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New Public TV Documentary on Fukushima: Meltdown: Cooling Water Crisis

A shocking new 49-minute documentary from Japan’s public television broadcaster NHK titled “MELTDOWN: Cooling Water Crisis,” reveals new information on how corporate policy undermined efforts to keep the three destroyed Fukushima-Daiichi reactors stable one week after the triple reactor meltdown disaster began. See video here. Hear an interview related to the film here.

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Fukushima at Ten: Aftershocks, Lies, and Failed Decontamination

Image at “Mechanics of a Nuclear Meltdown Explained”, by Jenny Marder, PBS News Hour, March 15, 2011: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/science/mechanics-of-a-meltdown-explainedP8

 

By John LaForge

It’s now 10 years since the catastrophic triple meltdowns of reactors at Fukushima in Japan. As Joseph Mangano of the Radiation and Public Health project put it three years ago, “Enormous amounts of radioactive chemicals, including cesium, strontium, plutonium, and iodine were emitted into the air, and releases of the same toxins into the Pacific have never stopped, as workers struggle to contain over 100 cancer-causing chemicals.”

Nukewatch and hundreds of other groups and scientific journals have issued dozens of reports about the disaster. A score of books have been published on the subject, and major media have at least done annual reviews of the official evacuations, cleanups and decontamination efforts. With so much information available, it is not possible to do more than present another update on recent news and analysis.

There is news of the shortage of Fukushima health studies; big earthquakes (aftershocks) rattling reactors and waste tanks; corporate and government dishonesty about decontamination; novel radioactive particles dispersed; and renewed fish contamination.

Very few health studies

“So far only one single disease entity has been systematically examined in humans in Fukushima: thyroid cancer,” says Dr. Alex Rosen, the German chair of International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War. Other diseases, such as leukemia or malformations, which are associated with increased radiation exposure, have not been investigated, Rosen told the German medical journal Deutsches Ärzteblatt March 2.

(Fie studies have focused on birth abnormalities in the areas most affected: three on infant mortality rates, one on underweight newborns, and one on declining birth rates 9 months after March 2011.*)

The one disease study of the population was a screening for thyroid cancer in 380,000 local children under the age 18. In January 2018, the journal Thyroid reported 187 cases after five years. Reviewing the study, Mangano write in the Washington Spectator that, “A typical population of 380,000 children would produce 12 cases in five years.” The increase among children is “exactly what would be expected if Fukushima were a factor, as radiation is most damaging to the fetus, infant and child,” Mangano said.

New Earthquakes Rattle Wreckage and Nerves

Another large earthquake, magnitude 7.3, struck Feb. 13, again off the coast of the Fukushima reactor complex, and the reported 30 seconds of terror was followed by14 aftershocks up to magnitude 5.

The quake was severe enough that Tokyo Electric Power Co. (Tepco) and federal regulators suspect it caused additional damage to reactors 1 and 3 where cooling water levels fell sharply, the Associated Press reported. The Feb. 13 quake was felt in Tokyo 150 miles away. Japan’s meteorological agency said it was believed to be an aftershock of the record 2011 quake.

At a Feb. 15 meeting, government regulators said the quake had probably worsened existing earthquake damage in reactors 1 and 3 or broken open new cracks causing the cooling water level drop, the AP said.

“Because (the 2011 quake) was an enormous one with a magnitude of 9.0, it’s not surprising to have an aftershock of this scale 10 years later,” said Kenji Satake, a professor at the University of Tokyo’s Earthquake Research Institute.

There have been six major aftershocks in the Fukushima area since March 2011: April 7, 2011 (magnitude 7.1); April 11, 2011 (6.6); July 10, 2011 (7.0); Oct. 26, 2013 (7.1); Nov. 26, 2016 (6.9); and Feb. 13, 2021 (7.3).

Earthquake shocks are not the only recurring nightmare to haunt the survivors of the record quake that killed 19, 630. Typhoon Hagibis slammed into Tamura City in October 2019, and swept away an unknown number of bags of radioactive debris that had been stacked near a river.

Since March 2011, over 22 million cubic meters of contaminated soil, brush and other matter from areas hard hit by fallout have been collected in large black plastic bags and piled in temporary storage mounds in thousands of places. (“Fukushima residents fight state plan to build roads with radiation-tainted soil,” Japan Times, Apr. 29, 2018) Yet the volume is the tip of the iceberg: According to R. Ramachandran, in The Hindu, January 31, 2020, no decontamination activities are planned for the majority of forested areas which cover about 75 per cent of the main contaminated area of 9,000 square km.”

Cover-ups and disinformation

Reporting Feb. 14 about the latest quake, the AP noted that Tepco “has repeatedly been criticized for cover-ups and delayed disclosures of problems.” On June 22, 2016, Tepco’s President Naomi Hirose publicly admitted that the company’s lengthy refusal to speak of the “meltdowns” it knew of at its three reactors was tantamount to a cover-up and apologized for it.

