Thousands evacuate as Fukishima nuclear emergency is declared

[Magda Hassan]

Leaked Emails Expose NRC's Cover-Up of Safety Concerns Days After Fukushima Disaster

Brandon Baker | March 10, 2014 9:37 am | Comments When an earthquake and tsunami struck Fukushima, Japan leading to a nuclear disaster three years ago, U.S. residents wondered if the aging nuclear facilities in their own country were at risk. What they didn't know is that the federal government's nuclear arm worked actively in the days after the incident, trying to cover up the perils that existed in the states.
According to a report from NBC, a U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) campaign to reassure people about nuclear safety standards coincided with agency experts consistently presenting similar questions behind the scenes. Through a Freedom of Information Act request, NBC acquired a string of March 2011 emails that clearly show the cover-up.
"While we know more than these say, we're sticking to this story for now," Scott Burnell, an NRC public and media relations manager wrote in one email.
Graphic credit: NBC

In the days following the Fukushima disaster, the NRC split its talking points into two segments with different information: "public answer" and "additional technical, non-public information." Here's an example of a question the NRC expected to face, followed by the public and non-public answers:

Q. What happens when/if a plant melts down'?

Public Answer: In short, nuclear power plants in the United States are designed to be safe. To prevent the release of radioactive material, there are multiple barriers between the radioactive material and the environment, including the fuel cladding, the heavy steel reactor vessel itself and the containment building, usually a heavily reinforced structure of concrete and steel several feet thick.

Additional, non-technical, non-public information: The melted core may melt through the bottom of the vessel and flow onto the concrete containment floor. The core may melt through the containment liner and release radioactive material to the environment."

One example of a concerted cover-up came five days after the initial reports that an earthquake and tsunami knocked out the power and cooling systems at the six-reactor Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. MSNBC used NRC estimates to rank the U.S. nuclear plants that were most at risk if an earthquake were to hit nearby land. Burnell and members from the NRC's lobbying arm, the Nuclear Energy Institute, emailed staff members with instructions to find errors in the article, but none came up. He also told experts likely to appear on TV how to deny certain claims.

Graphic credit: NBC

Former U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu appeared on CNN on March 20, 2011 but hesitated when an on-air personality asked him if U.S. nuclear plants could withstand an earthquake that measured 9.0 on the Richter scale. NRC spokesman David McIntyre had his own ideas for how Chu should have handled the question.
Graphic credit: NBC

More than 30 of the country's 100 nuclear power reactors have the same brand of General Electric reactors or containment system that used in Fukushima, according to the NBC report. The median reactor age in the U.S. is 34. The oldest is the Ginna plant near Rochester, N.Y., licensed in 1969. Only four of the reactors began generating power in 1990 or later.
Americans aren't the only ones concerned with old reactors. Last week, 240 Greenpeace activists from national and regional offices took action across Europe to highlight the risk of aging reactors.
http://ecowatch.com/2014/03/10/leaked-em...fukushima/

[Peter Lemkin]

Old is more dangerous for a nuclear reactor than for most any other mechanical system....although all suffer some with age. This is due to the unique embrittlement of metals from the constant bombardment by radioactive particles. Very strong steels [and special ones at that] become as brittle and weak as Scandinavian flat-bread after a long period of bombardment. In theory, parts near to the reaction in the reactor and the vessel itself are to be replaced with new parts...but in reality, rarely is this done - as it takes a long shut down and total disassembly of major parts of the inner workings of the reactor. Many facilities only get 'around' to this when a failure is imminent or has just occurred. The older a nuclear facility, the more likely a very bad accident will occur.......There are so many bad accidents just waiting to happen and getting more so with every day. Add to this factor the increased chance of an external event [crash, bomb, earthquake, etc.] with time and nuclear facilities are accidents waiting to happen. The 'shiny new modern toy' they once were is fading fast. One of the [several] likely reasons for increases of cancer come from both the accidents that have already happened, the waste products and all the nuclear weapons 'tests' plus the two 'applications' in Japan.

[Peter Lemkin]

AMY GOODMAN: Three years ago today, a massive 9.0-magnitude earthquake triggered a devastating tsunami that struck Japan's northeast coast. The twin disasters resulted in an unprecedented nuclear crisis: a triple meltdown at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power station. Three years later, about 267,000 people are still living in temporary housing and other makeshift facilities. Many cannot return home due to high levels of radiation. The cleanup and decommissioning effort at Fukushima could take decades. In February, the owner of the nuclear plant, the Tokyo Electric Power Company, or TEPCO, said about 100 tons of highly radioactive water had leaked from one of the hundreds of storage tanks at the devastated plant. On Sunday, thousands of Japanese residents marched to Parliament and called on the new Japanese government of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe not to restart some of Japan's 48 idled reactors. Speakers at the rally included former Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan, who held the post at the time of the Fukushima meltdown.

NAOTO KAN: [translated] I believe that now is the crucial time for us to eliminate nuclear power, or we forgive the Abe administration, which is going in the opposite direction.

AMY GOODMAN: Since the Fukushima crisis, Naoto Kan has become a vocal critic of nuclear power, saying it's too dangerous for Japan to keep open any of its nuclear plants. Up until the time of Fukushima, he was a longtime supporter nuclear power.
In this exclusive extended broadcast interview, I sat down with former Prime Minister Naoto Kan when we were in Japan in January. I began by asking him to talk about what happened three years ago today, on March 11, 2011. Naoto Kan is translated in the interview by Meri Joyce.

NAOTO KAN: [translated] On that day, at the time of 2:46 in the afternoon on Japanese time, I was at the House of Councillors for a budgetary committee meeting. At that time, the earth started to shake. And then, when the committee went into a break, I returned straight back to go back to the office, and also went, within my official residency there, to the crisis management center, and first trying to gather information about this earthquake and tsunami which had just occurred. And at that time, the first information that we received in regards to the nuclear power plant was that although the earthquake had hit, it was safely stopped, all of the operations at the plant. And so, hearing this information, I initially felt very relieved. However, less than one hour after that, I received information that at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, all of the electricity had been stopped, and not only this, but all of the cooling functions at the plant had failed. And at the time of hearing this information, I felt this terrible chill or cold all over my body and a feeling which I can never forget. And the reason for this was, of course, knowing that even though the nuclear plant had been stopped, for a long time after this it was continuing in this critical situation, and there was the potential risk that the nuclear fuel could actually go into meltdown.

AMY GOODMAN: And so, what did you do?

NAOTO KAN: [translated] So, at the time, one of the first things I did following the nuclear disaster was to set up a control center to deal with this, and set up to lead this center three people in particular, one being a staff from the NISA, one being a representative of the expert academics group on nuclear power safety and regulations, and one person also from representing TEPCO, who was actually the former vice president of the company. And one of the first things that we set up this center to try and do was to find out what the actual situation in the plant was, what was really happening, and also try to make predictions about what would happen from there. However, at that time, at first, it was almost impossible to have any kind of accurate information.

And so, the first thing that we found out at the time was we were considering that the reactor one at Fukushima Daiichi was the most likely to be in a very serious situation and have serious problems. However, even at the night of that first day of March 11, what I was being told, being reported, was that the water levels were safely above the level of where the fuel rods were located within the container. And, however, now we know that actually the measuring equipment to measure the water level was broken at that time. And only four hours after the earthquake occurred, actually, was when it experienced meltdown in the reactor one. And even through the container of thickness 20 centimeters, there was actually a hole being burned through, and melted fuel had been actually leaking through to the outside of the container. And now we know this information, that this was happening at 7:00 p.m. approximately on that day. But at the time, none of this information was accurately conveyed to me.

And this was actually the first incident of an accident where a hole in the pressure container was actuallyor a hole had been created. Even at the time of the Three Mile accident, while there was a partial fuel meltdown inside the container, it wasn't gone to the extent of actually having a hole in the container and leaking through in this way. So the Fukushima accident was the first accident to actually melt down in this kind of way. And it was a situation very close to what we call perhaps the "China syndrome."

