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October 18, 2013 by Nukewatch Leave a Comment

Cleanup or Cover-up: Japan’s Improvised Management of Reactor Meltdown Disaster Denied Ongoing Ocean Contamination 

Nukewatch Quarterly Fall 2013
By John LaForge 

On Aug. 20, Tepco acknowledged that 300 tons of highly radioactive water had leaked from one of at least five of the 1,000 storage tanks it has hastily constructed to hold contaminated water (top photo, below). The waste water is generated by the continuous watering-down of extremely hot uranium fuel that has melted through the bottom of three destroyed Fukushima reactors and the hot waste fuel rods stored for decades in the now earthquake-damaged cooling pools. 

Tepco also reported August 20 that measurements of radioactive tritium in seawater near reactor No. 1 are the highest ever recorded — higher than at the height of the company’s deliberate, last-resort dumping of 11,500 tons of primary reactor coolant directly into the ocean in March and April 2011. 

The water is poisoned with cesium, strontium, americium, tritium and other ferociously radioactive isotopes. Tepco says it has not found the spot in the 1,000-ton steel tank from which the water was still leaking, but was transferring the water from the bad tank and removing contaminated soil. 

The company estimated that the radioactivity in the 300 tons amounted to 24 trillion becquerels, or 80 million becquerels per-liter. Reuters interviewed professor emeritus Michiaki Furukawa of Nagoya University who said, “That is a huge amount of radiation. The situation is getting worse.” Hideka Morimoto, a spokesman for Japan’s Nuclear Regulation Authority, told the AP “We are extremely concerned.” 

The leaking tanks were constructed with rubber seams intended to last about five years, and were bolted together rather than welded. According to Tepco, 350 of the 1000 tanks were similarly built on the cheap rather than using welded joints which are more expensive and more watertight.

Continuous ocean contamination, unstoppable leaks 

Tepco’s August acknowledgement of major tank leaks came a month after the company’s belated admission that 300 tons of highly contaminated water have been pouring into the Pacific every day ever since the March 11, 2011 disaster began. These 300 tons of contaminated water per day amounts over 30 months to at least 270,000 tons of water-borne radionuclides, a hemorrhage that continues unabated. 

The company admitted it has no idea where the leaks are located. On July 26, Tepco president Naomi Hirose confessed, “If you asked whether we have adequately learned the lessons of the disaster, the answer would be that we haven’t.” 

The Tokyo daily Asahi Shimbun, reported last December that “A huge volume of highly radioactive water, used to cool down the fuel, has since been leaking from the reactor” and the sources of the leaks were unknown. 

Disaster “out of control” — Tepco executive 

Tepco executive Kazuhiko Yamashita, said Sept. 13, “I think the current situation is that it is not under control.” 

Yamashita’s blunt condemnation flatly contradicted Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s testimony to the International Olympic Committee, given a week earlier, in which the PM claimed “the situation is under control.”

Tank leaks pouring contaminated water into Pacific 

The unprecedented ocean contamination stems from the colossal power of the March 11, 2011 magnitude 9.0 Great Eastern Japan Earthquake — the worst in Japanese history — and the consequent 52-foot tsunami — which smashed the six-reactor Fukushima-Daiichi compound, causing explosions and three reactor meltdowns. 

The meltdowns began spewing a colossal amount of cesium, strontium, plutonium, iodine-131 and other deadly elements to the atmosphere and to the Pacific and in some respects never stopped doing so. 

The bizarre phenomenon of about 400 tons of contaminated groundwater running into the reactor buildings every day is a consequence of the giant quake and its destruction of the six-reactor complex’s underground infrastructure, piping, trenches, tanks and buildings. But because the company’s system of partial decontamination only filters about 100 tons of water per day, 300 tons are running through the destroyed reactor complex and into the Pacific. 

Millions of gallons of water are continuously being poured into the three wrecked reactors and into cooling pools that store tens of thousands of extremely hot and highly radioactive waste fuel rods (“spent fuel”). This cooling water along with groundwater is moving through the massive cracks, breaks and faults and spreading to the sea. 