The Washington Post reported March 6, 2021 that, “For years, Tepco claimed that the treated water stored at the plant contained only tritium, but data deep on its website showed that the treatment process had failed.” The tanks now hold almost 1.25 million tons of highly contaminated waste water. “In 2018, [Tepco] was forced to acknowledge that 70 percent of the water is still contaminated with dangerous radioactive elements — including strontium-90, a bone-seeking radionuclide that can cause cancer — and will have to be treated again before release,” the Post reported.

Harvey Wasserman reported for Columbus Institute for Contemporary Journalism’s The Free Press on a July 2007 earthquake that shook Japan and forced dangerous emergency shutdowns at four reactors at Kashiwazaki. “For three consecutive days [Tepco] was forced to issue public apologies for erroneous statements about the severity of the damage done to the reactors, the size and lethality of radioactive spills into the air and water, the on-going danger to the public, and much more. Once again, the only thing reactor owners can be trusted to do is to lie.”

Radioactive Particles Newly identified

Work just published in the journal Science of the Total Environment documents new, highly radioactive particles that were released from the destroyed Fukushima reactors. The study was led by Dr. Satoshi Utsunomiya and Kazuya Morooka of Kyushu University. “Two of these particles have the highest cesium radioactivity ever measured for particles from Fukushima,” the research found. The study analyzed particles that were taken from surface soils collected 3.9 kilometers from the reactor site.

Speaking with Science Daily Feb. 17, Dr. Utsunomiya said, “Owing to their large size, the health effects of the new particles are likely limited to external radiation hazards during static contact with skin.” The particles were reportedly spewed by the hydrogen explosions that rocked the reactor buildings and fell within a narrow zone that stretches ~8 kilometers north-northwest of meltdowns.

But Dr. Utsunomiya also said the long-lived radioactivity of cesium in “the newly found highly radioactive particles has not yet decayed significantly. As such, they will remain in the environment for many decades to come, and this type of particle could occasionally still be found in radiation hot spots.”

Smaller radioactive particles of uranium, thorium, radium, cesium, strontium, polonium, tellurium and americium were found afloat throughout Northern Japan, according to a report by Arnie Gundersen and Marco Kaltofen published July 27, 2017 in Science of the Total Environment. The radioactively hot particles were found in dusts and soils. About 180 particulate matter samples were taken from automobile or home air filters, outdoor surface dust, and vacuum cleaner bags. Some142 of the samples (about 80 percent) contained cesium-134 and cesium-137 which emit intense beta radiation and is very dangerous if ingested or inhaled. “A majority of these samples were collected from locations in decontaminated zones cleared for habitation by the National Government of Japan,” the authors revealed.

Greenpeace Reports Cleanup Failures and Deception

Greenpeace Japan released two major reports March 4 that also contradict the country’s positive decontamination and human rights claims after 2011.

“Successive governments during the last 10 years … have attempted to perpetrate a myth about the nuclear disaster. They have sought to deceive the Japanese people by misrepresenting the effectiveness of the decontamination program and ignoring radiological risks,” said Shaun Burnie, Senior Nuclear Specialist at Greenpeace East Asia and co-author of the first report.

Key findings of the radiation report Fukushima 2011-2020 are:

  • Most of the 840 square kilometer Special Decontamination Area (SDA), where the government is responsible for decontamination, remains contaminated with radioactive cesium. … an overall average of only 15% has been decontaminated. • No long-term decontamination target level will be achieved in many areas. Citizens will be subjected for decades to radiation exposures in excess of the … recommended maximum. • In the areas where evacuation orders were lifted in 2017, specifically Namie and Iitate, radiation levels remain above safe limits, potentially exposing the population to increased cancer risk.

Key findings of The Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station decommissioning report are:

  • The current decommissioning plan in the timeframe of 30-40 years is impossible to achieve and is illusory. • Radioactive waste created at the site should not be moved. Fukushima Daiichi is already and should remain a nuclear waste storage site for the long term.

— This is a report is the Spring 2021 Nukewatch Quarterly soon in your mailbox. A version of the article was published at CounterPunch, March 12-14, 2021 

*

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Japan Waffles Over Plan to Dump Radioactive Water Tainted with Tritium, Strontium, Cesium, etc. 

Nukewatch Quarterly Winter 2020-2021

News was leaked in early October that Japan had decided to release over one million metric tons of Fukushima’s radioactive waste water into the Pacific.

But on October 23, the Minister of Economy, Trade, and Industry Hiroshi Kajiyama told a press conference “the government has no plan to make a decision on what to do with over [one million metric tons] of treated water,” and Kyodo News reported that the government had “put off a decision.”

