have won wide sympathy across Japan, making it hard for people to oppose their wishes.

But quiet resistance has begun to grow, both among those who were displaced and those who fear the country will need to sacrifice too much without guarantees that a multibillion-dollar cleanup will provide enough protection.

Soothing pronouncements by local governments and academics about the eventual ability to live safely near the ruined plant can seem to be based on little more than hope.

No one knows how much exposure to low doses of radiation causes a significant risk of premature death. That means Japanese living in contaminated areas are likely to become the subjects of future studies — the second time in seven decades that Japanese have become a test case for the effects of radiation exposure, after the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

The national government has declared itself responsible for cleaning up only the towns in the evacuation zone; local governments have already begun cleaning cities and towns outside that area.

Inside the 12-mile ring, which includes Futaba, the Environmental Ministry has pledged to reduce radiation levels by half within two years — a relatively easy goal because short-lived isotopes will deteriorate. The bigger question is how long it will take to reach the ultimate goal of bringing levels down to about 1 millisievert per year, the annual limit for the general public from artificial sources of radiation that is recommended by the International Commission on Radiological Protection. That is a much more daunting task given that it will require removing cesium 137, an isotope that will remain radioactive for decades.

Trial cleanups have been delayed for months by the search for a storage site for enough contaminated dirt to fill 33 domed football stadiums. Even evacuated communities have refused to accept it.

And Tomoya Yamauchi, the radiation expert from Kobe University who performed tests in Fukushima City after extensive remediation efforts, found that radiation levels inside homes had dropped by only about 25 percent. That left parts of the city with levels of radiation four times higher than the recommended maximum exposure.

“We can only conclude that these efforts have so far been a failure,” he said.

Minamisoma, a small city whose center sits about 15 miles from the nuclear plant, is a good place to get a sense of the likely limitations of decontamination efforts.

The city has cleaned dozens of schools, parks and sports facilities in hopes of enticing back the 30,000 of its 70,000 residents who have yet to return since the accident. On a recent morning, a small army of bulldozers and dump trucks were resurfacing a high school soccer field and baseball diamond with a layer of reddish brown dirt. Workers buried the old topsoil in a deep hole in a corner of the soccer field. The crew’s overseer, Masahiro Sakura, said readings at the field had dropped substantially, but he remains anxious because many parts of the city were not expected to be decontaminated for at least two years.

These days, he lets his three young daughters outdoors only to go to school and play in a resurfaced park. “Is it realistic to live like this?” he asked.

The challenges are sure to be more intense inside the 12-mile zone, where radiation levels in some places have reached nearly 510 millisieverts a year, 25 times above the cutoff for evacuation.

Already, the proposed repatriation has opened rifts among those who have been displaced. The 11,500 displaced residents of Okuma — many of whom now live in rows of prefabricated homes 60 miles inland — are enduring just such a divide.

The mayor, Mr. Watanabe, has directed the town to draw up its own plan to return to its original location within three to five years by building a new town on farmland in Okuma’s less contaminated western edge.

Although Mr. Watanabe won a recent election, his challenger found significant support among residents with small children for his plan to relocate to a different part of Japan. Mitsue Ikeda, one supporter, said she would never go home, especially after a medical exam showed that her 8-year-old son, Yuma, had ingested cesium.

“It’s too dangerous,” Ms. Ikeda, 47, said. “How are we supposed to live, by wearing face masks all the time?”

She, like many other evacuees, berated the government, saying it was fixated on cleaning up to avoid paying compensation.

“Smoking cigarettes is more dangerous than radiation,” said Eiichi Tsukamoto, 70, who worked at the Daiichi plant for 40 years as a repairman. “We can make Okuma a model to the world of how to restore a community after a nuclear accident.”

But even Mr. Kodama, the radiation expert who supports a government cleanup, said such a victory would be hollow, and short-lived if young people did not return. He suggested that the government start rebuilding communities by rebuilding trust eroded over months of official evasion.

“Saving Fukushima requires not just money and effort, but also faith,” he said. “There is no point if only older people go back.”

An earlier version of this article said the evacuation zone covered more than 3 percent of Japan’s landmass; in fact it is the area contaminated above an international safety standard for the general public that covers roughly 3 percent of the country’s landmass.

Professor Kodama's last remark doesn't make sense to me. He said earlier that in some locations in Fukushima, going back won't happen in people's lifetimes. But then at the end he says it's no use if only older people go back. Well, after 30 years or so, today's young people, in their 20s and 30s, will be in 50s and 60s. No longer young. If they have children, they will have grown up to be in their 20s and 30s. Would they want to go back to Fukushima?