The company has announced an improved, expensive, untested “freezing” of a one-mile-long section of ground that could block the run-off, but which will not be completed until 2015. It’s also injecting a chemical solution into the coastline embankment as a “solidifying” experiment.

From bad to worse 

In a front-page New York Times article September 4, Martin Fackler called the crisis a “worsening situation.” Fackler is the author of Credibility Lost: The Crisis in Japanese Newspaper Journalism After Fukushima. 

Long before Tepco made its August admission, the magazines Science and Nature reported (in October 2012) that the initial dispersal of radioactivity from Fukushima — both as atmospheric fallout and direct discharges to the Pacific — represented the largest accidental release of radiation to the ocean in history — ten to 100 times more than the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear catastrophe in Ukraine. Co-authored by oceanographer Ken Buesseler, a senior scientist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts, the report said that contamination in fish in the area was so high that large, ongoing releases of radioactively contaminated water must be taking place. 

Buesseler’s allegations were denied for months by both Tepco and the Japanese government. Tepco rebuffed the information even after the chief of Japan’s federal nuclear watchdog agency said the site had probably been leaking contaminated water since the March 2011 disaster began. 

Tepco’s denials and delays have been condemned by experts in harsh terms. According to the Nation August 19, Dale Klein, a past chair of the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission blasted Tepco executives, “These actions indicate that you don’t know what you are doing, and that you do not have a plan.” 

Over 430,000 thousand tons of highly contaminated water is being stored in tanks at the site, as Tepco floods the reactors’ cores using an improvised system to cool the melted fuel. Water from the cooling scheme runs into basements and trenches that were cracked open by the earthquake and which have been leaking since the disaster began.

Tank farm radiation leaks at deadly levels 

Tepco said Sept. 3 that it detected a radiation level of 2,200 millisieverts-per-hour near one storage tank — up from a previous high of 1,800 millisievert/hr on August 31. Both levels are high enough to kill an unprotected person in a few hours. Tepco’s earlier radiation estimates of 100 milliseiverts/hr were highly inaccurate because, according Dr. Arjun Makhijani speaking on PBS News Hour, monitors used for the earlier reports maxed out at 100 milliseiverts per hour. 

Thousands of workers occupy the contaminated grounds doing remediation work. Tepco acknowledged in July that 11 times the number of its employees than it had earlier told the World Health Organization have been exposed to high levels of radiation. Tepco now says 10 percent of the workers are at risk of developing thyroid cancer.

Fish stocks contaminated 

With thousands of tons of contaminated water gushing from the reactors, the groundwater and from storage tanks, radioactive contamination is inexorably destroying the fishing industry in Eastern Japan. On September 5, South Korea banned all fish imports from a large area around Fukushima Prefecture. The news sent shock waves through a staggered fishing community that has already suffered several billion in losses. 

Fish of all kinds are being found contaminated with cesium-137 and iodine-131 from the ongoing contamination. In 2011, the Japanese allowed 2,000 becquerels-per kilogram (bq/kg) to contaminate seafood, vegetables, dairy products and mushrooms. In April 2012, the government tightened the limit to 100 bq/kg. 

In July, sea bass caught near Hitachi, Ibaraki, 55 miles southwest of Fukushima, were found contaminated at 1,037 bq/kg — 10 times the 100 bq/kg government limit. Last year, shipments of contaminated Pacific cod were halted by the government. Black sea bream caught 60 miles north of Fukushima had 3,300 bq/kg of cesium; greeling within 12 miles of the site were found with a record 25,800 bq/kg. Indeed, all bottom-feeding or demersal fish “consistently showed the highest counts” of cesium, said Ken Buesseler in a Science article last year. The demersal include cod, conger eel, flounder, halibut, pollock rockfish, skate and sole. 

Bad fish aren’t limited to Japanese water. Albacore tuna caught off Washington and Oregon last Oct., and Blue fin tuna off of California were also found contaminated with Fukushima cesium. 

Tepco has said it will take 40 years to containerize all the radioactive equipment, melted fuel, high level waste and waste water at the site. This is likely an underestimate, as owners of Wisconsin’s Kewaunee reactor have said it will take 40 years to decommission that unit which is undamaged.