Flipping again on October 28, the AP reported that “Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga says his government is working on the final details of a plan to release” the tainted cooling water, a process that would reportedly involve dilution and gradual dumping over many years’ time.

Tanks hold over 1.2 million metric tons of radioactive waste water left from cooling melted fuel under the three destroyed reactors at Fukushima, Japan. The amount of contaminated waste water increases by about 150 tonnes a day because the hot melted wreckage requires cooling water to be continuously poured over it.

Critics of the dumping proposal called the plan a bailout of Tokyo Electric Power Co. (Tepco), which owns the wreckage. Local and national representatives of the fishing community traveled to Tokyo in October to protest to federal ministers. Nongovernmental experts have recommended costlier alternatives to ocean dumping including evaporation, long-term storage, mixing with concrete for burial, or buying additional tank farm acreage.

Although the stored water has been through Tepco’s novel filter system known as ALPS, the process has largely failed. About 70 percent of the stored waste water contains deadly isotopes that Tepco earlier claimed would be removed.

Dr. Gordon Edwards, president of the Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility, reported about the waste water Oct. 26: “Radioactive varieties of iodine, ruthenium, rhodium, antimony, tellurium, cobalt, and strontium have been reduced by ALPS but not eliminated. In 2017, more than half of the samples studied showed levels of radioactive contamination for these materials that are above legal limits. In the case of strontium-90, a bone-seeking radioisotope, some 65,000 tonnes of water had levels 100 times above the legal limit even after being treated by ALPS.”

Tepco, trying to quell the uproar over the ALPS failure, announced that it can re-filter the waste before piping it into the Pacific. The fishing industry and neighboring countries including South Korea oppose any ocean release of tritium and other radioactive contaminants which would eventually contaminate seafood as the materials move up the food chain. An Oct. 9 editorial in the Korea Times that condemned the dumping threat warned of an “environmental disaster” that could “destroy the marine ecosystem.”

Independent scientists argue that long-term food and environmental impacts from radioactive seawater are unknown and could pose higher risks than Japan’s environmental, agricultural, and industrial ministries have claimed. Ken Buesseler, a marine biologist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, wrote recently that not only tritium but other isotopes that affect marine life should be carefully examined.

—JL

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Radiation Again Reported at Japan’s Summer Olympic Sites & in Tokyo

Nukewatch Quarterly Winter 2020-2021

A new study has found consequential radioactive contamination at scores of sites in areas set for next summer’s Olympic and Paralympic games in Fukushima Prefecture and Tokyo. The study follows on and corroborates a March report by Greenpeace—“Radioactivity on the Move 2020”—that found “the widespread presence of radioactive hotspots in Fukushima City and the (Olympic) J-Village” where “radioactive contamination is not under control.”

The new peer-reviewed article, in the journal Environmental Engineering Science, explains the authors’ study of radioactive dusts and dirt at Japanese Olympic sites and throughout Northern Japan. The report details findings that detected modest radioactive contamination at Olympic venues, and significant contamination at Japan’s National Training Center.

To assess radioactive contamination caused by Fukushima’s triple reactor meltdowns, a total of 146 independent samples were collected from sites in Fukushima Prefecture, Tokyo, and the heavily traveled corridors between these locations.

The study “Radioactive Isotopes Measured at Olympic and Paralympic Venues in Fukushima Prefecture and Tokyo, Japan” reached four major conclusions outlined by the authors:

1) Different types of alpha and beta radioactive micro-particles were released at other times and landed in various locations throughout Japan. “The exclusive use of cesium-137 beta activity levels as a proxy for total internal and external exposure, therefore, introduces dose assessment errors.”

2) “Rooftops previously decontaminated in Minamisoma are re-contaminated by airborne atmospheric dust containing radionuclides … from the Fukushima meltdowns. The data show a need for continuing reassessment and potentially, additional remedial work on many sites in Fukushima Prefecture.”

3) The Tokyo Olympic venues had radioactivities similar to sample sites in the US. In contrast, Olympic sites in Northern Japan near Fukushima contained an average of about twice as much radioactivity as Tokyo, with plutonium identified at the J-Village National Training Center.

4) Non-Olympic sites throughout Japan averaged 7.0 times greater beta activity than the Tokyo Olympic venues. These data show that clean-up efforts emphasized the Olympic venues over cleaning other contaminated parts of Japan.

The Japanese government’s aggressive portrayal of the North and its Olympic sites as decontaminated and safe disregard the health and safety of the athletes, spectators, officials, and journalists who are expected to participate in the games, and of course of the year-round residents. —JL

—Data and links to the peer-reviewed article are available from Fairewinds Energy Education.

