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Nuclear power and Japan.


John Dolva

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http://rt.com/news/fukushima-fuel-cleanup-operation-522/

"In the two years since the March 2011 meltdown, the costs of the cleanup project could be spiraling out of control financially. If the clean-up is not carried out, it could cause incalculable problems for Japan’s economy, particularly in agriculture.

The Institute for Industrial Sciences at the University of Tokyo has recently estimated that the levels of radiation along the country’s coastline are way above the government target.

"We have detected over 20 spots around Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant with levels of radiation five to 10 times higher than the surrounding areas, with diameters ranging from tens to hundreds of meters," the institute said.

TEPCO had been left to its own devices two years ago to deal with the clean-up and the compensation payments to people in the contaminated region. Now, with recent news of over 300 tons of contaminated water being leaked into the Pacific for more than two years, the Japanese government has decided to step in.

In the immediate aftermath of the disaster, the government ordered Fukushima plant operator TEPCO to bear the entire costs of the clean-up, but also told it to get back to profitability as soon as possible through cost-cutting, so that it could pay off its debts. The clean-up will weigh very heavily on Japan’s energy consumption, however, on top of the already stringent energy austerity measures.

But TEPCO has insisted it will not be able to handle the clean-up bill, which is now projected at more than $10 billion. The company has already spent $3 billion and will require a major injection of $10 billion by March 2014, it says."


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'The mainstream media, world governments, nuclear agencies, health organizations, weather reporters, and the health care industry has completely ignored three ongoing triple meltdowns that have never been contained'

An obvious attempt to downplay this disaster and its consequences have been repeated over and over again from 'experts' in the nuclear industry that also have a vested interest in their industry remaining intact. And, there has been a lot of misleading information released by TEPCO, which an hour or two of reading by a diligent reporter would have uncovered, in particular the definition of 'cold shutdown.’

Over 300 mainstream news outlets worldwide ran the erroneous 'cold shutdown' story repeatedly, which couldn't be further from the truth…[it was] yet another lie that was spun by TEPCO to placate the public, and perpetuated endlessly by the media and nuclear lobby.

Unfortunately, TEPCO waited until a severe emergency arose to finally report how bad things really are with this latest groundwater issue...if we are even being told the truth. Historically, everything TEPCO says always turns out to be much worse than they initially admit."

http://rt.com/news/fukushima-apocalypse-fuel-removal-598/

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Japan’s Nuclear Regulation Authority has raised the rating of the radioactive water leak at the tsunami-hit Fukushima nuclear power plant to Level 3 – a "serious incident" on an international scale of radioactivity.

http://rt.com/news/japan-nuclear-leak-upgrade-100/

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By Tetsushi Kajimoto

TOKYO | Sun Sep 1, 2013 2:05am EDT

(Reuters) - Radiation near a tank holding highly contaminated water at Japan's crippled Fukushima nuclear plant has spiked 18-fold, the plant's operator said on Sunday, highlighting the struggle to bring the crisis under control after more than two years.

Radiation of 1,800 millisieverts per hour - enough to kill an exposed person in four hours - was detected near the bottom of one storage tank on Saturday, Tokyo Electric Power Co, also known as Tepco, said.

An August 22 readings measured radiation of 100 millisieverts per hour at the same tank. Japanese law has set an annual radiation exposure safety threshold of 50 millisieverts for nuclear plant workers during normal hours.

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Things continue to be a mess with spills, leaks and an unknown furture, except that it is not good. What was touted as a safe cheap energy source is by simple laws, like 'Murphys', turning into a very expensive ecological and economic disaster, exactly why so many activists have fought against nuclear energy for so many years.

http://rt.com/news/fukushima-high-radioactivity-well-335/

Radioactivity levels in a well near a storage tank at the Fukushima nuclear power plant in Japan have risen immensely on Thursday, the plant’s operator has reported.

Officials of the Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) said on Friday they detected 400,000 becquerels per liter of beta ray-emitting radioactive substances - including strontium - at the site, a level 6,500 times higher than readings taken on Wednesday, NHK World reported.

The storage tank leaked over 300 tons of contaminated water in August, some of which is believed to have found its way into the sea through a ditch.

The well in question is about 10 meters from the tank and was dug to gauge leakage.

TEPCO said the findings show that radioactive substances like strontium have reached the groundwater. High levels of tritium, which transfers much easier in water than strontium, had already been detected.

Officials at TEPCO said they will remove any contaminated soil around the storage tank in an effort to monitor radioactivity levels of the water around the well.

The news comes after it has been reported a powerful typhoon which swept through Japan led to highly radioactive water near the crippled nuclear power plant being released into a nearby drainage ditch, increasing the risk of it flowing into the sea.

On Wednesday TEPCO said it had detected high levels of radiation in a ditch leading to the Pacific Ocean, and that it suspected heavy rains had lifted contaminated soil.

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http://rt.com/news/tepco-address-lying-governor-879/

'' ...“Unless we create a situation where 80-90 percent of their thinking is devoted to nuclear safety, I don't think we can say they have prioritized safety,” he said.

The decommissioning of the wrecked Fukushima Daiichi plant itself will be a long and arduous process – expected to take 30 years – and has already sparked controversy in the country.

