Fukushima water headache: 1 million tons and counting

Hundreds of storage tanks on the grounds of the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant hold water contaminated with radioactive materials.

March 19, 2019

The crippled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant reached an undesired milestone on March 18: Storage tanks at the site now contain more than 1 million tons of radiation-contaminated water.

The announcement by the plant’s operator, Tokyo Electric Power Co., came as the utility and the central government continue to weigh water-disposal methods while hearing the concerns of fishermen who fear for their livelihoods.

Toyoshi Fuketa, chairman of the Nuclear Regulation Authority, has repeatedly said a decision must be made soon on how to deal with the contaminated water.

Groundwater becomes contaminated when it flows into the buildings of the three reactors that suffered meltdowns in 2011 following the Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami.

… Water is used to cool the nuclear fuel debris, but its processing in order to remove radioactive substances is far from successful, which Tepco itself recently finally admitted after years of claiming that it was effective and that only tritium remained in the filtered water, lobbying for its relase into the ocean…

… These problems have forced TEPCO to store the contaminated water in hundreds of tanks installed at the Fukushima plant.

If more storage tanks are constructed, the overall capacity of 1.37 million tons at the site will likely be reached by the end of 2020….

… Fukushima fishermen are already on alert for the one option they have already criticized–diluting the water and dumping it into the Pacific Ocean…

… The government has spent about 34.5 billion yen ($309 million) to build a frozen underground earth wall around the three reactor buildings to divert the groundwater to the ocean. The “ice wall” has cut down the flow of groundwater, which at one time reached about 500 tons a day.

But still, groundwater continues to flow into the three reactor buildings at a rate of about 100 tons daily.

Read more:

http://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/AJ201903190042.html

Petition Call for fair deliberation and judgment for the “Trial to Protect Children from Irradiation”

Fukushima 311 Voices

Please sign!

To the Civil Department of Fukushima District Court

There are two parts in the “Trial to Protect Children from Irradiation”: the “Children’s Rights Trial ” and the “Parent-Child Trial”. In the case of the first trial the defendants are the local governments. The plaintiffs demand the recognition of the right of primary and secondary school students of Fukushima Prefecture to enjoy education in a healthy environment. The second trial requires the recognition of the responsibility of the central and prefectural governments for not having taken the necessary protective measures and thus for unnecessarily exposing the children to radiation. The civil party, consisting of children and their parents who were residents in the Fukushima Prefecture when the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear accident occurred, seeks compensation from the Fukushima prefectural and Japanese central governments.

The Japanese government totally underestimates the health risks associated with low-dose radiation exposure, and with internal radiation…

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TEPCO’s refusal to settle money talks prompts center to bow out

Masakazu Suzuki, 68, head of the group of plaintiffs that filed a damage compensation lawsuit with the Fukushima District Court against Tokyo Electric Power Co. in November 2018, stands in a garden of his home in Namie, Fukushima Prefecture, on Dec. 17.

January 15, 2019

A government body set up to mediate in compensation disputes with Tokyo Electric Power Co. over the 2011 nuclear disaster is throwing in the towel because of the plant operator’s repeated refusal to play ball with aggrieved residents.

Officials of the Nuclear Damage Compensation Dispute Resolution Center complained that TEPCO, operator of the stricken Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant, keeps rejecting settlement proposals offered in an alternative dispute resolution process.

The center discontinued trying to offer assistance in 19 cases in 2018 and another one on Jan. 10, affecting 17,000 residents in total.

If the center discontinues its mediation work, residents will have no recourse but to file lawsuits, which take time and money to resolve.

The center was set up in September 2011 to quickly settle disputes between TEPCO and residents who are unhappy with the amounts of compensation offered by the company based on the government’s guidelines.

When residents applied to the center for higher levels of compensation, lawyers working as mediators listened to what they and TEPCO had to say to draw up settlement proposals.

Residents and TEPCO are not legally obliged to accept the proposals.

As a result, some residents resorted to filing lawsuits because they got no joy from TEPCO.

Between 2013 and 2017, the center discontinued mediation work on 72 cases, all of which concerned TEPCO employees or their family members.

The 19 cases that were discontinued last year and the one last week had been mainly brought by groups, each of which consisted of more than 100 residents.

The largest group comprised 16,000 or so residents of Namie, Fukushima Prefecture.

Immediately after the triple meltdown at the Fukushima plant in 2011, all of the town’s residents were ordered to evacuate to other municipalities.

In March 2014, the center offered to add 50,000 yen ($460) to compensation amounts ranging from 100,000 yen to 120,000 yen a month that were offered to each of the 16,000 residents by TEPCO under the government’s guidelines.

It also offered an additional 30,000 yen if any residents were aged 75 or older.

However, TEPCO rejected the proposal, prompting the center to abandon its mediation efforts in the case last April.

Some of the residents filed a lawsuit with the Fukushima District Court in November.

With regard to cases involving groups of residents, the center continued to urge TEPCO to accept its settlement proposals for several years.

As the company kept turning a blind eye to the requests, the center began to discontinue its mediation efforts in those cases from last year.

In its management reconstruction plan, TEPCO says that it will respect settlement proposals made by the center.

However, Masafumi Yokemoto, a professor of environmental policies at Osaka City University, believes it is doubtful that TEPCO will make good on that pledge.