And also at this time, because of the high levels of pressure inside the container, there was the need to open the vents to release some of this pressure. However, the debate in regards to how to go about doing this was going between the actual site, the TEPCO headquarters in Tokyo and my officeso, within these three locations, the debate and the discussion going back and forth. And it was very difficult to obtain accurate information and to know what was really happening. And so, the next morning at around 6:00 a.m., very early, I decided that the best thing to do would be to speak directly with the person responsible at the site. So I departed at 6:00 a.m. by helicopter to go to the Fukushima Daiichi site. And there, I met with Mr. Yoshida, who was the person responsible at the plant, and he explained to me about the situation, from his perspective, which was occurring on the site. And he was a very clearly spoken man, which meant that it was very much a plus in terms of considering how to deal with the situation.

AMY GOODMAN: Wasn't TEPCO management saying the same thing to you as this man you spoke to, the head of the actual plant, when you flew there?

NAOTO KAN: [translated] From what I was hearing from the headquarters of TEPCO, and in particular from Mr. Takeguro, who was the former vice president, washad almost no accurate information being conveyed about what was actually the situation on site.

And one other important and serious issue at the time also was, in the case of a nuclear disaster, the system which was in place, well, the prime minister and the prime minister's office would be in the head of, you know, the measures to be taken, the office, of what to be done from there. But the bureaucratic organization which was established to support that function was within the NISA, which is actually located within the Ministry of the Economy. And so, the person who was seconded to explain to me from the NISA about what was happening was actually not an expert on nuclear issues or nuclear power, but an economic expert. And so, through his explanation, it was impossible to know the actual situation of what was happening in the reactor.

And so, through this situation, it really showed to us that in the case of such a severe accident, the whole situation of the allocation of staff which was in place and what should be done in that case and what kind of human resources we needed for that and also what kind of hardware was needed for that, it became clear that no precautions had been put in place, no consideration of what to actually do if a nuclear disaster really happened. This hadn't been prepared for at all.

AMY GOODMAN: What was the worst-case scenario that you understood at this point, Mr. Kan?

NAOTO KAN: [translated] So, at the time that the accident happened and for the first week from there, I didn't return at all to my own house but remained within the office, within the official residence. And every time there I was alone, I would consider, "Well, how much worse can this accident get? How could it expand? What could happen?" So, at the time, what I was thinking about was about the accident at Chernobyl. Of course, the accident there was of huge scale, but there was one reactor in this case, in Chernobyl. However, when we were thinking about the situation at Fukushima, at the Daiichi plant, there are six reactors and seven spent fuel pools. And then, 12 kilometers from there, at the Daini, the second Fukushima nuclear power plant, there are four additional reactors and four spent fuel pools, meaning that when you combine both Daiichi and Daini together, there's 10 reactors and 11 spent fuel pools altogether. And if we were to lose control of all of this, it would mean that the accident, the disaster, could be on a scale of many tens or even hundred times more radioactive materials being released than what happened at Chernobyl. And so, thinking about this made me also think about the risk of the possibility that maybe even areas including Tokyo might need to be evacuated.

And after this, I asked Mr. Kondo, who was the head of the nuclear committee, to simulate what a kind of worst-case scenario could be, and this simulation was presented to me on March the 23rd, I believe it was. And within this scenario, it said that the worst case could mean having to evacuate up to a 250-kilometer radius of the area, as in this map in my book, which I have just shown. And this is almost the same as what I was fearing could be the worst scenario, personally, also. And so, in the case where a 250-kilometer-radius area would have to be evacuated, that would involve 40 percent of the population of the whole country of Japan. This is talking about a population of something like 50 million people. And so, when we think about this, or thinking about Japan as a country in the long term, it would suffer extreme damage. And how to even consider functioning in such a situation? So we were really just on the verge of such a situation as this.

AMY GOODMAN: In their book, Strong in the Rain, the journalists Lucy Birmingham and David McNeill reported that when the NISAthat's the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agencyspokesman Koichiro Nakamura let slip soon after the earthquake that meltdown was a possibility, meaning core fuel melt inside at least one of the reactors, he was removed from his post. Who removed him?

NAOTO KAN: [translated] First of all, in regards to the meltdown, from the very first stages of after the disaster, I was speaking with, of course, the NISA, but also TEPCO and people from the nuclear safety committee and also other experts and so on. And from hearing all of these different opinions, I personally, at least, also felt that there was a risk of potentially experiencing a meltdown.

And so, in regards to how the government at the time was explaining to the public of Japan of what was happening, each day in the morning and afternoon the chief of Cabinet would be giving a press conference to explain the situation. And as well as this, the NISA was also giving their press conferences. And in regards to the content of your specific question, this particular spokesperson gave information that had not actually been reported to the Cabinet's office, to the chief of Cabinet, in advance to this. And there was anyou know, there should have been an agreement where if the NISA was going to be making any such announcements or having this kind of new information, it should be of course reported to the Cabinet office; otherwise, there would be differences in the information which was being presented. And so, I believe that that was perhaps involved in the background about why thisthere was this change in the position and spokesperson. But this decision was not made by politicians, but internally within the organization.

AMY GOODMAN: So, there's the possibility of having 40 percent of Japan evacuated. What happened next?

NAOTO KAN: [translated] And so, first of all, in the case of Japan, we do not have actually a rule forin the case of martial law. Ninety years ago, at the time of the Great Kanto Earthquake, this kind of law was in place, but, however, this kind of function does not exist within the Japanese system. And so, first of all, I was thinking, well, in the case where we would have to evacuate these 50 million people, there would have to be very strong decisions or strong authority in terms of the logistics of thisfor example, transportation or how to go about this. However, at the time when I received the worst-case scenario from Mr. Kondo on March 23rd, this was actuallywe could say that we had managed to avoid perhaps one of the biggest potential crises which could have happened. Although the reactors had already happened to explode at Reactors 1, 3 and 4, and three of the reactors had already by this stage gone through meltdown, it had been possible also to start to inject water, and so the temperature within the reactors was becoming somewhat less. And so, at the time of this report being issued on the 23rd, we could say that hopefully there would not be a need for such a full-scale evacuation as this worst-case scenario laid out.

AMY GOODMAN: Former Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan, one of the most notable opponents of nuclear power since the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster. He was head of the country at the time of the crisis and resigned later that year, but not before he ordered the closure of the Hamaoka Nuclear Power Plant and froze plans to build new reactors. Back with Prime Minister Kan in a moment.
[break]
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I'm Amy Goodman. As we mark the third anniversary of the triple meltdown at the Fukushima nuclear plant in Japan, we return to our exclusive extended interview in Tokyo in the offices of Naoto Kan, Japan's prime minister at the time of the catastrophe.

AMY GOODMAN: Mr. Kan, can you explain your decision to order the TEPCO workers to remain at the plant when TEPCO wanted them removed?

NAOTO KAN: [translated] Well, the first thing which happened at 3:00 a.m. on March the 15th, the minister for the economy came to my office, came to me, and he said that the TEPCO headquarters had requested to him for the workers from the Daiichi site to be withdrawn from their positions. However, then considering what would happen on the site if all of TEPCO's technicians from on site were withdrawn, considering the fact that there were six reactors and four spent fuel pools at the Daiichi site itself, this would mean the potential of beinglosing control completely of this whole site. Even if the Self-Defense Forces, for example, were sent into the location, sent into the site, of course, they are not trained to deal with nuclear operations. So, with no TEPCO staff, no TEPCO technicians on site, this would, in effect, mean actually abandoning all of these six reactors and seven pools on the Daiichi site, which would mean in turn that the worst-case scenario could actually become reality. And so, despite the, of course, huge risk that was there, I decided that it was very important to keep the technicians and the TEPCO workers on site for as long as possible to try and deal with the situation. So I called in the president of TEPCO to tell him this, and also I physically went myself to the headquarters of TEPCO at 4:00 a.m. to directly tell this to the officials of the company.

At the same time, I also decided it was important, to make sure that decision making and information could be done properly between TEPCO and the government, to set up a joint control center. I set this up within the TEPCO headquarters, but brought in Minister Kaeda and also my adviser, Mr. Hosono, in place to be permanently within this control center to work with TEPCO and the government together to try and deal with the situation.

AMY GOODMAN: Who was responsible for this catastrophe, for the meltdown at the reactors?