Reuters investigations have identified widespread abuses at the plant, among them the involvement of illegal brokers. Over 6,000 staff are involved in the project. “The workers at the plant are risking their health and giving it their all,” said Izumida.

However, wage-skimming has been a habitual practice. ... ''

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"Big quake near Fukushima would ‘decimate Japan, lead to US West Coast evacuation’

Published time: November 06, 2013 11:21

Edited time: November 06, 2013 12:15

[An aerial view shows the Tokyo Electric Power Co.'s (TEPCO) tsunami-crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant (Reuters/Kyodo)]

The stricken nuclear plant at Fukushima in northern Japan is in such a delicate condition that a future earthquake could trigger a disaster that would decimate Japan and affect the entire West Coast of North America, a prominent scientist has warned.

Speaking at a symposium on water ecology at the University of Alberta in Canada, prominent Japanese-Canadian scientist David Suzuki said that the Japanese government had been “lying through its teeth” about the true extent of the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster.

He attributed the cover-up to the Japanese government’s collusion with the Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) that administers the plant.

“Fukushima is the most terrifying situation that I can imagine,” Suzuki said, adding that another earthquake could trigger a potentially catastrophic, nuclear disaster.

“The fourth [reactor] has been so badly damaged that the fear is if there’s another earthquake of a 7 or above then that building will go and all hell breaks loose,” he said, adding that the chances of an earthquake measuring 7 or above in Japan over the next three years were over 95 percent.

“If the fourth [reactor] goes under an earthquake and those rods are exposed, then it’s bye, bye, Japan and everybody on the west coast of North America should be evacuated. And if that isn’t terrifying, I don’t know what is,” Suzuki said.

‘Too proud’

Addressing the Japanese government’s attempts to bring the crisis under control, Suzuki said the scientists charged with the plant’s safety “don’t know what to do.”

“The thing we need is to let a group of international experts go in with complete freedom to do what they suggest,” Suzuki said, adding that the only thing impeding this was the “pride” of the Japanese government that was refusing to admit this was necessary.

Suzuki referred to the current scheme of freezing the soil around the reactor to prevent radioactive leaks as “cockamany.”

TEPCO has accepted the US government’s help in undertaking the risky cleanup operation of the Fukushima site. Teams of experts will begin the removal of fuel rods from the fourth reactor in mid-November in a decommissioning process that is likely to take decades. One wrong move in the delicate operation could result in horrific quantities of radiation being released into the atmosphere or trigger a massive explosion.

Dr Helen Caldicott described the risks of removing the rods to RT as “terribly serious” because of the danger of releasing a large amount of radiation.

“Two rods could touch each other in this process which has been done before and there could be a fission reaction and a very large release of radiation.”

Suzuki, a prominent environmental campaigner and scientist from the University of British Columbia, whose television science programs and books have gained a wide international audience, has been very vocal in his criticisms of Japan in its handling of the disaster.

Despite his prominence in Canada, Suzuki has been criticized in the past by the media for double standards and his credentials as a scientist have been queried. While his television programs encourage society to consume less fossil fuel and adopt a more sustainable lifestyle, Suzuki reportedly lives in one of Vancouver’s most exclusive areas and has faced criticism over his globetrotting airplane travel.

However, with regard to the current situation at Fukushima, a number of scientists have echoed Suzuki’s concerns. Nuclear technology historian Robert Jacobs told RT that there could easily be more destruction at the plant’s fourth reactor.

“If this building were to collapse, which could happen, it would spill these spent nuclear fuel rods all over the ground which would make the 2020 Tokyo Olympics impossible and could threaten all kinds of health problems throughout northern Japan and Tokyo itself,” Jacobs said."

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‘Any country with a nuclear plant is a bomb factory’

helen-caldicott.a.jpg

Dr Helen Caldicott is one of the most articulate and passionate advocates of citizen action to remedy the nuclear and environmental crises.

Published time: November 07, 2013 03:47

There are countries who are selling nuclear reactors all around the world, which means they are not only selling cancer and leukemia to the future generations, but also atomic bombs, anti-nuclear advocate Dr. Helen Caldicott said in RT’s Google Hangout.

During the hangout, Helen Caldicott, answered a variety of RT readers’ questions on topics, ranging from those of immediate importance, like the Fukushima crisis, to the prospects of humanity living through the nuclear age.

Q: Should we all move to Africa in case TEPCO fails to remove the spent fuel rods?

Helen Caldicott: Number one: this is an impossibility. There are billions of people in the Northern Hemisphere and what happens is that if there is a huge release of radiation from Fukushima by accident or by the fuel rods burning, or a fission reaction taking place, the radiation will circulate from west to east around the Northern Hemisphere, but as air masses at the equator, the Northern and Southern Hemisphere air masses do not mix, so most of the fallout in the air will occur in the Northern Hemisphere. And it’s a physical impossibility, of course, to move people to the Southern Hemisphere. Some people might do that, but it’s a terrible situation, because there’s nothing medical people can do about decontaminating people, you can’t decontaminate food, you can’t decontaminate the air that people are breathing.

So we’re facing a potential catastrophe in terms of public health. People should know, though, that it takes a long time to get cancer after you’ve inhaled, breathed in or eaten radioactive materials, like, anytime from two to 80 years. But it is a very serious situation.