I don’t see any sense in the decontamination issue beyond a political one. The readings on heavy radiactive elements are low, at the same levels they were after the hydrogen bomb tests in the Pacific in the 1950’s. Most of the contamination comes from volatile elements which have a relatively short half life (30 years). The safest thing to do is simply wait. Unlike low areas along the sea, which should be forever left as living places, the land around Fukushima sooner or later will be occupied again.

I would be worried as well. I know that the media overhypes radioactivity. The levels can be extremely low but they will make it sound like flesh melting horror.

At the same time, the government and the power company have a HUGE vested interest in minimizing the threat. It's not just because they are Japanese or anything so silly, I would not trust our government either. I would want to err on the side of caution. Tough call.

They have been finding radioactive Iodine again. I-131 in the sewage sludge treatment plants and ash burning facilities. Of course TEPCO/Japanaese Governemnt spokesperson claims it is not from Fukushima. In the meanwhile, the walls of Reactor #4 are crumbling. Verified with images. Just a matter of time before the Spent Fuel Rod pool collapses.

Breaking News: Possibility of recriticality again

Report: “Confirmed that the wall of reactor 4 was lost on the south side” (PHOTOS)

Japanese, like the US, constantly stifles reporting against government agendas. Notice, Germany said no more nuke plant and will not license or approve of any new plants and will phase out existing plants.

There is a difference between governments. Sometimes it’s obvious other times stealthy.

TEPCO shored up underneath Unit 4’s spent fuel pond with metal and concrete supports. Don’t know if they shored up the lower floors besides the one directly beneath the pond.

Unit 4’s SFP contains something like 1500 fuel rods when it was designed only for about 450 or 350. Why? Because Japan in their infinite wisdom decided to replace older unit’s stainless steel core shield when they begin failing. Cracks (due to heating and cooling) are found in the stainless steel shield(s) during regularly scheduled shut downs or refuelings. By all rights the older units should be retired or decommissioned but the expense in building a replacement plant was cost prohibitive so the unheard of replacing of
reactor core shields was born. The Japanese have been perfecting this technique along with the blessing of GE, the designer of the original units involved.

So what do you do with the fuel rods normally in service in a functioning reactor when you have to remove them to replace a stainless steel core shield? Answer: You redesign the SFP to accommodate temporary storage of the fuel rods by re-engineering the racks to cram in more rods (actually it’s assemblies). More rods more weight, never anticipated in the original design. Not to speak of a Great Quake.

It’s a wonder Unit 4 has held together this long.

Just took a look at the earthquakes that have occurred east of Honshu Japan in the last 3-4 weeks. There has been a lot of earthquakes. That appears to be one of the most seismically active regions right now. Most quakes were more then 50 miles away from Fukushima. The biggest one I could see is linked below. A 6.1 on November 23rd 57 miles ESE of Fukushima.

Magnitude 6.1 NEAR THE EAST COAST OF HONSHU, JAPAN

On the left of the USGS page, there are search options that will give you a map or list of quakes in any area of the world. Pick location, time frame, size,etc. The Great Quake started at 9.0 with after shocks of (3)@7.0+ (54)@6.0+ with the quick parameters I used.

Also, you can sign up for notifications of earthquakes anywhere in the world. You pick the size and you get an email when the event is that or larger.

Haven’t read anything else to confirm Unit 4 is being deconstructed.

According to a poster in the comments section, the demolition plans for parts of Reactor #4 building is in the following Tepco report. Did not download it myself. Got real nasty hacker attacks through Adobe Reader earlier in the year and I do not have Adobe Reader on this computer. So downloading and reading is a hassle, since I have to move the file to my seldom used laptop. Here is the link. Do not know anything about the file so just left it as text http://www.tepco.co.jp/en/press/corp-com/release/betu11_e/images/111117e5.pdf

Here is another report though about the situation that appears on a progressive looking site so take with a grain of salt. The report itself says it needs to confirm the information. From threads comment section in link above.

Red alert: Fukushima nuclear reactor 4 possibly collapsing, say sources, mass evacuations may be necessary

Thanks for the earthquake page search tips.

FYI - Did a search for that red alert story linked above. It is not on any news service right now. Only in the progresso blogs, so at present, it is just knee jerk progressivism.

Did find a story on that big earthquake somewhat close to Fukushima in late November.

2 Strong Earthquakes Shake Japan, No Damage Reported

Ironically the story has an image of reactor 4.

For .pdf files, try Foxit-Reader. I believe it is browser based. Definitely a smaller package than Adobe’s bloatware.

I’m using Morzilla Firefox along with Foxit-Reader. It opens all .pdf files, no problem. Cost money to get the full fledged version but I don’t need the bells and whistle, only need to read .pdf files.

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