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Health Risks of Tritium: The Case for  Stronger Standards

Nukewatch Quarterly Winter 2020-2021

Editor’s note: Japanese government ministers, nuclear industry lobbyists, and some academics claim that releasing huge volumes of radioactive tritium into the Pacific is so commonplace that the danger it poses to health is negligible. What follows are excerpts from a detailed article about tritium risks by Arjun Makhijani, Brice Smith, and Michael C. Thornel of the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research, in the group’s magazine Science for Democratic Action, February 2007. The excerpts are introduced by a note from Arjun sent Nov. 25, 2020:

These excerpts regarding tritium refer to tritium-contaminated freshwater. The risks of contaminating seawater with tritium relate to the ways tritiated water will become part of oceanic ecosystems. It will be incorporated, literally, by everything from algae to fish. Pregnant women consuming tritium-contaminated seafood could be vulnerable to impacts like those described in the article excerpted below. A thorough investigation of such impacts, with public comment, is essential before any decision to discharge tritium-contaminated water accumulated at Fukushima to the ocean is made.

—Arjun Makhijani

With a relatively short half-life of 12.3 years, tritium is highly radioactive. For example, one gram (approximately the weight of a quarter of a teaspoon of salt) of tritium in tritiated water will contaminate almost 500 billion gallons of water up to the current drinking water limit of 20,000 picocuries per liter set by the US Environmental Protection Agency. One ounce of tritiated water would contaminate the entire annual flow of the Savannah River above the present drinking water limit.

… [T]ritiated water and organically bound tritium can cross the placental barrier. This tritium can then be incorporated into an embryo/fetus and irradiate rapidly dividing cells, thereby raising the risk of birth defects, early miscarriages, and other problems.

… A related concern is the fact that low-energy beta particles, like those emitted by tritium, are often much more effective at causing harm than currently assumed by regulations.

… As noted, the low energy of the tritium beta particle can result in the deposition of all the energy in a short distance, which could be particularly damaging if the tritium is in the DNA.

… Considering that ova are formed once per lifetime, the effects of radiation on the reproductive system of female fetuses, and the possible effect on the children of females irradiated in the womb, could be significant.

… The increased risks to pregnant women and the embryo/fetus include early miscarriages, malformations, and genetic defects. Risks can also be multi-generational given that a woman’s ova are produced while she is in her mother’s womb.

… We have concluded that 400 picocuries per liter for surface water should be considered as an interim target limit for off-site surface water at all nuclear power plants and US Department of Energy nuclear sites while a better understanding of the impacts of tritium is developed. This level is 50 times lower than the EPA’s current drinking water limit and corresponds to a lifetime risk of a fatal cancer of about one in a million.

… The case for tightening the tritium limits as a preventive measure is even more persuasive when one considers the higher RBE [relative biological effectiveness] of tritium, its possible non-cancer health effects, its possible synergisms with chemical toxins, and its potential effects arising from exposure in utero at certain crucial times during pregnancy….

—See the full article at: https://ieer.org/wp/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/SDA-14-4.pdf

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Fukushima Wastewater & Cleanup Costs Pile Up

Nukewatch Quarterly Fall 2020
By John LaForge

At Fukushima-Daiichi in Japan, the triple disasters of earthquake, tsunami and three reactor meltdowns have caused the deaths of 15,899 people and left 2,529 unaccounted for, mostly in the three hardest-hit prefectures, according to the National Police Agency.

The ferociously radioactive melted fuels that burned into the hard foundations of the three reactors are also extremely hot thermally and must be continually cooled with water which is poured into the wreckage.

This cooling water also becomes highly radioactive after coming in contact with the molten reactor fuel and so is being collected in large, hastily built tanks on the coastal reactor site. Tokyo Electric, or Tepco, has collected nearly 1.2 million metric tonnes (2,204.6 pounds) of contaminated water in about 1,000 tanks. The collected waste water also includes rain and groundwater that runs across the melted cores after pouring through earthquake-caused cracks in reactor foundations.

Tepco says it will run out of space for more tanks in two years, and is lobbying vigorously to win permission to dump the waste water into the Pacific Ocean.

South Korea, the fishing community and other near Pacific neighbors have raised strenuous objections to any such dumping, especially after Tepco admitted it lied about its water filtration system which turns out had not removed dangerous cesium, strontium and other radionuclides from the water.

Nevertheless, Japan’s government, the International Atomic Energy Agency and industry lobbyists appear willing to reject public opinion and the concerns of allies in order to save Tepco from financial collapse. Last January 31 a panel of experts picked by the Ministry of International Trade and Industry recommended that the pollution be piped into the Pacific Ocean.

In March this year Tokyo Electric Power Co. estimated that 1.37 trillion yen ($12.9 billion) will be needed over 12 years to remove the melted reactor fuel just from units 2 and 3.

The wrecked fuel in unit 1 presents such a vexing complex of problems that the firm didn’t venture a guess at its removal cost.

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