‘No food testing in Japan, govt lying to you’

Q: I live in Tokyo and worry about health impact. When it comes to only cesium, soils here contain 100 becquerels per kilogram of cesium-134 and 137, and about 20 per cent of foods have a few becquerels per kilogram to 10 becquerels per kilogram. Please let me know your opinion on health impact and the reasons you think so.

HC: First of all, parts of Tokyo are extremely radioactive. They’ve taken dirt from the streets, moss from the roofs, and dust from vacuum cleaners inside apartments. And in some cases there are very high measurements of cesium and strontium and other such elements, literally over a hundred elements in the fallout apart from cesium-137 and 134. People in Tokyo, actually, many of them, are at great risk. That’s number one.

Number two, it’s very difficult to know what to eat in Japan because you can’t taste or smell or see radioactive elements in your food. And each dose of radiation that you get adds to the risk of getting cancer. And as you eat more and more radioactive food, more radioactivity builds up in various organs of your body. There is little testing of food in Japan, the government is lying to you, and they are encouraging the farmers in Fukushima to grow their food, which is really criminal because there’s a hell of a lot of fallout on the ground, in Fukushima, and the radiation concentrates back from the soil into rice, green vegetables, milk, meat, and the like.

They are even promoting the Fukushima food in Korea when I was there, and in Taiwan, but also in Tokyo and other places, also in markets in England, so the situation is very grim. And I think if I lived in Tokyo, I would move south. And I would be very, very careful about what I eat. I would only eat food coming from the south of Japan, and I wouldn’t eat any fish because they are pouring huge amounts of radiation into the Pacific Ocean every day. And you don’t know which fish are radioactive and which are not.

Q: Chernobyl happened in 1986, with very radioactive rain over Europe. 40 percent of European area is now covered with radiation.

HC: 40 per cent of the food in Europe is radioactive. I do not buy European food or Japanese food. Luckily, I live in Australia, but if you live in America, you need not to eat Japanese or European food because you don’t know what food is radioactive and what is not. And medically, you mustn’t eat any radiation in food! And what’s more, Europe will remain radioactive for hundreds or thousands of years!

And that’s so, too, with Fukushima. And the report of the national Academy of Sciences in New York about Chernobyl says [that] by now, about over a million people have died, not only of cancer and leukaemia, but from other diseases from the radioactive fallout, in Europe, as well as in Ukraine and Russia. And if you extrapolate that data to Japan, [which is] much more densely populated, we’re going to see a lot of cancers. Already, in two-and-a-half years, they’ve diagnosed, or suspectedly diagnosed, 44 cases of thyroid cancer, and thyroid cancer is extremely rare, one in a million children get thyroid cancer. So this indicates [that] those children and everyone else have received extremely high doses of radioactive iodine and lots of other elements, so that bodes very badly for the future, for the Japanese people.

Q: We have learnt there were soya plants beginning to grow in Chernobyl. Why can’t we do genetic studies on them and adopt them in stable food crops to deal with radioactive exposure in farmlands?

HC: Let me tell you there’s a wonderful scientist called Timothy Mousseau, who is an evolutionary biologist, who is going into exclusion zones, very radioactive zones around Chernobyl and Fukushima, to the detriment of his own health. He is looking at the birds and the insects, and the wildlife, plants in those areas, and [found], first of all, that birds he was looking at have smaller than normal brains because developing brains are very sensitive to the effects of radiation. Many of the male birds are sterile which means that they will die out. They are covered with mutations, they have crooked tails, crooked wings, white patches on them. Many of them have cataracts in their eyes.

And what happens to animals, happens to humans, because we test all our drugs and medicine on animals before we give them to humans, so what we’re seeing in the animals which reproduce very fast and in which we watch generations and generations, is what will happen in humans.

There are 6,000 genetic diseases we now know of, including cystic fibrosis, diabetes, hemochromatosis, dwarfism, I could go on and on. And all of those diseases are going to increase in frequency down the time span because of radioactive pollution. It’s an absolutely wicked, wicked industry, which kills people.

And the other thing you need to know is that any country that has a nuclear plant has a bomb factory. Nuclear reactors manufacture 250kg, or 500lbs, of plutonium a year. Plutonium has a half-life of 24,400 years. It lasts for at least a quarter of a million years. You only need five kilos or 10 pounds to make an atomic bomb. So fundamentally, if you’ve got 500lbs of plutonium, you need 10lbs for the bomb, you can make 50 atomic bombs every year. America and Japan, and South Korea, are selling nuclear reactors all around the world.

So not only are we selling cancer and leukemia to the future generations, but they’re selling atomic bombs. That causes the proliferation of nuclear weapons and increases the threat of nuclear war.

Q: I feel like I’m dead already, and agree that it is too late for me, but perhaps I can still do something good for my children and hopefully for grandchildren, so count on me, let’s clean the mess.

HC: Excellent! So what I would say to you, whichever country you live in: you close down all your nuclear power plants. America’s got over a hundred operating. They must all be closed down. I don’t care what the laws say: laws are written to protect corporations, not people. And you can’t tell me the power of the people isn’t greater than the power of corporations – if you love your children and your grandchildren, take it upon yourself to shut down your local nuclear power plant.

