Releasing Fukushima radioactive water into Pacific ‘inevitable’ — Reports: Japan very aware of danger posed by past releases; Contaminants are concentrated thousands of times in food chain; At end of chain are humans “who may suffer genetic damage, cancer, other health problems and even death”
Published: December 16th, 2013 at 11:21 am ET
By ENENews
Yomiuri Shimbun, Dec. 16, 2013: Release of water into sea inevitable after purification at Fukushima plant […] The government has been in lockstep with TEPCO in a project to create as early as possible “frozen-soil underground water shields” […] Given that the project has never been attempted anywhere else, the risk of the project encountering difficulties cannot be ruled out. […] The volume of contaminated water currently stored already amounts to nearly 400,000 tons. […] Should the tanks be destroyed because of a calamity such as a strong earthquake, there is a danger that a large quantity of contaminated water could spill from them, like the collapse of a dam.
The Fukushima Nuclear Disaster : One of the World’s Worst-Ever Cases of Pollution, Professor Fumikazu Yoshida of Hokkaido University’s Graduate School of Economics, Economic Journal of Hokkaido University, March 2013: Now, the Nuclear Safety Commission has initially tolerated the dumping of radioactive contaminated water in the sea since they claim that it will be diluted. But even diluted in seawater contaminants will be concentrated thousands of times throughout the food chain. Such elementary knowledge concerning the environmental consequences of pollution […] is now apparently being forgotten. […]
The Fukushima Nuclear Power Station incident and marine pollution, Marine Pollution Bulletin, 2012: […] The facts indicate that Japan had already been very aware of the potential danger and effects that the emission might cause […] there remains a certain potential nuclear radiation threat to the neighbouring countries of Japan […] In the long run, the radioactive wastewater will have severe effect on fish including reduction in reproductive capability, morphological abnormalities, leukopenia, anorexia, lethargy, growth depression, and hyperactivity (Forman, 1983; Lomio, 1979). […] Furthermore, the radioactive wastes once enter into the marine food chain will be harmful to various kinds of animals and finally human being themselves who may suffer genetic damage, cancer, other health problems and even death from the nuclear radiation, since the final consumers at the end of the chain are often human (Forman, 1983). […] the ocean-related economy in the bordering states may also suffer from the radioactive wastes. If, however, the potentially injured states wait until the material damage happens, in order to claim damages from Japan, it would probably be too late. […] the reasonable principle of imputation is that so long as there is sufficient evidence to prove that the acts of a state might cause serious damage to the long-term development of the marine environment, this state should bear the responsibility for transboundary harm. […]
Read the full article in the Marine Pollution Bulletin here (pdf)
http://www.law.sdu.edu.cn/uploadfile/133648283029.pdf
Fukushima Evacuee: We’re human guinea-pigs in an experiment… we’ll never forgive gov’t or Tepco! — US Attorney: It’s up to the American people to make them pay; Japan is threatening to put people who speak out in concentration camps
Published: December 12th, 2013 at 12:03 pm ET
By ENENews
The Asia-Pacific Journal, Dec. 9, 2013 (translated by Tom Gill) — Shoji Masahiko, Fukushima evacuee: […] now what really matters is human health. […] The national government and the village mayor insist now as ever that they will decontaminate the village, that they will enable us to go home […] But why, when human life and health should be the top priority, should that be reason to choose return, return to the village, as a higher priority than the people’s health, our children’s health, our grandchildren’s health? – That is something I cannot fathom. For my part I have actually started to think that we are being used as the world’s first human guinea-pigs, in an experiment […] We will never forgive those responsible – the national government, the Tokyo Electric Power Company, and those who helped make this happen!