NAOTO KAN: [translated] First of all, I believe that the fact that all of the electricity was lost through this earthquake and tsunami, but no preparation or no consideration of such accidents or such things happening, and no preparations being made for this, under the assumption that no accidents could happen, and the technical side of things from this, including both the facilities and also the staffing situation, and the lack of ensuring the full safety of the plant, but still continuing to increase nuclear power plants and the situation, the responsibility for this lies on the state of Japan and on the government, including me. There is also responsible on TEPCO as the operator, in fact, of the site for not predicting, not expecting, not planning for such an accident to happen. But politically, of course, the responsibility lies on me, the government at the time, and also the previous government and TEPCO, in charge of the plant.

AMY GOODMAN: There have been questions about another of the owners of the nuclear reactors having higher levee walls to protect the reactors. Here you have TEPCO very close to those that are regulating them. Who in fact was in charge?

NAOTO KAN: [translated] So, the location of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant is originally actually on a high level, originally 35 meters above water. But what happened when the nuclear power plant was constructed is that the soil was actually cut down and built lower so that the plant was actuallythe six reactors were actually, in the end, built at a height of 10 meters above sea level. And so this fact, the fact that although it had originally been 35 meters, but it was changed to be built at 10 meters, if this had not happened, if it had stayed at the original 35, or even 20 meters, then even in the case of a large tsunami, this may have been high enough to prevent this kind of damage. And so, the problem here is the fact that no kind of measures had been put in place, expecting or saying that no such accident, no such disaster, could ever happen.

And in regards to the second part of your question, in regards to regulations, the safety standards for construction and operations of the nuclear power plants was in large set by the Ministry of Economy and within the government. However, when these kind of standards are being decided, there are of course many different experts, nuclear experts and so on, debating on this. However, the influence on these experts by the utility companies is so strong. So this means that, for example, if there are very strict regulations in place, this means a much higher cost for the utilities. And so, these experts and the standards that were setand this is what I have especially learned from studies which have happened, investigations lateris that the standards were set at a level which would be high enough to say to assume to keep safety, but still low to try and keep the costs also as low as possible, as cheap as possible.

AMY GOODMAN: It's very rare for the leader of a country to change their position in the middle of ruling. That's exactly what happened with you when it came to your position on nuclear power. You were for nuclear power, and then you turned against, while you were still a sitting prime minister.

NAOTO KAN: [translated] Before March 11 and the disaster, I was holding the position that if the safety could be ensured, then we should continue to utilize nuclear power, nuclear power plants. But, as you said, this position changed. The Fukushima disaster brought us on the verge of having to evacuate 50 million people, and we were only just one small step away from perhaps facing this kind of situation. So, thinking about how to avoid such a risk, such a situation happening again, of course, there are many technical suggestions and opinions in place, but if we think also of the risk which is posed by, for example, when we consider what happened with the terrorist attacks of 9/11, it's impossible to totally prevent any kind of accident or disaster happening at the nuclear power plants. And so, the one way to prevent this from happening, to prevent the risk, to get rid of the risk of having to evacuate such huge amounts of people, 50 million people, and for the purpose, for the benefit of the lives of our people, and even the economy of Japan, I came to change the position, that the only way to do this, what was necessary to do this, was to totally get rid of the nuclear power plants.

AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to step back. When you were weighing evacuating Tokyo, you had the communities closest to the plant not yet evacuated. The American embassy said Americans should leave. Other international, other foreign governments told their nationals to leave. But Japan, you, the prime minister, did not tell those people at the closest areas, like Futaba. The mayor of Futaba himself evacuated that community. Why?

NAOTO KAN: [translated] So, at the time, the measures which were in place in the case of a nuclear disaster is what is first supposed to be done is to set up a local control center, where the local governments, local municipalities, gather on this off-site center, as we call it, in the case of an earthquake, for example, to decide what to happen, or in the case of the nuclear disaster. However, because of the earthquake, it was not actually possible for these people to actually gather at an early stage, and also because of the high levels of radiation. So this meant that this off-site center was not able to function as it should have in the plan. And so, what did happen, in order to decide upon the policies for evacuation, how to do this, was those who gathered at the prime minister's office, so the NISA and also the TEPCO and experts and so on, debated this. In particular, Mr. [Madarame], who was in charge of the nuclear safety committee, was giving advice about this, and upon the advice of Mr. Madarame is how this decision and the policy was put in place for the evacuation.

And so, upon hearing reports of the fact that the cooling functions at the plant had stopped, the first thing that we did was to evacuate those within the five-kilometer radius of the plant, and then, from here, expanding to the 10, 15, 20 and 30 kilometers, giving instructions for people to remain indoors. And this was done straightaway on the days of March 11 and March 12. And so, upon the advice and recommendations of experts as we were thinking how to set these evacuation zones, and when and how, one of the considerations was that if the broader evacuation zone had been set right from the beginning, then those who were living closest to the plant, because of transportation and congestion, may not actually be able to leave the area. And so the decision was made to first evacuate those closest to the plant, so within the five-kilometer zone. And then, from there, we gradually expanded to 10, 15, 20 and so on. At the time, I had been hearing also and we were aware of the instructions which had been given, for example, by the United States embassy and the embassies of other countries for their citizens within, for example, 50 miles to evacuate. However, in the case, of course, from the position of the Japanese government, there are so many citizens living within this area, so to move this number of people all at once was something we had to really consider how this could be feasible.

AMY GOODMAN: Mr. Kan, can you explain what the "nuclear village" is?

NAOTO KAN: [translated] This is the strongest pressure group politically, socially, and in terms of even influence on the media, the most powerful of this kind of network, shall we say, and even now having huge influence.

AMY GOODMAN: Do you think the nuclear village brought you down?

NAOTO KAN: [translated] In regards to the reason why I left the position of prime minister, I don't believe the influence of the nuclear village was necessarily so strong. More than that, the problems within the party and within the Diet were more the reasons for this. But if I were asked whether they had zero influence, well, considering that I changed the policy and I put forward the path to nuclear phaseout, to zero nuclear, and because of this, there was various misinformation and criticism which was put forward by the village against this, and so I could not say that there was absolutely no influence at all.

AMY GOODMAN: You have said that the meltdown at Fukushima was the most serious accident in the history of mankind. More serious than Chernobyl?

NAOTO KAN: [translated] I believe that the nuclear disaster at Fukushima was one of theor was definitely the largest, most severe of all nuclear disasters, including going above Chernobyl. The reason for this, as I mentioned before, is the accident itself in Chernobyl was of course immense, but it was one reactor in this case. In the case of Fukushima, we have the meltdown, the melt-through of three reactors, and not only this, but the high number of spent fuel pools also. And even now, radioactive material is continuing to be released in Fukushima. And this is having a very long-lasting effect that will continue from now. So because of this, I believe that the disaster at Fukushima was larger than that of Chernobyl and is still continuing today.

AMY GOODMAN: Do you think that the food and water of Japan is now safe?

NAOTO KAN: [translated] In regards to the food and water, there is very thorough monitoring taking place. And so, that which is actually going for sale or to market is only that which has gone through this monitoring and testing and has been declared to be within the safe standards. And so, because of this, I believe that the food which is available on the market is safe. However, when we consider that there is still the issue of contaminated water on the site of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant being unresolved, and the fact that decontamination efforts are continuing, but in many places this remains insufficient, while it can be said that perhaps the food which is actually going onto the market is safe, we cannot say that the situation has returned to as it was.

AMY GOODMAN: Is part of the reason for the push for nuclear power, even after Fukushimado you think it has to do with nuclear weapons, with developing plutonium?

NAOTO KAN: [translated] In regards to considering countries which are considering or wanting to build new nuclear power plants, I believe that there are two main reasons for this. One is in the situation particularly of countries which are, for example, at the moment reliant on buying natural gas from Russia, wanting to be not controlled or not having to completely follow Russia for this, but to be energy-independent. And so, for example, the country of Estonia, which did actually decide not to build its nuclear power plant, but is perhaps one example of this. And the next major reason, I believe, is also because, of course, if nuclear power plants are built, this also does lead to creation of plutonium. And so, this leads to the latent capability to create nuclear weapons. And so, having this is also one reason that I believe some countries consider building or having nuclear power, so keeping the future possibility of this. And this is a reason which I think cannot be denied.