‘We’re living with impending catastrophe every day’

Q: Do you see faster progress on the construction of fusion reactors?

HC: No, fusion reactors are a dream for the physicists, they haven’t been able to construct a fusion reactor, I think that will never happen. But as Einstein said, the answers to today’s problems will not be produced by the same technology that caused them. We’ve got to change the way we think. And what Einstein said - the splitting of the atom changed everything, all reality, save man’s mode of thinking. Thus, we drift towards unparalleled catastrophe. He was right so many years ago - why do we keep doing it? Are we really lemmings rushing towards the cliff of the nuclear annihilation and global warming? Do we have the emotional intelligence to change the way we think, and decide to save this beautiful planet of ours and probably the only life in the universe? This is a very deep, and spiritual, and religious question for those who are religious.

Q: We’ve been hearing about the White House meetings with the Japanese and TEPCO keen to help with the clean-up. Is this true? Do you know and have you heard of it?

HC: Yes, I do know that Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz has just been to Japan and visited Fukushima for the first time. It’s taken him a long time to get there, and he was terribly shocked. And he said that the Department of Energy would help, but I know that TEPCO is about – in the next few days – to start removing the spent fuel rods from the cooling pool. And two things could happen: a rod could break and release a lot of radiation and the workers will have to evacuate the whole of the Fukushima complex. That’s terribly serious because they are there every day to keep things going. Or two rods could touch each other in this process which has been done before, and there could be a fission reaction and a very large release of radiation. So I don’t know what the plans are, they haven’t enunciated them.

Q: What would you not hesitate to eat along the Pacific Coast in North America?

HC: I don’t think I’d eat fish along the West Coast of North America. I think the food is pretty safe at the moment. I mean, that’s a guess. You should make sure that your government, state and federal, are testing your food, so you know what’s safe and what’s not. I think at the moment it’s probably relatively safe, but as I said, we’re facing possible catastrophe. It’s going to take them 14 months to remove those spent fuel rods from Reactor 4 cooling pool. We’re living with impending catastrophe every day.

Q: Nuclear is the only option if you want clear skies. Nuclear is big in Europe. If you don’t want nuclear, you must have dirty coal-powered stations, there’s no free choice…

HC: That’s not true! If you download the study called ‘Carbon-Free, Nuclear-Free’ from the internet, the study that I commissioned and organized several years ago with a brilliant physicist called Arjun Makhijani, it shows that all energy for Europe and for America, for every country, can be now supplied by renewable energy.

Each day renewable energy gets cheaper and cheaper; cheaper by far than nuclear. We mustn’t burn coal, you’re absolutely right, but for God’s sake, why don’t the countries of the world stop subsidizing nuclear, stop subsidizing fossil fuels, and cover every house with solar panels, solar hot water system, solar thermal systems like they’ve constructed in Spain, windmills? I’ve just been in Germany and Austria, and lots of farmhouses are now covered with solar panels. Germany is moving fast with renewables. [As for] Denmark, 40 percent of its electricity comes from wind.

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  • 4 weeks later...

It will be interesting to see how the new secrecy act about to become law in Japan affects knowledge re issues like this

For now : Desperate measures exploiting workers, poor standards :

Reuters:

Insight - Fukushima water tanks: leaky and built with illegal labor

By Antoni Slodkowski

NAHA, Japan Thu Dec 5, 2013 4:25pm EST

1 of 2. An aerial view shows the Tokyo Electric Power Co.'s (TEPCO) tsunami-crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant and its contaminated water storage tanks (top) in Fukushima, in this photo taken by Kyodo August 31, 2013.

Credit: Reuters/Kyodo

(Reuters) - Storage tanks at the Fukushima nuclear plant like one that spilled almost 80,000 gallons of radioactive water this year were built in part by workers illegally hired in one of the poorest corners of Japan, say labor regulators and some of those involved in the work.

"Even if we didn't agree with how things were being done, we had to keep quiet and work fast," said Yoxxxxatsu Uechi, 48, a mechanic and former bus driver, who was one of a crew of 17 workers recruited in Okinawa and sent to Fukushima in June 2012 - among the thousands of workers from across Japan who have put together the emergency water tanks and stabilized the plant after three reactor meltdowns that were triggered by the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami.

The Okinawa crew was recruited by Token Kogyo, an unregistered broker, and passed on to work at the Fukushima plant under the direction of Tec, a larger contractor which reported to construction firm Taisei Corp, records show. That practice of having workers hired by a broker but managed by another contractor is banned under Japanese law to protect workers from having their wages skimmed and to clarify who is responsible for their safety.

In September, Okinawa labor regulators sanctioned Token Kogyo after investigating a complaint by Uechi and concluding the broker improperly sent workers to Fukushima, said an official with knowledge of the order, which was not made public. The official said Token Kogyo did not have the required license to dispatch workers. Japan's labor laws also prohibit third-party brokers from sending workers to construction jobs like the tank assembly where the Okinawa crew was employed. The sanction is a written order to improve business practice.

At Fukushima, the workers from Okinawa were told by a Tec supervisor to lie to the plant's operator, Tokyo Electric Power Co, and say they were employed by Tec, according to Uechi, three other workers, employment documents and a recording of a workplace briefing reviewed by Reuters.