Gundersen: All of Japan is contaminated, gov’t covering up enormous exposures to public; Epidemic is just beginning — Evacuee: We are in fact dying in Fukushima; What happened to us will soon affect all Japanese people (VIDEOS)
Published: December 16th, 2013 at 8:54 pm ET
By ENENews
Arnie Gundersen, Chief Engineer at Fairewinds, Dec. 16, 2013: The Japanese parliament has just passed the state secrets law. It’s really an information ‘iron curtain’ that’s preventing people in Japan from learning just how bad the exposures were that they received after the accident at Fukushima. […] They’re trying to underestimate the amount of radiation that the Japanese received […] I think they’re neglecting some really serious sources of radiation in their effort to convince the Japanese people that nuclear power is safe. […] These exposures not being calculated by the Japanese, or the IAEA, are in fact enormous. [..] Fukushima was 3 times worse than Chernobyl as far as the noble gases [e.g. xenon, krypton] that were released. […] There’s already a 10-fold increase in thyroid issues in Japan and we’re just at the beginning of the thyroid epidemic. […] As I discovered when I was in Tokyo during the book tour during 2012, all of Japan is a radiologically contaminated area, and the people in Japan need to take extraordinary precautions. The net effect of all this is the total exposure to the Japanese is being grossly underestimated. >> Watch the video here http://fairewinds.org/media/fairewinds-videos/japanese-government-isnt-saying-fukushima
Testimony of a Fukushima Evacuee, Oct. 30, 2013 — Miko from Iwaki City (at 7:00 in): What the state announces is different from the reality. […] As I just told you what the media says and the facts are entirely different. […] What happened to Fukushima residents will soon affect all Japanese people […] While some say the radiation has dispersed, we are now safe people are in fact dying in Fukushima. One day a nephew of my friend died of Leukemia. The next day her husband also died. […] There are people living in Fuksuhima, now, they all say: “We’re guinea pigs after all […] many people are dying, huh? There’s nothing we can do, it’s useless, so why bother? I’d rather focus on happy things” and continue with their decontamination. […] People refuse to face the fact that these will eventually come back to haunt them. >http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TlWslcjHlPo
Radiation in Fukushima groundwater skyrockets 3,500+ times over weekend — Just 5 meters from Pacific Ocean — Nothing being done to stop it flowing into sea (PHOTO)
Published: December 17th, 2013 at 8:05 am ET
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Tepco, Dec. 17, 2013: As a result of the measurement, it was found that the gross-β density in the groundwater observation hole No.0-3-2 obtained at the east of the Units 1-4 Turbine Buildings on December 16 [was] 63,000Bq/L […]
Jiji Press, Dec. 17, 2013: Highest Ever Radiation Detected in Fukushima Plant Well […] Some 63,000 becquerels of radioactive materials that emit beta rays, such as strontium-90, per liter have been found in groundwater […] the highest level at the well [Tepco] said Tuesday […] sample [was] taken on Monday from the observation well 5 meters from the coast […] Since the company is not takings steps to prevent tainted water in the well from flowing into the sea […] the water is likely to be reaching the plant’s bay. […] standards require strontium-90 levels to be less than 10 becquerels in water to be released into the sea. […]
http://enenews.com/ap-tritium-rain-to-result-from-disposal-of-fukushimas-contaminated-water-expert-radioactive-rainfall-goes-on-around-nuclear-plants-during-normal-operations-video
AP: ‘Tritium rain’ to result from disposal of Fukushima contaminated water? Expert: You may be interested to know radioactive rainfall occurs around nuclear plants during normal operations (VIDEO)
Published: December 17th, 2013 at 1:54 pm ET
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Associated Press, Dec. 3, 2013: Experts on [the Japan government’s contaminated water] panel also proposed establishing a special team to focus on how to deal with massive amounts of tritium, the only isotope that cannot be removed chemically by existing technology. […] U.S. officials evaporated tritium water at the Three Mile Island plant following the 1979 accident, but the method is not recommended for Fukushima, where there is too much and it is likely to come back as tritium rain.
In fact, the method has been recommended for Fukushima
Joonhong Ahn, professor in UC Berkeley’s nuclear engineering department: Water that’s been treated to remove radionuclides apart from tritium, which can’t be filtered out, can be evaporated […] “Amounts of tritium would be small, so that radioactivity that would be discharged into the atmosphere would be acceptably small” […] discharging low-level contaminated water at the Fukushima station into the sea may need to be used in addition or as an alternative to evaporation.