AMY GOODMAN: Months after the nuclear meltdown at Fukushima, you went to the 66th anniversary of the U.S. atomic bombing of Hiroshima. It was August 6, 2011, that you went for the memorial service. What is the connection between nuclear weapons and nuclear power?

NAOTO KAN: [translated] Well, first of all, in regards to the anniversary memorials of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, I participated in these as almost all prime ministers of Japan do every year, so attendance at this ceremony was not necessarily because or connected to Fukushima, but something which occurs every year. However, of course, there is a fundamental connection between Fukushima and Hiroshima, Nagasaki, between nuclear power and nuclear weapons. The technology of nuclear reactors was actually developed, of course, through the Manhattan Project, and it is through the development of foreign nuclear weapons, nuclear bombs, that the technology for nuclear power plants came about, and the same technology is being used within this. So there is this fundamental link between the two. As well as it's through the creation of plutonium, this connects to, of course, the development of nuclear weapons, which threaten the whole of humanity, and also nuclear power, which puts all of humanity at a huge risk. So I personally believe that it is important to abolish both of these, both nuclear weapons and nuclear power plants. Of course, in the case of Japan, we do not possess nuclear weapons, so we're working now here in Japan to prevent or to get rid of nuclear power plants.

AMY GOODMAN: In 2011, Shigeru Ishiba, a former defense minister, said, "I don't think Japan needs to possess nuclear weapons, but it's important to maintain our commercial reactors because it would allow us to produce a nuclear warhead in a short amount of time. It's a tacit nuclear deterrent." Can you comment on this, Mr. Kan?

NAOTO KAN: [translated] This way of thinking is something which has existed since a long time ago, particularly within the Liberal Democratic Party. Actually, nuclear power was first promoted within Japan by the former prime minister, Nakasone, and the reason for this was very similar to the reason in Mr. Ishiba's statement. I personally believe that for Japan, developing nuclear weapons is not an option for Japan and not something that is necessary at all.

AMY GOODMAN: Why do you think the current Japanese prime minister, Shinzo Abe, is so pro-nuclear, even after Fukushima?

NAOTO KAN: [translated] I believe that in the case of Prime Minister Abe, he is not necessarily more pro-nuclear power or stronger for nuclear power than other previous LDP prime ministers. However, the biggest problem, the biggest issue, is the fact that he is continuing to push for this even after the experience of Fukushima. So, the situationI don't believe that the current LDP, including Prime Minister Abe, is necessarily more strongly pro-nuclear than they have been in the past, but I just cannot understand why he can make the decision, how he can make the decision that even having the risk of having to evacuate 50 million people, residents, he still wants to promote nuclear power. Why we have to bear such a risk, I just cannot understand this.

AMY GOODMAN: It's said that there could be an even larger earthquake in the Tokai trench area of central Japan. Could this lead to a disaster like Fukushima, or even larger?

NAOTO KAN: [translated] I believe that such a risk does exist. It is not possible to prevent natural disasters such as earthquakes and tsunami. But humans can stop, can prevent man-made disasters, such as nuclear disasters. If a disaster does happen, as, for example, an earthquake in the Tokai trench, that is exactly why we need to stop nuclear power plants now. Japan is a country, an area very prone to natural disasters, similar to the West Coast of the United States, for example. And this is why it's so important to get rid of the nuclear power plants now, because even though we cannot prevent the natural disasters, it is possible for us to prevent nuclear disasters.

AMY GOODMAN: Can Japan secure its energy future without nuclear power??

NAOTO KAN: [translated] I believe that indeed it is very much possible for Japan to secure its energy needs without relying on nuclear power. My last job when I was in the position of prime minister was to introduce the feed-in tariff. And that system, which has now been in place for one-and-a-half years, has led to now there are applications in place for, in the case of solar power, up to 20 million kilowatts of energy to be produced through solar. And actually, already in operation is 3.5 million kilowatts, in just this one year. And so, considering this equivalent capacity, that is almost the same as, for example, 20 nuclear power plants. So, if we consider what could be done in 10 years, 20 years, I believe that it is very much possible to replace the proportion of electricity and energy needs which were covered by nuclear power with renewable energy. And also, up to the year 2050, I believe it is very much possible to decrease the reliance on fossil fuels and cover the majority of power needs by our energyby renewable energy. Japan can follow the path that, for example, Germany is going on now, and Japan has enough technological capacity to do this.

AMY GOODMAN: You're traveling the world, and you've come to the United States. What's your international message, and particularly for President Obama, who is pushing for the building of more nuclear power plants? This hasn't happened in close to 40 years because of the anti-nuclear movement and the costs of insuring nuclear power plants, as well as dealing with the nuclear waste. What would you say specifically to President Obama?

NAOTO KAN: [translated] In regards to the situation in the United States, I have actually been there several times recently and heard from people involved. And I believe that actually the situation, well, there is no creation of new nuclear power plants because of the aging nature of many of the plants. There is actually moves towardsor reduction of the number of nuclear power plants. At the peak, I heard that there was about 150 plants in Japanin the United States, sorry, and the number now, I hear, is at around 95. But I believe the big reason for this is the disaster at Fukushima showed the cost of how much it is to maintain the safety of the nuclear power plants, and really showing that economically also, rather than relying on these nuclear power plants, but it's more economically beneficial to look for other options of energy, including also perhaps fossil fuels and shale gas. So I believe that while there are many plans in place for the construction of new nuclear power plants, they are not actually physically going into the construction phase for this. So my message to Obama would be: When considering energy policy from now and considering the issues and the problems of cost and also nuclear waste, while it may have been once said that there was a nuclear renaissance, nuclear technology now is clearly old and dangerous technology, and we need to be looking at other ways.

And finally, there is one point which I would like to share also, through many different discussions and visiting the United States and so on, but one thing which has left a very deep impression on me through exchange and discussions with the former NRC chair, Gregory Jaczko, and the thing that he said to me was: We don't know when or where a nuclear disaster may happen, but we do know that it may happen. And so, we need to think not that this won't happen, but think about what to do if this does, or how to prevent this from happening. And he, when he was in Japan, met with many people from Fukushima, many people who it directly affected and suffering from the disaster. And what he said was that nuclear power plants should not be built in places near where people would have to evacuate if something did happen. And this is the reason, for example, I hear, why he was against the extension of the Pilgrim plant near Boston. And I also very much share this opinion with him. Nuclear power plants should not be built in any kind of location where people would have to evacuate if something were to happen. So when we consider that in the case of Japan, there is nowhere where nuclear power plants could be built, should be built. And within the whole world also, I believe there is no or probably almost no places where a nuclear power plant should be built. So I would like to share this, finally.

AMY GOODMAN: What message do you have for anti-nuclear grassroots activists for reaching the old you, the prime minister of Japan, who was pro-nuclear?

NAOTO KAN: [translated] I personally have visited California, New York and Boston on the invitation of such grassroots anti-nuclear activists, and speaking with them and hearing about what they're doing and also visiting Taiwan in a similar capacity. I feel that of course it is important to speak or to approach presidents, Congress, parliaments, but more than this, we need to look at the local level, how you can speak with your municipal government, mayors, state governor, for example, and how to approach and work with local political leaders is the most effective. In the case, for example, of the decision to decommission the San Onofre plant in California, I believe that this was crucial for this point also. So it's very important. My message that I would like to share for grassroots activists is to remember to not only look at the national, but also think about how you can actually approach your local politicians to work for this.

AMY GOODMAN: Mr. Naoto Kan, arigatou gozaimasu. Thank you very much.

[Peter Lemkin]

Fukushima Fallout: Ailing U.S. Sailors Sue TEPCO After Exposure to Radiation 30x Higher Than Normal

Three years after the triple meltdown at the Fukushima nuclear power plant, scores of U.S. sailors and marines are suing the plant's operator, the Tokyo Electric Power Company, for allegedly misleading the Navy about the level of radioactive contamination. Many of the servicemembers who provided humanitarian relief during the disaster have experienced devastating health ailments since returning from Japan, ranging from leukemia to blindness to infertility to birth defects. We are joined by three guests: Lieutenant Steve Simmons, a U.S. Navy sailor who served on board the USS Ronald Reagan and joined in the class action lawsuit against TEPCO after suffering health problems; Charles Bonner, an attorney for the sailors; and Kyle Cleveland, sociology professor and associate director of the Institute for Contemporary Asian Studies at Temple University's Japan campus in Tokyo. Cleveland recently published transcripts of the Navy's phone conversations about Fukushima that took place at the time of the disaster, which suggest commanders were also aware of the risk faced by sailors on the USS Ronald Reagan.