"People didn't have contracts, so when they weren't needed any more, they were cut immediately," said Uechi. Other members of the Okinawa-hired crew confirmed details of his account, but asked not to be named.

Tokyo Electric, or Tepco, declined to comment on the specifics of the Okinawa crew, citing a need to protect the confidentiality of worker complaints brought to its attention and an inability to confirm relevant facts. Taisei declined to comment in detail, saying it "appropriately instructs its sub-contractors and tightly monitors its network of contractors."

Token Kogyo declined to comment on Uechi's case but confirmed it had sent some workers to Fukushima from Okinawa. Tec did not respond to repeated requests for comment.

QUALITY CONCERNS

Uechi complained to Tepco about work conditions at Fukushima in a series of phone calls beginning in August 2012, he said. He described his concerns about the quality of work at the plant in interviews with Japan's Chunichi newspaper and the Associated Press this year. The illegal employment practices and the sanction against Token Kogyo have not been previously reported.

Tepco has promised to improve working conditions in an unprecedented nuclear decommissioning project expected to take more than 30 years. [iD:nL4N0J31FR] The company said last month it would more carefully monitor sub-contractors and double the pay for thousands of workers after a Reuters report found widespread abuses, including falsified employment records, skimmed wages and a lack of worker contracts. [iD:nL4N0HS0UJ]

"Ensuring all workers at Fukushima are being employed appropriately is a very high priority that has a direct relation to our ability to bring a close to the accident," Tokyo Electric said in a statement. "We are working with all our contractors and others to ensure that laws and regulations are observed."

Yosuke Minaguchi, a lawyer who has represented Fukushima workers, said problems in enforcing labor standards in the nuclear clean-up could threaten its completion.

"I have seen many younger workers drop out of the clean-up after they had their wages skimmed or after facing dangers that were not explained to them," he said. "Without stronger labor protection, there's no way the decommissioning project will succeed."

RADIOACTIVE WATER

Since the 2011 disaster, huge volumes of radioactive water have built up at the Fukushima site, with some leaking into the nearby Pacific Ocean. As an interim measure, Tepco rushed an order for steel tanks that could be put together quickly after being shipped in parts and assembled on site.

These bolted-style storage tanks, each as tall as a 3-storey building, were intended to last only until 2016, giving Tepco time to have a purification system in place so contaminated water could be cleansed and safely discharged.

In August, one of the tanks was discovered to have leaked about 300 tons of water, raising global alarm over Japan's handling of the crisis and prompting the government to order that the makeshift, bolted tanks like those assembled by the Okinawa crew be replaced by sturdier, welded tanks.

Weeks later, radiation at the ground near one of the tanks spiked to a level so high that it would have caused radiation sickness within an hour if a worker had been directly exposed. That spike, after an apparent leak of radioactive water, occurred in the same area where Uechi and the Okinawa crew had been working - an open space known as H3 on an elevated plain above Fukushima's four wrecked reactors.

"Yes, we did a shoddy job," said one of Uechi's co-workers, who didn't want to be named as it could jeopardize his job prospects. "The quality of what we did was low, but what else would you expect? We had to race to finish up the tanks." The worker quit after only a month at Fukushima due to the fear of radiation. He now works on a construction site in Okinawa.

Uechi says he spent much of his six months at Fukushima complaining about work standards and working conditions and being ignored. He said workers building the storage tanks last year never felt able to call attention to defects.

In one example, Uechi said workers were rushed to apply caulking to seal the tanks even when it was raining and snowing. "It didn't make any sense, because the caulking wouldn't get to the metal. It would float out," Uechi said. Tepco said it could not confirm details reported by Uechi, but said workers should not have been working on sealing the tanks in the rain because it could have made the sealant in the tanks more prone to fail.

RECRUITMENT

Token Kogyo, the broker that recruited Uechi and other workers, operates in the suburbs of Naha, the largest city on Okinawa island, a 2-1/2 hour flight southwest of Tokyo. The firm is involved in building work on the island and targets seasonal workers willing to travel to construction jobs in Japan's larger cities, job ads issued by the company and posters on the building housing the firm show.

As of September, government data showed there were fewer than six job openings for every 10 seeking work in Okinawa. By contrast, there were as many as 12 openings for every 10 workers in Fukushima prefecture, where mass evacuations have hobbled the reconstruction effort.

Uechi, who has three school-age children, said he was lured by the promise of pay that would be more than twice the minimum wage in Okinawa. He and the other workers were only told they were going to the Fukushima nuclear plant at the job interview.

Workers were housed three or four to a small room, and work conditions were tough. The day would start with breakfast at 5 a.m. at a highway rest-stop now housing workers. Protective suits were hot in summer, and the work was cold in winter. Five of the 17 of the Okinawa hires quit in the first month. Only three, including Uechi, lasted until December, he said.

The Okinawa crew were all paid without any documentation before Uechi complained to Tepco, which ordered Taisei to investigate. As a result, Tec supervisors brought the Okinawa crew into a room in August 2012 and asked them to fill out a confidential survey requested by Tepco on work conditions.