Government limits on cesium poisoning allowed in food vary widely. Below in becquerels-per-kilogram, as of Dec. 27, 2011: 

Drinking water Milk General foodstuffs Baby food

Japan 10 50 100 50

United States 1,200 1,200 1,200 1,200

European Union* 1,000 1,000 1,250 400

Codex (UN) 1,000 1,000 1,000 1,000

*Only applied to items produced within the EU. When Japanese agricultural products are imported to the EU, Japan’s provisional limits are applied. Source: http://www.japanprobe.com/2011/12/27/japans-new-limits-for-radiation-in-food-20-times-stricter-than-american-and-eu-standards/

Filed Under: Environment, Newsletter Archives, Nuclear Power, Quarterly Newsletter, Radiation Exposure, Radioactive Waste

October 18, 2013 by Nukewatch Leave a Comment

Government Misstatements on Radiation Risk Assailed by Independent Scientific Group

Nukewatch Quarterly Fall 2013

“It is lamentable that the US government is not speaking with a coherent, science-based voice on the risks of radiation,” says the President of the IEER, Dr. Arjun Makhijani, on the group’s website. “There is no safe level of radiation exposure in the sense of zero risk. Period. This has been repeatedly concluded by official studies, most recently a 2006 study done by the National Academies. Yet there is no shortage of unfortunate official statements on radiation that may seek to placate the public about ‘safe’ levels of radiation, but actually undermine confidence.”

IEER, based in Takoma Park, Maryland, cites one statement in particlular by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission: “In general, a yearly dose of 620 millirem from all radiation sources has not been shown to cause humans any harm.”* This annual dose includes medical uses of radiation, including CAT scans, and other voluntary exposures from which people get some benefits. It also includes indoor radon, which the EPA estimates “is the number one cause of lung cancer among non-smokers…. Overall, radon is the second leading cause of lung cancer [after smoking]. Radon is responsible for about 21,000 lung cancer deaths every year. About 2,900 of these deaths occur among people who have never smoked.”**

Makhijani says, “While the NRC is saying the 620 millirem a year on average has not been shown to cause harm, the EPA says that about one-third of this total average annual dose is attributable to indoor radon, which is responsible for thousands of cancer deaths every year.”

“The NRC statement is an appalling misrepresentation of the science that underlies its own regulations as well as published statements on radon risks by the EPA,” Makhijani said. “Using the 2006 National Academies risk estimates for cancer, 620 millirem per year to each of the 311 million people in the United States would eventually be associated with about 200,000 cancers each year; about half of them would be fatal.”

Makhijani continued, “The largest risks by far are in Japan. The risks from Fukushima in the US, based on the limited data so far, appear to be very low at the individual level. But they are being experienced by large populations, as they were during Chernobyl fallout. More intensive measurements, a frank portrayal of both individual and population risks, for children and adults using National Academies risk numbers, and prompt publication are essential. If the government does not provide accurate, science-based, trustworthy information, how can people make well-informed decisions for themselves and their families at a confusing time?”

*http://www.nrc.gov/about-nrc/radiation/around-us/doses-daily-lives.html; **http://www.epa.gov/radon/healthrisks.html —JL

Filed Under: Newsletter Archives, Quarterly Newsletter, Radiation Exposure

October 18, 2013 by Nukewatch Leave a Comment

German Bomber Base, With 20 US Nuclear Weapons, Shut Down by Ambitious Blockaders

Nukewatch Quarterly Fall 2013
By John LaForge

BÜCHEL AIR FORCE BASE, Germany — Over 750 people converged here at the government’s largest air force base to condemn the deployment of 20 US nuclear weapons, in open violation of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty which prohibits a nuclear state from transferring nuclear weapons to a non-weapon state, and prohibits a non-nuclear state from receiving such weapons. In a show of organized popular rebellion, 150 hearty war resisters blockaded traffic at all nine base entrances for 24 hours.

It was the first time in 16 years of resistance to the base’s “sharing” of US H-bombs (used onboard Germany’s Tornado jet bombers), that the base had been completely closed to traffic by a protest. The Pentagon also “shares” the B-61 gravity bomb with Belgium, The Netherlands, Italy and Turkey.