Transcript

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: Three years ago this month, our next guest, Navy Lieutenant Steve Simmons was stationed aboard the USS Ronald Reagan off the coast of Japan. The aircraft carrier provided humanitarian assistance in the days after the massive 9.0-magnitude earthquake and tsunami devastated Japan's northeast coast. Simmons, along with thousands of other emergency responders on the USS Reagan, were diverted from their naval exercises in the Pacific Ocean and steered to Japan's decimated coastline to distribute food parcels, clothes and blankets to victims. At the time, they were unaware they were entering into an unprecedented nuclear crisis: a triple meltdown at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power station.
AMY GOODMAN: Shortly after returning home, Steve Simmons blacked out while driving. Then he began regularly experiencing gastrointestinal problems and soaring fevers. Within months, Simmons' legs buckled. He was no longer able to walk. He's one of many first responders who say they've experienced devastating health ailments since returning from Japan, health ailments ranging from leukemia to blindness, to infertility, to birth defects.
Simmons is now part of a class action lawsuit against the plant's operator, Tokyo Electric Power Company, or TEPCO, that accuses the utility of failing to disclose the risks of radiation exposure. Navy sailor Lindsay Cooper and marine Mathew Bradley are also part of the lawsuit.

MATHEW BRADLEY: This degenerative disease in my lower back, and I have no family history of it. And I have no accident that could have caused it. And I have some digestion problems, as well, and stomach pain, as well.

LINDSAY COOPER: Right now I have a lot of weight issues and thyroid issues, issues that I didn't have before I came in and then issues that I didn't have after I had my child. But I'm justI personally can't afford to go to a doctor and get checked out, like the others can. I'm kind of almost nervous, if you want to sayI'm really nervous to find out what's going to happen.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: That was Lindsay Cooper and Mathew Bradley speaking to the Ecological Options Network.
Now, recently obtained phone conversations suggest the U.S. Navy was also aware of the risk faced by sailors on the USS Ronald Reagan responding to the Fukushima disaster. The conversations, obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, feature naval officials who acknowledge that even while a hundred miles away from Fukushima, the carrier was exposed to levels of radiation that were 30 times greater than normal.
AMY GOODMAN: The transcript also contains discussion of health impacts that could come within a matter of 10 hours of exposure, including thyroid problems. However, the Navy leadership continues to deny sailors were exposed to harmful levels of radiation, even though those aboard were later told to scrub the ship and equipment in protective suits.
Democracy Now! invited a member of the Navy to join us on the show, but they declined. However, Lieutenant Greg Raelson of the Navy's Office did speak to us briefly, saying servicemembers who participated in Operation Tomodachi, the Fukushima relief effort, were not at risk of radiation poisoning.