On a recording of that meeting which Uechi said he made, a person he identified as a Tec supervisor is heard telling workers they should report that they were receiving hazard pay and were employed by Tec. That was untrue as they had been hired by Token Kogyo and paid for their early work at Fukushima by the broker, Uechi said and his bank records show.

"When it comes to our sub-contractors, we register them all as Tec," the supervisor is heard to say. "If you want to say that's a forgery, then, yes, it's a forgery."

Uechi declined to fill in the form as instructed, and continued to complain to Tepco. Later that month, Tec gave Uechi a contract until end-December and increased his pay to 16,000 yen ($160) a day from 13,000 yen. It was not clear if other workers were given contracts, though Uechi said others were given a similar pay rise.

Uechi said he was sent home with almost three weeks left on his contract. He was told that was because Taisei had lost a bid for a new job at the plant. Taisei declined to comment on that matter. Tepco said it was "not in a position to know the details of the contract terms."

ONE MILLION YEN

In January of this year, when Uechi pressed his complaints with regulators and began speaking to reporters about his experience, Tec Chairman Yasushi Ogawa visited Okinawa and handed Uechi 1 million yen ($9,800) in cash. Ogawa said this was for "unpaid wages and compensation," Uechi said. He said Ogawa asked him not to complain to Taisei again at that meeting.

Uechi accepted the payment but pressed Tec to provide a breakdown of the money for tax purposes. Reuters reviewed a recording of the meeting Uechi said he had made and a document he said Ogawa asked him to sign when handing over the money.

Tec referred all questions to Ogawa. Reached by phone, Ogawa said he could not comment until mid-December at the earliest, and might not be able to comment at all on the case.

For his part, Uechi is preparing to go back to Fukushima.

He hopes to find a job in the decontamination around the plant that is being undertaken so tens of thousands of evacuees can return home. His unemployment benefits ran out in June and his family needs the money, he said.

(Additional reporting by Sophie Knight and Mari Saito; Editing by Kevin Krolicki and Ian Geoghegan)

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News 408
08.12.2013 17:49 Record outdoor radiation level that ‘can kill in 20 min’ detected at Fukushima

... 2011 triggered a tsunami that hit Japan’s coast, damaging the Fukushima Daiichi plant and causing the meltdown of three nuclear ...

07.12.2013 02:04 Japan enacts controversial state secrets law

... government was not very open in the face of the [Fukushima] nuclear crisis." Likewise, Japan’s media has also protested the new ...

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  • 3 weeks later...
‘Fukushima fish ends in garbage’: Radioactive fears blight Japan’s seafood industry
Published time: December 25, 2013 13:58
Edited time: December 27, 2013 09:33

Wholesaler Haruo Shinozaki works at his shop in the Tsukiji fish market in Tokyo.(Reuters / Toru Hana)

Download video (20.67 MB)

Due to radiation fears, Fukushima Prefecture fishermen have to dump most of their catch. Two years into the nuclear disaster, the world is growing weary of Japan’s seafood, with South Korea even banning Japanese fish and seafood imports.

Fish has traditionally not only been an integral part of Japanese food culture, but also one of its prized exports. In 2011, before the Fukushima disaster, Japan maintained one of the world's largest fishing fleets and accounted for almost 15 percent of global catches, according to Forbes.

However, there are serious concerns now, although the industry seems to be on a slow, but sure recovery route.

The concerns mainly arise over catches made in the waters close to the Fukushima nuclear power plant. After it was established that the hydraulic system at the Fukushima nuclear power plant was severely irradiated, fears grew that the contamination could spread into the Pacific.

“There is significant contamination in the bottom segment, especially in the pond and the river system, where we can find a very high amount of radioactive cesium accumulated,” Yamashike Yosuke, Environmental Engineering Professor at Kyoto University, told RT.

Many Japanese seafood firms are under threat as there are five prefectures possibly affected by contamination in the sea, accounting for almost 40,000 tons of fish per year, RT’s Aleksey Yaroshevsky reports from Soma, a coastal town in the Fukushima prefecture.

Fish factories around the Fukushima prefecture now have to take radiation measurements.

“We’re taking samples from every catch we make and if we ever find even the slightest trace of radiation, we’ll destroy the whole catch. So far there has been none, this fish is safe,” Akihisa Sato assured RT, a worker in a fish laboratory in Soma, Japan.

But Japanese fishermen can’t convince customers that their fish is safe, even though the authorities insist they're doing their best to show they've got a grip on the problem. In September, South Korea became the first country to ban seafood imports from Japan.

“The situation is pretty much under control. We’ve built fences [so as] not to let polluted ground waters leak into the ocean,” maintained Youshimi Hitosugi, a Fukushima nuclear plant operator in TEPCO’s Corporate Communications Department.

But despite lab workers assurances that the fish was free of any harmful particles and TEPCO standing firm that the nearby waters are clear of radiation, Yaroshevsky learnt that most of the seafood he personally saw at the port of Soma will never make it to the shelves of fish markets or restaurant tables.

“Most of the fish caught within the 30 kilometer radius is thrown into the garbage because it is radiated. And TEPCO is paying to local fishermen for it, so that they’re happy and keep silent on that. Some of it though makes it to stores, but only locally,” economist Hirokai Kurosaki revealed to RT.