“If TEPCO agrees to offer compensation amounts that exceed the government’s guidelines, people in other areas could also seek increased compensation amounts,” he said.

A TEPCO representative, meantime, said that as settlements (with residents) are closed and individual procedures, “we will refrain from expressing our opinions.”

http://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/AJ201901150041.html

Olympics propaganda revs up to make Fukushima and nuclear power look good

nuclear-news

IOC chief ‘impressed’ at Fukushima recovery progress https://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/sport/ioc-chief–impressed–at-fukushima-recovery-progress-10965390, 25 Nov 18

Olympics chief Thomas Bach said Saturday he was impressed at the “great progress” made in the reconstruction of Fukushima, in a visit to the region devastated by the 2011 tsunami and nuclear disaster

TOKYO: Olympics chief Thomas Bach said Saturday (Nov 24) he was impressed at the “great progress” made in the reconstruction of Fukushima, in a visit to the region devastated by the 2011 tsunami and nuclear disaster.

Amid hopes that hosting events will help revive the region, International Olympic Committee President Bach visited a stadium set to hold baseball and softball matches during the Tokyo 2020 Olympics.

During his visit, he told Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe that he was “very much impressed” by the “great progress”.

“The Fukushima region is the suitable place to show the power of the Olympics, the power of sports,” Abe said…

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Gender and radiation impact project

nuclear-news

 https://www.genderandradiation.org/basics

“For too long, girls and women have been invisible in the construction of radiation standards to protect heath. We are ready to expand the research base and collective will to change this – starting right now.”

— Mary Olson, Founder

THE BASICS

It is widely known that ionizing radiation – radioactivity powerful enough to strip electrons from atoms, break chemical bonds of molecules, and even break chromosomes – can be extremely harmful to humans. Even at low levels, ionizing radiation has the potential to cause DNA damage resulting in an uncontrolled division of abnormal cells, or what is commonly known as cancer.  

While this public health threat impacts us all, the risk is dramatically greater for women and girls.

For every two men who develop cancer through exposure to ionizing radiation, three women will get the disease.Further, while children as a whole are more harmed by…

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Hear From the Experts at the Low Level Radiation and Health Conference

LOW LEVEL RADIATION AND HEALTH CONFERENCE
STIRLING UNIVERSITY, JUNE 2018

The Low Level Radiation and Health Conference was set up in 1985 by members of the public keen to find out more about these issues.
SATURDAY June 23rd    Chair: Prof David Copplestone, University of Stirling

Video 1    Alice Stewart1 Lecture, Biophotons. Prof. Carmel Mothersill, McMaster University, Canada. 33mins, 45 secs.
https://youtu.be/K2mmfiXpM6s

Video 2    Wildlife impacts: Recent findings concerning germline mutations in bugs and humans, Prof Tim Mousseau, University of South Carolina, USA. 31 mins, 26 secs.
https://youtu.be/LR6BmCkm01M

Video 3    Biological effects of long-term chronic exposure: a case study on Scots pine populations around Chernobyl, Prof Stanislav Geras’kin, Head of Laboratory of Plant Radiobiology and Ecotoxicology from the Russian Institute of Radiology and Agroecology. 30 mins, 35 secs.
https://youtu.be/Ym6w6Qqu46M

Health Impacts
Video 4    Organ damage from exposure to infrasound, Prof. Mariana Alves Pereira. She worked with the chief medical officer for…

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Tritium was identified as the primary culprit in damaging fetuses and mothers’ rapidly diving cells

Paul Richards Nuclear Fuel Cycle Watch South Australia, 6 Oct 18:

This information was tabled in December 2007; as these were the findings of the German KiKK Study,

‘‘Epidemiologische Studie zu Kinderkrebs in der Umgebung von Kernkraftwerken’’ ‘‘Epidemiological Study of Childhood Cancer in the Vicinity of Nuclear Power Stations”^ and then subsequently was made public this decade.

 

To date, no studies with NRC oversight have attempted to replicate the same methodology used in the 2007 KiKK Study.

 

Nonetheless, there have been plenty of opinion pieces in response to the study, pontificating why these results exist, how they are wrong, or even claiming the results are inconclusive. Which interestingly, are written by those affiliated with vested interest groups in the nuclear industry.

 

Where just claiming multiple epidemiology studies prior to this demonstrate contrary data. Unfortunately, this carries little, if any scientific weight.

 

Furthermore, the effect measured, quantified and subsequently published in Germany has never been discredited by peer review on the basis of replicating the study methods anywhere.

 

The outcome is the German KiKK Study^ stands alone unchallenged as a new benchmark verifying rapidly dividing cells in the womb and in mothers are actually affected detrimentally by tritium created in nuclear reactors. Creating leukaemia and birth defects in unborn babies.

 

Which in turn, is one of the central reasons for the phase-out of nuclear reactors in Germany, as most readers here are well aware many other nations have taken the lead on.

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/ijc.23330

German : http://www.kinderkrebsregister.de/fileadmin/kliniken/dkkr/pdf/fprojekte/pID8_20110808_DE.pdf

https://www.bfs.de/DE/bfs/wissenschaft-forschung/ergebnisse/kikk/kikk-studie.html