LT. GREG RAELSON: There's no indication that any U.S. personnel supporting Operation Tomodachi experienced radiation exposure at levels associated with the occurrence of long-term health effects. The tri-service dose assessment and registry working group studied the available data. And their report, which was peer-reviewed by a non-government counsel of subject matter experts, determined that the highest whole-body dose to any crew member doesn't present any risk greater than normally accepted during everyday life.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, for more, we are joined now by three guests.
In Washington, D.C., Lieutenant Steve Simmons is with us, the U.S. Navy sailor who served on board the USS Ronald Reagan, participating in the class action lawsuit against TEPCO. This April, Simmons will "medically retire" from the military.
In San Francisco, California, we're joined by one of his attorneys, Charles Bonner, who is representing the class action lawsuit.
And via Democracy Now! video stream from Yokohama, Japan, we're joined by Kyle Cleveland, sociology professor and associate director for the Institute for Contemporary Asian Studies at Temple University's Japan campus in Tokyo. Cleveland's recent article in The Asia-Pacific Journal is called "Mobilizing Nuclear Bias: The Fukushima Nuclear Crisis and the Politics of Uncertainty." In it, he published transcripts of the Navy's phone conversations about Fukushima that took place back in March of 2011, three years ago at the time of the disaster.
We welcome you all to Democracy Now! Let's go first to Lieutenant Steve Simmons, the U.S. Navy sailor who participated in the Fukushima relief efforts. Can you talk, Lieutenant Simmons, about what happened on March 11th, 2011, three years ago? Where were you, and what were you called to do?
LT. STEVE SIMMONS: Well, afterafter the earthquake and tsunami that devastated the shores of Japan, wethe Ronald Reagan had already been on a scheduled deployment, and following that earthquake and tsunami, we were called away from our exercise there in the Pacific to provide humanitarian assistance to the citizens of Japan.
AMY GOODMAN: And what happened next?
LT. STEVE SIMMONS: We arrived on, if I remember correctly, the 12th of March, so the following day, which had been after the first reactor had already melted down. And the understanding of everybody on board was that there was no health risk, no dangers, as far as the radiation exposure goes. At one point, we had actually sat in the plume off the reactor for approximately five hours. And another time, we actually had to secure the water system, because we actually had brought contaminants up into the water.
AMY GOODMAN: How close were you to it?
LT. STEVE SIMMONS: Honestly, at this point, I hear conflicting stories each time. I know theI've seen photos where you can clearly see the mountains of Japan right there in the background. So, if I remember correctly, the human eye can only see about 17 miles on the horizon, so you're clearly within visible distance. But then there's also reports that we were no closer than 160 miles. So, at this point, which one's accurate, I'm not exactlyyou know, I would have to believe the photos.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Lieutenant Simmons, at the time, you weren't aware that you were being exposed to any radiation. When did you start feeling the impact on your health? And what are some of the things that have happened since?
LT. STEVE SIMMONS: It wasn't until November of 2011. We returned in September. At the end of November, I had started noticing something was wrong. The first thing wasI was actually driving into work. I was driving down Route 50 heading into Arlington, and I blacked out and drove my truck up on a curb. Following that, I started coming down with what maybe I thought was just maybe a flu, started running fevers. I dropped about 20 to 25 pounds unexpectedly and then started experiencing night sweats, difficulty sleeping, and had been back and forth to the doctor numerous times for lab work and other studies to try to figure out what's been going on. And from January to March of 2012, I had been hospitalized tree different times.
The first hospitalization, they couldn't figure anything out. The only thing they supposedly came up with was a sinus infection, and just kind of blew off the thought that radiation had anything to do with it. In fact, the intern told me that if it was radiation, I hadI should have seen symptoms long before now. Three days later, after I was discharged, I was back in the hospital because my lymph nodes started swelling, and still running constant fevers as high as 102.9.
During the second hospitalization is when I was actually just coming out of the restroom, and my legs buckled on me. And at that pointfrom that point on, they hadn't been the same. It had beenit's probably about April time frame when I started using a wheelchair for long distances. And then, by the summer of '12, I had to start using a wheelchair full-time. Every time I would try to stand or do anything, my legs would shake and muscles start twitching. And it just progressed from there, and now the muscle weakness affects my legs, my arms, my hands. And now everything is still progressing, and there's now issues with signals going from the brain to bladder, as well. So that's another issue that I'm dealing with now.
AMY GOODMAN: You're sitting in a wheelchair right now?
LT. STEVE SIMMONS: I am.
AMY GOODMAN: We also wanted to bring Charles Bonner into the conversation from San Francisco. Charles Bonner, can you talk about the other people who are part of this class action suit? How did you find out about them? What are the ailments they are experiencing?
CHARLES BONNER: Yes, thank you very much, Amy, for having me on your show.
We initially started out with only eight plaintiffs, eight people who had contacted us as of December of 2012. By June of 2013, we had 51 sailors and marines who had contacted us with various illnesses, including thyroid cancers, testicular cancers, brain cancers, unusual uterine problems, excessive uterine bleeding, all kinds of gynecological problems, problems that you do not see in a population of 20-year-olds, 22-year-olds, 23-year-olds, even 35-year-olds, as is Lieutenant Simmons, his age. So, now we have filed a class action for approximately a hundred sailors. And every day we're still receiving calls from sailors with these various problems. Just a couple of days ago, I received a call from a father whose son now has lung cancer. The total number of sailors who responded to this Operation Tomodachi"tomodachi" is a Japanese word meaning "friend," so this was an operation helping our friendsthe total number of U.S. sailors who responded was approximately 24,000. But there were a total of 70,000 U.S. servicemen and women who ultimately were first responders, and that include servicemen and women who were based in Japan.
So we have filed this class action lawsuit on behalf of all of them, because one thing is very clear: They all were exposed to radiation. We can debate the level of radiation, and we are not suing the Navy, and we are not accusing the Navy of having done anything improper. Of course, no one in the Navy would knowingly expose these young sailors and marines to high levels of radiation, radiations that one commander measured at 30 times normal, and 30 times more than what TEPCO, the Tokyo Electric Power Company, represented to the public and to the U.S. Navy. The responsible party for these young sailors' injury is the Tokyo Electric Power Company, the fourth-largest power company in the world.
Tokyo Electric Power Company failed to tell the public, including the Navy, that they were in an active meltdown. They had a triple meltdown following the earthquake and the tsunami. They didn't have batteries. They didn't have backup power. They didn't have any kind of auxiliary water supply to cool these reactors down. They actually called to the headquarters of Tokyo Electric Power Company for the power company to dispatch batteries to them, and they did, but the trucks carrying the batteries got mired into traffic because of the tsunami. So, meanwhile, you had these managers frantically in the dark trying to figure out what to do. They sent their workers out into the dark to get car batteries, so these workers, in the storm, raising their hoods, extracting car batteries, going back in with flashlights, trying to figure out how to connect the batteries to the water supply so that they can cool the reactors.
Meanwhile, these young sailors on board the USS Ronald Reagan are cruising into this unknown. They do not know all of this disaster is occurring. But more importantly, TEPCO does not tell them that they are in an active meltdown, that the reactor number one has melted down within four hours following the earthquake, and there have been all kinds of explosions. Major releases are happening. There's radioactive releases, including 300 tons of radioactive water is being released into the Pacific Ocean. And as Mr. Simmons will tell you, these young sailors were using this desalinated water. They were bathing in it. They were brushing their teeth with it. They were cooking with it. And so, they were ingesting this radiation both through food and water, as well as the air. And now they're all sick. And so, we have to put the sailors first. This is Operation Tomodachi; now it's operation help our friends, the U.S. sailors and young marines. They have all kinds of problems.
I'd like to just take one second and read you just a paragraph from one declaration from one of our young lady sailors. She's 32, and she states that, quote, "During Operation Tomodachi, I began having migraine headaches, irregular menstrual cycles, knee surgery, breast surgery and leg surgery to remove unexplained mass from these areas." This radiation not only hurts the young sailors, but it hurts their offsprings. This is a declaration from the wife of a sailor, who writes in her declaration to the court, "My husband was exposed to radiation particles while assigned to the Seventh Fleet on the USS Ronald Reagan assisting in Operation Tomodachi beginning in March of 2011. As a result of this exposure, our son, who was born on November 14, 2012, at eight months was diagnosed with brain and spine cancer." These are just a few examples of what these young sailors are dealing with.
And one last report. This is a sailor who's 22, has been diagnosed with leukemia and is losing his eyesight. And he writes in his declaration to the court, "Upon my return from Operation Tomodachi, I began losing my eyesight. I lost all vision in my left eye and most vision in my right eye. I am unable to read street signs, and I am no longer able to drive. Prior to Operation Tomodachi, I had 20/20 eyesight, wore no glasses and had no corrective eye surgery. Additionally, I know of no family member who have had leukemia." So these are the examples of the kinds of illnesses and injuries that these young sailors are experiencing.
AMY GOODMAN: We're going to break and then come back to this discussion. Charles Bonner, attorney, joining us from San Francisco; Lieutenant Steve Simmons, a U.S. Navy sailor. And when we come back, we'll also be joined by Kyle Cleveland. He's a professor. He'll join us from Yokohama, Japan, to talk about documents he obtained of backstage conversations among U.S. officials about the radiation risk at the time that all of this was happening three years ago this month. This is Democracy Now! Back in a minute.
[break]
AMY GOODMAN: We're talking about a class action suit that has been brought by marines and U.S. sailors against TEPCO, the Tokyo Electric Power Company, that runs the nuclear power plants that melted down Marchin that week of March 11, 2011, after the earthquake led to the tsunami that created this catastrophe. Our guests are Lieutenant Steve Simmons, who was a sailor who participated on the USS Reagan in relief efforts, now suffering from very serious health ailments potentially related to radiation exposure, one of the plaintiffs in the suit. We're also joined by his attorney, the class action attorney, Charles Bonner. He's in San Francisco. And we now go to Professor Kyle Cleveland, who recently wrote "Mobilizing Nuclear Bias: The Fukushima Nuclear Crisis and the Politics of Uncertainty."
Kyle Cleveland, thanks for joining us from Japan. Talk about the backstage conversations that were taking place among the U.S. military and U.S. officials. And how did you get a hold of these conversations?
KYLE CLEVELAND: The documents you're referring to are through the Freedom of Information Act, and these were documents that were made available maybe six or eight months after the crisis started, through the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. And in these documents, these were transcribed telephone conversations between NRC officials and Washington, D.C., embassy and diplomatic staff in Tokyo, and also people in Pacific Command or United States Forces Japan, principally the Navy.
And what those documents reveal is that there was a lot of backstage discussion by these experts, who were trying to assess just how bad the situation was. I think you quoted in the document a discussion in which they were sayingthis is on, I think, March 13ththat they were picking up rates at about a hundred nautical miles out from the plant that were 30 times above background and would represent a thyroid dose, a committed dose equivalent to the thyroidthat in a 10-hour period would exceed the protective action guidelines set up by the Department of Energy.
So, in my research, I've interviewed some 160 people, including diplomats and diplomatic staff and people within the various nuclear agencies. It's been quite interesting to see that at that period of time, particularly in about the first 10 days or so after the crisis began, there was a great deal of disagreement and a great deal of debate backstage about just how bad this was and what those rates represented and whether or not they could verify this. Now, keep in mind that TEPCO, at this period of time, in the period of time that we're talking about where the Reagan sailors would have been exposed, they were trying tofrantically trying to deal with the situation. They were in a station blackout. And even though they knew that the radiation levels were quite high, that wasn't really making it into the public.
When we talk about TEPCO, I think it's important to make a distinction between the operational staff at the plant, who were really working desperately 24 hours a day to deal with this, and the TEPCO officials, including their spokesmen, who were really downplaying the situation. And anyone who followed the situation at that time, it was quite confusing. It was very frustrating that in every stage of this, they were downplaying just how bad it was. And so, in the first few days, the United States really had no information that they could act upon. And so, very quickly, they set up their own radiation assessment. You know, the United States has a great deal of military assets in Japan, some 82 military bases, and their own radiation measurements, starting about on the 13th or 14th of March and going for months after that, were revealing that the situation was really quite a bit more severe than what TEPCO was acknowledging.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: According to the documents that you saw about these conversations, the Navy was aware that the sailors on the USS Reagan would be exposed to dangerous levels of radiation?
KYLE CLEVELAND: Well, what they werethe readings that they were getting, these were coming from helicopters that were flying relief missions for the tsunami effort. They had landed on a Japanese command ship that was about 50 miles away from the plant, and the measurements that they were getting clearly alarmed them. These were readings much higher than they expected. In the documentationagain, the Freedom of Information Act documentsthey did not anticipate that they would have really any readings of significance at a hundred nautical miles, and yet they were getting readings that werethat would exceed the protective action guideline dose in a 10-hour period. So, they were aware that they were getting hit by this radiation. Keep in mind, in the first week or so of the crisis, at least the first four or five days, the wind was blowing out to sea, and aside from these inland communities very close to the reactor, the first people that were hit by this plume were the U.S. military. And these nuclear aircraft carriers are arguably some of the most sophisticated radiation-measuring devices in the world. And what those documents reveal is that their alarms set off at very consistent levels, and they saw that they were getting rates that were surprising them. The issue of whether
AMY GOODMAN: So, Professor Cleveland, why isn't the U.S. Navy responsible for this as well as TEPCO, as Japan, the nuclear power company?
KYLE CLEVELAND: Well, I think that the real question is whether or not the U.S. government, and the U.S. Navy, in particular, took the appropriate protective action measures, given the information that they had available at the time. You know, it's very easy now to look in retrospect and make these kind of severe judgments about this, now that we have more information and there's a lot more transparency to this. But at the time, they had very little information to act on.
And from what I've gathered, at least from my interviews, they immediately were trying to take protective measures. They moved the carrier off. They did stop the water supply after they saw that it had become contaminated. For many of the servicemen who were close in, they provided potassium iodine to protect them against thyroid doses. And they set up also a radiation registry, called the Tomodachi Registry, which is still publicly available as an online interactive website, that allows servicemen and anyone who was in Japan at that time in proximity to the plant to go on and see where they were at a given day and what their estimated dose exposures were. So, I think the United States government and the Navy was doing whatever they could.
Keep in mind that many of the officers and the administrative staff that were dealing with this, they were on the ship themselves, or they were at the military bases in Japan, where their families were living, and they were also being exposed to this. So, I think that, you know, for many people who were not privy to these backstage discussions and these kind of elite-level decision makers and the kind of rationale and reasons for why they were making their decisions, it may seem that somehow it was unreasonable and unfair. But when you scrutinize it closely, I think that they were trying to take the appropriate protective actions. The question of whether or not that was useful and whether or not they were in fact the best measures they could take is kind of another question.
AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to go back to Naoto Kan, an interview we did on the third anniversary of the meltdowns, March 11th. Naoto Kan was the prime minister of Japan when the Fukushima Daiichi meltdown occurred. I spoke to him in Tokyo when we broadcast from Japan weeks ago. The former prime minister spoke about the inaccuracy of the information TEPCO provided to him at the time of the disaster.