So far work hasn’t stopped in Soma, despite the port being in the heart of the area ravaged by the 2011 tsunami and just a few kilometers from the Fukushima nuclear power plant heavily contaminated by radiation. Seafood of all shapes and sizes continues to land in Soma several times a day, only to end up being thrown away.

Comments (29)
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Robert Lindblad 27.12.2013 22:56

Please do sign the anti nuclear industry petition search Google* and write
We Want A Shutdown Of The Nuclear Industry Everywhere On Earth



Claude Pichon 27.12.2013 20:04

"Fukushima: Wave of Radiation Will Be Ten Times Bigger than All of the Radiation from Nuclear Tests Combined" published on Global Reasearch
.globa lresearch.ca/fukushi ma-wave-of-radiation -will-be-ten-times-b igger-than-all-of-th e-radiation-from-nuc lear-tests-combined/ 5362422


Suzuki Hiroshi 27.12.2013 19:39

Seawater fence doesn’t stop contamination / Cs-134/137 levels are the same inside and outside of the fence
Fukushima Diary

The radiation levels are the same inside and outside of the seawater fence called “silt fence”.
From Tokyo Electric’s own data, on 12/20/2013, Cs-134/137 density in seawater was 7% higher outside of the fence beside reactor1. Also beside reactor4, Cs-134/137 density in seawater was 4% higher outside of the fence.
Japanese government stated the sea contamination is controlled by the silt fence. However the data shows it is not effective as told.

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Fishy help? Controversy over Japan food aid from tainted areas 4

*ed: those who have listened to, and agree with, Glenn Greenwald stating that (see Chaos Comm. Conference kenote speech) the only way for people to have control over secrecy organisations like the NSA is to not feed them. This necessarily means to not feed the tentacles that gather the data that the NSA gives itself the right to gather is to not support those tentacles. Here* named as Google. ie not use any services provided by NSA 'sister companies'. So for money to talk there are alternatives. Check out Duck-Duck-Go, Ixquick et.c.

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The levels of nuclear radiation around Fukushima’s No. 1 plant have risen to 8 millisieverts per year, surpassing the government standard of 1 milliseviert per year, reports news site Asahi Shimbun citing Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO).

http://rt.com/news/fukushima-radiation-8-times-standard-448/

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One of the samples of the 37 black sea bream specimens caught some 37 kilometers south of the crippled power plant tested at 12,400 becquerels per kilogram of radioactive cesium, making it 124 times deadlier than the threshold considered safe for human consumption, Japan's Fisheries Research Agency announced.

The samples were caught at the mouth of the Niidagawa river in Iwaki, Fukushima Prefecture, on November 17. Two other fish caught there also tested non-safe for human consumption, showing radiations levels of 426 and 197 becquerels per kilogram. The rest of the fish were reportedly within safety limits.

Black sea bream are currently restricted from being fished in Miyagi and Fukushima prefectures and sold for human consumption, as scientists from the Fisheries Research Agency say they plan to investigate the source of the contamination further. :idea

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Fukushima radiation killing our children, govt hides truth - former mayor

Published time: April 21, 2014 14:03

Edited time: April 21, 2014 14:48

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Students walk near a geiger counter, measuring a radiation level of 0.12 microsievert per hour, at Omika Elementary School, located about 21 km (13 miles) from the tsunami-crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, in Minamisoma, Fukushima prefecture.(Reuters / Toru Hanai)

Katsutaka Idogawa, former mayor of Futaba, a town near the disabled Fukushima nuclear plant, is warning his country that radiation contamination is affecting Japan’s greatest treasure – its children.

Asked about government plans to relocate the people of Fatuba to the city of Iwaki, inside the Fukushima prefecture, Idogawa criticized the move as a “violation of human rights.”

Compared with Chernobyl, radiation levels around Fukushima “are four times higher,” he told RT’s Sophie Shevardnadze, adding that “it’s too early for people to come back to Fukushima prefecture.”

“It is by no means safe, no matter what the government says.”

Idogawa alleges that the government has started programs to return people to their towns despite the danger of radiation.

“Fukushima Prefecture has launched the Come Home campaign. In many cases, evacuees are forced to return. [the former mayor produced a map of Fukushima Prefecture that showed that air contamination decreased a little, but soil contamination remains the same.]"

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Screenshot from RT video

According to Idogawa there are about two million people residing in the prefecture who are reporting “all sorts of medical issues,” but the government insists these conditions are unrelated to the Fukushima accident. Idogawa wants their denial in writing.

“I demanded that the authorities substantiate their claim in writing but they ignored my request.”

Once again, Idogawa alludes to the nuclear tragedy that hit Ukraine on April 26, 1986, pleading that the Japanese people “never forget Chernobyl.” Yet few people seem to be heeding the former government official’s warning.

“They believe what the government says, while in reality radiation is still there. This is killing children. They die of heart conditions, asthma, leukemia, thyroiditis… Lots of kids are extremely exhausted after school; others are simply unable to attend PE classes. But the authorities still hide the truth from us, and I don’t know why. Don’t they have children of their own? It hurts so much to know they can’t protect our children.

“They say Fukushima Prefecture is safe, and that’s why nobody’s working to evacuate children, move them elsewhere. We’re not even allowed to discuss this.”