Arjun Makhijani, President of the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research, at the Community Symposium on Decommissioning San Onofre, Oct. 19, 2013 (26:45 in): You might also be interested to know that all nuclear power plants, that are of the variety of light water reactors, release tritium to the atmosphere, so you can expect radioactive rainfall around nuclear power plants. We have asked the NRC to require monitoring of rainfall — because people have private wells in many places – but they have refused to require it.
http://enenews.com/hot-particle-found-400-kilometers-fukushima-radioactivity-40-billion-bqkg-large-puddles-black-particles-found-roadside-video
Hot particle found 400 kilometers from Fukushima with radioactivity over 40 billion Bq/kg — Large black puddles of fallout along roadsides might well be from inside failed fuel rods (VIDEOS)
Published: December 17th, 2013 at 12:59 am ET
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Arnie Gundersen, Chief Engineer at Fairewinds, Dec. 16, 2013 (at 3:30 in): Large puddles of black particles have been found on the side of the road, each individual grain is extraordinarily radioactive. This is fall-out, this is hot particles that have coalesced together on the side of the road. Recently a hot particle was discovered 250 miles [400 kilometers] away from Fukushima. It was so radioactive that if it were a pound of material instead of just a particle, the pound would be giving off 20 billion disintegrations per second [44 billion becquerels per kilogram] […] That small speck could easily be lodged in someone’s lung. >> Watch the video here
Japan’s Black Dust, Fairewinds Energy Education, July 10, 2013: Marco Kaltofen, President at Boston Chemical Data Corp. & Doctoral student researcher at Worcester Polytechnic Institute: […] We kept hearing reports about something unusual, a black dust […] we finally got a very small sample […] It’s a single substance. It’s not a mix of mineral particles and pieces of dead bugs and plant matter and dust particles […] it doesn’t look like the surrounding soils. And it is much more intensely radioactive than any other soil or dust sample we’ve gotten from around Fukushima Daiichi. […] There’s something unusual happening with this stuff. […] this particle contains not only fission waste products from the reactor but very likely contains a concentrated unburned nuclear fuel. And that’s unusual. This sample had by far the highest level of uranium daughters that we’ve seen in a dust or soil sample. We’re actually seeing material that might well have come from inside a failed fuel assembly. >> Watch the video here http://fairewinds.org/podcast/japans-black-dust-with-marco-kaltofen
http://enenews.com/jiji-no-solution-seen-for-fukushimas-radioactive-water-kyodo-toxic-ocean-leakage-to-go-on-into-2020s-experts-high-potential-for-marine-life-and-human-health-effects-through-ingestion-over
Jiji: No solution seen for Fukushima’s radioactive water — Kyodo: Toxic ocean leakage to go on into 2020s — Experts: “High potential for marine life and human health effects through ingestion over generations”
Published: December 16th, 2013 at 4:33 pm ETBy ENENews |
Jiji Press, Dec. 16, 2013: No Solution in Sight for Fukushima N-Plant Tainted Water […] No solution is in sight as [Tepco] struggles with ever-increasing amounts of radioactive water […] The situation has improved little in the [past] six months […] very high-level radioactive water has been detected under the ground […] TEPCO detected 1.8 million becquerels of radioactive materials per liter of water collected on Thursday from an observation well some 40 meters from the seawall, the highest on record.
Kyodo News, Dec. 11, 2013: A government panel […] estimated that the utility will not be able to fully address the risks of water leaks by the end of fiscal 2020. […] “If measures are taken smoothly, a large part of the risks (posed by leaks from tanks) will be reduced around the end of fiscal 2020, but the amount of toxic water could surpass the tank storage capacity depending on the situation…and risks associated with keeping a large amount of tritium-water will remain,” the report said.
Estimate of Consequences from the Fukushima Disaster, Nordic PSA Conference (nuclear utilities in Finland and Sweden), September 2011: Some estimates of contamination of ocean waters were performed […] More than 1.1e17 Bq [110 quadrillion becquerels] of Cs137 in total is estimated to have been released into the ocean. With respect to bio-accumulation and weighting factors for fish and other sea fauna a long-term cycle can be expected and high potential for marine life, sea-birds and human health effects through ingestion over generations.
Manifest Injustice 