In spite of the civilian lockdown of this large military complex, no arrests were made by any of the hundreds of civil and military police who turned out.

Peace activists who converved on Büchel quoted the University of Illinois professor of law and author Francis Boyle.

The action began Sunday, August 11, with a large “Happening” at the base’s main gate, or “Haupttor,” after which eight separate groups carrying overnight camping gear drove off to far-flung gates for the 24-hour blockade. The protest ended at noon the next day without injury to either the resisters or the shut-ins. The complicated blockade was named “Instruments for Disarmament: Rhythm Beats Bombs” after Germany’s 30-year-old radical orchestra and choir “Lebenslaute” (life sounds) offered to join in the annual protest of the US nukes.

The only leak in the ambitious base-wide blockade was through a previously unidentified entry, or ‘Tor,’ which was found by protesters for the first time late on Sunday. Organizers reported that tracks in the dirt road indicated that the Air Force had been using the secret entry to dodge the lockout for several hours. The rough, remote, dirt track access was instantly dubbed “gate No. 7,” and after two hurried cellphone conferences 12 volunteers from other blockades gathered their gear and hurried to stop the leak.

Soldiers sneak past blockaders 

Just one more small break in the shut-down took place at 6:40 a.m. Monday, when about 150 camouflaged troops were rushed through a small door-sized opening in the high fence that surrounds the base. Known as “gate 6” by anti-nuke campaigners, the mostly unused, garden path-sized wire door was itself obstructed by the heavy coils of razor wire that had been placed inside all nine gates in advance of the weekend confrontation. Eye witnesses blocking gate No. 5 only 50 meters away reported that the troops ran from four large cargo transports down a steep, wooded embankment, some falling down, toward the fence and had to struggle to slash away the razor-wire before squeezing through the “kitty door.” The occupiers at gates 5 and 6 were initially unable to call for help in blocking the troop movement when their cell phone coverage was suddenly cut off. After flashing her press credentials Gina Willrich of Bikes Against Bombs, Germany’s anti-nuclear motorcycle group, was able to snap photos of the soldiers embarrassingly sneaking into their own base.

The radical orchestra “Lebenslaute” (Life Sounds) performed Aug. 11 at the main gate into Büchel Air Force Base where over 700 people converged to protest Germany’s use of US nuclear weapons there.

Because of the action’s comprehensive planning, each of the separate occupation sites was supplied in advance with lights, tents, toilets, tables and water. Two hot meals were delivered over the course of the day-long encampments where blockaders slept in sleeping bags set out like sardines across the access roads directly in front of the high steel gates.

Organized teams of like-minded and international campaigners — including representatives of Germany’s major peace organizations — took responsibility for the eight, and ultimately nine entrances. The unnumbered main gate was successfully closed overnight by about 80 resisters — self-named “Rhythm Beats Bombs” — who made use of the large stage and rock concert-style speaker system erected for the weekend events. “Tor” No. 1, the “Women’s Resistance gate,” was overtaken by women from Germany and England, and the British visitors used some of the long hours of the occupation to report on their own development of unprecedented blocking actions against the Pentagon’s nuclear-armed Cruise missile bases built in England in the 1980s.

Gate 2, the “Inter-religious gate,” was successfully closed by over 15 ethicists of various denominational stripes; gate 3 belonged to members of International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW) — winners of the 1985 Nobel Peace Prize — who spent time explaining the economic, industrial and political connections between nuclear power and nuclear weapons; gate 4 was “Poetry gate” and featured dramatic readings of anti-nuclear verse and classic appeals from the nuclear abolition movement.

Musicians confront nuclear madness with “life sounds” 
A quintet from the orchestra and choir “Lebenslaute” (life sounds) performed a musical blockade.

“Lutzerather Tor,” another unnumbered gate (named for a nearby village) which is second in size and traffic load only to the main entrance, was overwhelmed by 58 members of Lebenslaute (28 all night) which entertained the visibly amused guards on the other side of the fence with hours of classic compositions. Your Nukewatch reporter was happy to join this band of musical resisters, rehearsing with them during the week prior to the action and playing 2nd cornet in its concerts and the overnight blockade.