The former mayor found it ironic that when discussing the Tokyo Olympics, scheduled for 2020, Prime Minister Abe frequently mentions the Japanese word, “omotenashi,” which literally means that you should “treat people with an open heart.”

In Idogawa’s opinion, the same treatment does not apply equally to the people most intimately connected with Fukushima: the workers involved in the cleanup operations.

“Their equipment was getting worse; preparation was getting worse. So people had to think about their safety first. That’s why those who understood the real danger of radiation began to quit. Now we have unprofessional people working there.

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Reuters / Chris Meyers

They don’t really understand what they’re doing. That’s the kind of people who use the wrong pump, who make mistakes like that.

“I’m really ashamed for my country, but I have to speak the truth for the sake of keeping our planet clean in the future.

Idogawa then made some parallels with one of the most tragic events in the history of Japan: the use of atomic bombs on the industrial cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki by the United States at the end of World War II.

“The authorities lied to everyone (about the effects of the atomic bombings)...They hid the truth. That’s the situation we are living in. It’s not just Fukushima. Japan has some dark history. This is a sort of a sacrifice to the past.”

When pressed on the details of a United Nations report that says there have been no radiation-related deaths or acute diseases observed among the workers and general public, Idogawa dismisses it as “completely false,” before providing some of his own experiences at the height of the crisis.

“When I was mayor, I knew many people who died from heart attacks, and then there were many people in Fukushima who died suddenly, even among young people. It’s a real shame that the authorities hide the truth from the whole world, from the UN. We need to admit that actually many people are dying. We are not allowed to say that but TEPCO employees also are dying. But they keep mum about it.”

When asked to provide solid figures on the actual number of people who died under such circumstances, Idogawa refrained, saying “it’s not just one or two people. We’re talking about ten to twenty people who died this way.”

Asked about other options that Japan has for providing energy sources to its 126 million people, he responded that despite having many rivers, the government neglects to promote hydro energy.

Why? Because it’s not “profitable for big companies!”

Idogawa goes on to provide a blueprint for fulfilling Japan’s energy needs that sounds surprisingly simple.

“We can provide electricity for a large number of people even with limited investment, without taxes. Just use gravity, and we may have so much energy that there’ll be no need for nuclear plants anymore.”

Premonitions of disaster

Even before the massive failure at the Fukushima nuclear power plant on March 11, 2011, the day northeastern Japan was hit by an earthquake-triggered tsunami that caused the meltdown of three of the plant's six nuclear reactors, Idogawa knew the facility was dangerous.

“I asked them about potential accidents at a nuclear power plant, pretending I didn’t know anything about it, and it turned out they were unable to answer many of my questions,” he said. “Frankly, that’s when it first crossed my mind that their management didn’t have a contingency plan. It was then that I realized the facility could be dangerous.”

The former mayor, who happened to be in a nearby town on the day the tsunami struck, recalled driving back to Futaba upon news of the earthquake. Only later did he discover how close he came to losing his life in the approaching tsunami.

“I managed to get there before the bigger tsunami came. It was only later that I realized that I escaped the water... I got lucky. The tsunami came after I drove off that road and up the mountains.”

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Members of the media and Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO) employees wearing protective suits and masks walk toward the No. 1 reactor building at the tsunami-crippled TEPCO's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in Fukushima prefecture March 10, 2014.(Reuters / Toru Hanai)

Questions regarding the nuclear power plant dominated his thoughts on the 30-minute drive home. “I just kept thinking, ‘If it’s that strong, what will happen to the power plant? What if the reactor is damaged? What if the water leaks? What will the city do? What am I to do as mayor?’"

Once in his office, Idogawa looked out the window and was confronted by what he described as “a terrifying sight.”

“Usually you couldn’t see the sea from there, but that time I could see it just 300-500m away,” he said.

It was at that point that the mayor realized that the nuclear power plant had probably suffered some sort of damage. After spending the night watching news reports on television, the only source of information since even mobile phones were not working, Idogawa announced an emergency evacuation early the next morning. Not all of the residents, however, heard the emergency broadcast.

“Later, I learned that not all Futaba residents heard my announcement. I feel guilty about that…I found out that the Fukushima prefecture hadn’t given me all the information in a timely fashion. And now the government isn’t taking any steps to ensure people’s safety from radiation, and isn’t monitoring the implementation of evacuation procedures.”

Beyond nuclear energy

Katsutaka Idogawa believes a transformation to a cleaner, safer form of energy source for Japan would require a willingness to change the country’s laws.

“There are many laws in Japan, perhaps too many. There are laws about rivers and the ways they’re used. We could change laws regarding agricultural water use and start using rivers to produce electricity. Changing just this law alone will allow us to produce a lot of energy.”

All of this could be accomplished “without contaminating our planet.”

However, such bold proposals do not “appeal to big companies, because you don’t need big investments, you don’t need to build big power plants. It’s not that profitable for investors, for capitalists.”

But for the former mayor of a devastated Japanese town, lost to nuclear radiation, Idogawa senses a sea change forming in public opinion.

The Japanese people are beginning to “realize that we need to avert nuclear disasters, so 60-70 percent of the population is in favor of using natural energy.”

“It took us a long time, but one day we’ll follow the example of Europe, of Germany.”

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