NAOTO KAN: [translated] From what I was hearing from the headquarters of TEPCO, and in particular from Mr. Takeguro, who was the former vice president, washad almost no accurate information being conveyed about what was actually the situation on site.

AMY GOODMAN: The former prime minister of Naotothe former prime minister of Japan. He went on to say that he flew to the nuclear plant, because he couldn't get accurate information from TEPCO officials, to speak to workers, where he could get accurate information. I wanted to go back to Lieutenant Steve Simmons. What was your health like before March 11th, 2011, three years ago?
LT. STEVE SIMMONS: Before March, I was actually in what I would like to consider relatively good health. I was physically active. I had been doing P90X and Insanity workouts, and oftentimes kind of a hybrid between the two of them. And the summer of 2010, when I was down in Hawaii, one day I had met up with a friend and gone out and did a trail run, the following day hiked Diamond Head. And then, afterthe day or so after that, I went and hiked Stairway to Heaven. So, I was in pretty good health.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Lieutenant Simmons, can you explain when you decided to join this lawsuit and what you'd like to see happen now?
LT. STEVE SIMMONS: It wasn'twell, for a long time, actually, after my ailments started, I had tried to find out if there was anybody else that was dealing with similar issues or other ailments related from that deployment. And I had reached out to some of the other folks that I was stationed with on board the Reagan, and they hadn't heard anything. And it wasn't until, I think, December of '12, when my wife's sister had actually sent her a news article talking about the original plaintiffs of the case. Shortly after that, I had reached out to Paul and his team and inquired with them about it and sent them my information. And it reallyfor me, it comes down to the fact that, like Charles said, a lot of these sailors and marines are in their early twenties, mid-twenties, and they haven't had the luxury that I've had to do 16 years of the service and be awarded the opportunity for medical retirement. And these young sailors and marines need to be taken care of. And that was the main driving force for me to come forward and bring my information to Paul and Charles to help strengthen their case, to make sure that these individuals are taken care of in the manner that they deserve.
AMY GOODMAN: How many people were on the USS Reagan?
LT. STEVE SIMMONS: Approximately 5,500.

[Peter Lemkin]

Fukushima Daiichi begins pumping groundwater into Pacific

Tepco hails 'major milestone' in cleanup operation three years after earthquake and tsunami damaged reactors at nuclear plant

Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant in Japan: the buildup of toxic water is the most urgent problem facing workers at the plant. Photograph: AP

The operator of the wrecked Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant has started pumping groundwater into the Pacific ocean in an attempt to manage the large volume of contaminated water at the site.
Tokyo Electric Power (Tepco) said it had released 560 tonnes of groundwater pumped from 12 wells located upstream from the damaged reactors. The water had been temporarily stored in a tank so it could undergo safety checks before being released, the firm added.
The buildup of toxic water is the most urgent problem facing workers at the plant, almost two years after the environment ministry said 300 tonnes of contaminated groundwater from Fukushima Daiichi was seeping into the ocean every day.
The groundwater, which flows in from hills behind the plant, mixes with contaminated water used to cool melted fuel before ending up in the sea. Officials concede that decommissioning the reactors will be impossible until the water issue has been resolved.
The bypass system intercepts clean groundwater as it flows downhill toward the sea and reroutes it around the plant. It is expected to reduce the amount of water flowing into the reactor basements by up to 100 tonnes a day a quarter and relieve pressure on the storage tanks, which will soon reach their capacity.
But the system does not include the coolant water that becomes dangerously contaminated after it is pumped into the basements of three reactors that suffered meltdown after the plant was struck by an earthquake and tsunami in March 2011.
That water will continue to be stored in more than 1,000 tanks at the site, while officials debate how to safely dispose of it. The problem has been compounded by frequent technical glitches afflicting the plant's water purification system.
Tepco and the government are also preparing to build an underground frozen wall around four reactors to block groundwater, although some experts doubt the technology will work on such a large scale. The utility is also building more tanks to increase storage capacity.
Dale Klein, a senior adviser to Tepco, recently warned the firm that it may have no choice but to eventually dump contaminated water into the Pacific.
The first groundwater release went ahead after Tepco assured local fishermen that levels of radioactive isotopes were far lower than those permitted in drinking water by the World Health Organisation.
Tepco described the move as a "major milestone", adding: "The water's quality is monitored regularly by independent third parties using safety and environmental standards more stringent than those set by Japanese law."
The release comes after a Japanese newspaper revealed that almost all of the workers who were at Fukushima Daiichi when a reactor building exploded in March 2011 panicked and fled, defying orders to remain at the site.
The small number of workers, along with firefighters, and soldiers nicknamed the Fukushima 50 who did stay behind, working in shifts around the clock to cool nuclear fuel, have been fêted for their heroics.
But the Asahi Shimbun, citing leaked transcripts of testimony from the plant's then manager, Masao Yoshida, revealed this week that of the 720 workers present when a reactor building exploded on 15 March, 650 fled to another power plant about six miles (10km) away. Yoshida died of cancer last July.
While the Fukushima cleanup continues, government plans to restart some nuclear reactors were in doubt on Wednesday when a court ordered the operator of a plant in western Japan not to put the facility back online, citing safety concerns.
In a rare victory for anti-nuclear campaigners, the court in Fukui prefecture said Kansai Electric Power should not restart two reactors at Oi nuclear power plant.
All of Japan's dozens of nuclear reactors are idle after being shut down for safety checks in the wake of the Fukushima disaster.
"Plaintiffs have rarely won. This is right in the middle of the restart process … it could have very well have repercussions," said Aileen Mioko Smith, executive director of Green Action.
Kansai Electric said it would appeal against the decision.