 

At the “Women’s Resistance Gate” blockaders heard from comrades who travelled from England.

Gate 5, and the adjoining previously mentioned tiny gate 6, only 50 meters away, was noisily occupied by Bikes Beat Bombs, which brought a touch of Marlon Brando and “The Wild Ones” to the mostly organic, vegan and vegetarian rigor of Germany’s anti-war Left.

Why a national news blackout? 

In assessing the 24-hour blockade, Nuclear Weapons-Free Now Campaign Council member Marion Küepker of Hamburg, noted one disappointment, saying, “The national media’s black-out of the unprecedented base shutdown was a surprise.” Only local and regional news organizations have so far reported on the event.

At Büchel’s main gate following the day-long action that covered the entrance, 80 blockaders woke to the surprising absense of arresting officers.

“The presence of high-profile individuals could explains the hands-off position taken by the police. This was the first-time that office-holding members of well-established NGOs joined a partly ‘illegal’ nuclear weapons protest,” Küepker said. By not making arrests, the military also avoids the political trials that focus a lot of attention on the US weapons,” Küepker said.

Of course, the action’s successful base closure put Germany’s Air Force on notice that public opposition and resistance to the government’s embrace of the US bombs is bold enough to put it in its place, restricted to base — at least for the weekend.

Filed Under: Direct Action, Newsletter Archives, Nuclear Weapons, Quarterly Newsletter, US Bombs Out of Germany

October 18, 2013 by Nukewatch Leave a Comment

Germany’s Asse Rad Dump 

Nukewatch Quarterly Fall 2013

A new law in Germany requires the cleanup of 126,000 barrels of various types of radioactive waste dumped into the defunct Asse II salt mine in Lower Saxony. The century-old Asse salt mine shut down in 1964, then barrels of waste were dumped in its cavities. The Munich-based German Research Center for Environmental Health flooded the salt mine with a magnesium chloride solution in 2007 raising citizen concern for area drinking water. Since the ‘70s, the barrels have likely been rusting, seeping and off-gassing. Slow, exploratory drilling through a 66-foot-thick wall is underway to assess the radioactive and potentially explosive environment in the first of 13 chambers. After seven months of work not a single chamber has been found, perhaps because the salt moves continuously. Workers stand in a hermetically sealed space to prevent the spread of radiation. The prospective schedule for removing the radioactive waste says it will take at least until 2033 and carry a price tag of $5.3 billion. No new repository site for the waste has been selected. — Deutsche Welle, May 20 & Der Spiegel, Feb. 21, 2013

Filed Under: Newsletter Archives, Quarterly Newsletter, Radioactive Waste

October 18, 2013 by Nukewatch Leave a Comment

Profiteering Doctors Overusing Dangerous CT Scans

Nukewatch Quarterly Fall 2013

DAVIS, California — New research published in June’s American Medical Association journal Pediatrics suggests that one year’s worth of CT scanning in the United States “would produce 4,879 future cancers in children under 15.” Lead author Diana Migliorette, from the University of California, Davis, found that in seven US health care systems, four million CT scans were conducted on children under age 15 between 1996 and 2010. Averaging the dose of radiation delivered, the scientists found that as many as 25 percent (one million) of the children got 20 millisieverts or more from a single abdominal scan. A chest X-ray’s average dose is only 0.1 millisieverts. 

In a related shocker, Congressional investigators from the Government Accountability Office report that doctors with a financial interest in radiation treatment centers are “much more likely to prescribe such treatments for prostate cancer” than those without stock in the facilities. The GAO said that even though alternate treatments may be just as effective and less expensive, a similar pattern of docter-recommended but unnecessary scans is evident, “when doctors owned laboratories and imaging centers that billed Medicare for CT scans…” 

Senator Max Baucus, D-Montana, told the Times, “When you look at the numbers in this report, you start to wonder where health care stops and profiteering begins.” Representative Sander Levin, D-Michigan, said “this analysis confirms that financial incentives, not patients’ needs, are driving some referral patterns.” 

— New York Times, July 16 & Aug. 19; NationalPublic Radio, June 11, 2013

Filed Under: Newsletter Archives, Quarterly Newsletter, Radiation Exposure

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