[from the Guardian, May 21, 2014]

[Peter Lemkin]

::
An estimated 300 tons of contaminated groundwater are believed to be flowing into the ocean every day, and experts say the more than 1,000 storage tanks overlooking the site pose an even greater hazard. (photo: EcoWatch)

SNAFUkushima: Updating Meltdowns, Still FUBAR and Deteriorating

By William Boardman, Reader Supported News
23 May 14

Fallout from Fukushima? A re-make of Godzilla! That's the good news

here's not much new to say about Fukushima. It remains an out of control disaster with as yet unmeasurable dimensions that continue to expand. Or perhaps it's more accurate to say that everything new about Fukushima is just the same-old same-old getting worse at an uneven and unpredictable rate. Either way, it's not good and, while it's worse in degree, it's not yet apparently worse in kind, so that's one reason you don't hear that much about it in the news these days.
Whatever the full truth is about Fukushima, it's probably unknowable at present. And it might remain unknowable even if there were total transparency, even if there were no corporate, institutional, governmental, and other layers of secrecy protecting such enemies of the common good as profit, capital investment, and weapons development.
Secrecy and false reassurance have always been an integral part of the nuclear industry in all its manifestations. In January 2014, Tokyo Shimbun reported yet another example of nuclear opposition to honesty: the Fukushima prefecture government and the government-run Fukushima Medical University signed a secrecy agreement with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), a United Nations agency that "is committed to applying the highest ethical standards in carrying out its mandate," or so it claims. The IAEA's press release about the agreement is bland and inoffensive. According to Shimbun, each party to the agreement has the right to designate any information as confidential, specifically mentioning data about thyroid cancer in children or other facts that might "stir up anxiety of residents."
Here are some other elements of SNAFUkushima that might stir up anxieties of residents and non-residents alike:
RADIOACTIVE WATER is beyond control and unmeasured
Clean groundwater has been flowing into the Fukushima nuclear plant complex since before the earthquake/tsunami of March 11, 2011, led to the meltdown of three of the four reactors at Fukushima Daiichi and the cold shutdown of the two reactors at Fukushima Daini at the same site. Once clean groundwater enters the site, some portion (or perhaps all of it) is contaminated by radioactivity, primarily from the three melted down reactors.
Additional clean water is pumped into the site to keep the melted-down reactors from further melting down, as well as to keep the nuclear fuel stored in fuel pools from starting to melt down. All of this water is radioactively contaminated.
The Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) and the Japanese government, essentially co-owners of the Fukushima complex, together with their subcontractors, have been collecting some of the radioactive water in steel tanks on site. Some, perhaps hundreds, of the 1,000-plus tanks have leaked.
Radioactive water has flowed from the Fukushima complex into the Pacific Ocean continuously since March 11, 2011. The flow rate varies, most likely, but no one knows what the rate is and there is no reliable system in place to measure the flow. There is also no reliable system in place to measure the intensity of the radiation, which also most likely varies.
TEPCO's plan since 2013 has been to use an Advanced Liquid Processing System (ALPS) to treat the water in the holding tanks before releasing it into the Pacific. The processing system reduces the water's radioactivity, but does not remove it all. After treatment, 62 nuclides including Strontium and Plutonium are supposed to be removed, but the water retains high levels of Tritium. As of May 2014, the ALPS treatment plan has not been implemented, has suffered several breakdowns, and is now more than six months behind schedule.
RADIOACTIVE WATER DUMPING began at Fukushima on May 21
TEPCO said in a press release, "we have commenced operation of the groundwater bypass." TEPCO said it was releasing 560 tons (more than 150,000 gallons) of groundwater that is within "safe" radiation levels directly into the Pacific. TEPCO hopes to divert and release 100 tons (26,900 gallons) of groundwater every day. The Shanghai Daily reported that:

TEPCO said the levels of radioactivity of the groundwater being released were within legal radiation safety limits and will follow the World Health Organizations guidelines that groundwater for such releases should contain less than 1 becquerel per liter of cesium-134 and cesium-137, 5 becquerels of beta ray-emitting radioactive material.

Groundwater flowing into the disabled reactor buildings is estimated at 400 tons (over 107,000 gallons) per day.
TEPCO and Japan's Nuclear Regulation Authority (NRA) consider this bypass release process less dangerous than collecting contaminated water in tanks that leak. Despite approving the start of TEPCO's plan, the chairman of the Nuclear Regulation Authority, Sunichi Tanaka, has reportedly slammed TEPCO for incorrectly measuring levels of radioactive materials in groundwater at its Daiichi facility. Tanaka has said that even though three years has passed since the reactor meltdowns at the plant, TEPCO is still "utterly inept" when it comes to taking accurate readings of radioactivity at and around its facilities and "lacks a basic understanding of measuring and handling radiation."
THE UNIT 4 SPENT FUEL POOL still has disaster potential
In March 2011, the unit 4 reactor didn't melt down because all its nuclear fuel rod assemblies had been removed for re-fueling, so they were stored in the unit's spent fuel pool. But the fuel pool was about 100 feet above the ground and the earthquake/tsunami and subsequent explosions at the Fukushima left the fuel pool's 1535 fuel assemblies in a precarious situation in an unstable building. An accident as bad as a meltdown, or worse, hasn't happened yet, but remains possible as long as the fuel pool holds a substantial number of fuel assemblies.
TEPCO started to remove fuel assemblies in late 2013, moving them to safer fuel pools on the ground. Removal is scheduled to be complete before the end of 2014. But TEPCO said it had removed only 9 percent of the spent fuel so far and the delicate, dangerous process continues.
[On May 20-21, the internet was rife with reports of an explosion and fire at unit 4 on May 20, a claim that was based on a less than persuasive video. As of this writing, there seems to be no credible confirmation of an explosion or fire at unit 4.]
RADIOACTIVE CONTAMINATION spreads, but threat level is uncertain
Reports of radioactively contaminated fish have increased during the past two years, but there is as yet no systematic testing by any government or corporate or even no-profit program that comprehensively measures the threat in any reliable manner (hardly an easy task since the fish and the water in the Pacific are in motion all the time). Anecdotal reports of Fukushima fish and other anomalies include:
ALBACORE TUNA caught off Oregon and Washington state from 2008 to 2012 suggested a tripling of tuna-borne radiation in post-Fukushima fish, according to a report on April 30, 2014. But one researcher said that even the elevated level was only one-tenth of one per cent of the level for concern set by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
CALIFORNIA COASTAL COMMISSION issued a report on April 30 that both minimized the current threat of radiation from Fukushima and also called for further research into the effects of low level radiation on humans and for reliable radiation monitoring supported by government. The report noted that the release of radiation from Fukushima continues with no end in sight. The report also said, without apparent irony, that people on the west coast were still in less danger from Fukushima radiation than from the residual radiation from nuclear weapons testing in the Pacific 50 years and more ago.
MUTATION AND PREMATURE DEATH in butterflies caused by Fukushima levels of residual radiation was demonstrated by Japanese researchers, in a report published by Nature, as reported May 15 by Smithsonian.com. The researchers wrote: "We conclude that the risk of ingesting a polluted diet is realistic, at least for this butterfly, and likely for certain other organisms living in the polluted area." A field study around Fukushima has shown a decrease in the population of these butterflies and other insects.
THYROID CANCER in children from Fukushima has reached a higher than normal level. A May 19 story reported that 50 newly documented thyroid cancer cases represented about a 50% increase since February.
DENIAL IN JAPAN surfaced in the form criticism of "Gourmets," a food-oriented comic that included a storyline in which characters who are culinary writers visited the Fukushima complex and then fell ill and developed nosebleeds. According to Art Review on May 19, the food comic editor said the story "was a well-meaning attempt to highlight the fact that parts of Fukushima were dangerous, and that people were reluctant to complain themselves." Criticism of the story was based on the fear that it would damage the Fukushima region's people and products, food products especially. The corporate publisher, Shogakukan Inc., has suspended the comic series indefinitely. Japan Times reports on a nuclear researcher:

Hiroaki Koide, an assistant professor at the Kyoto University Research Reactor Institute, says that from a medical point of view the connection between nosebleeds and radiation exposure can't be entirely ruled out….

He adds: "The government is not only indifferent to taking responsibility for the accident, but determined to erase it from people's memory." Such irresponsibility, he insists, is "almost criminal."

Meanwhile, municipalities including Osaka and Fukushima prefectures and the town of Futaba have lodged complaints with the publisher.
HONESTY IN JAPAN appeared in The Asahi Shimbun May 20, with a previously suppressed, 400-page report that some 650 workers at Fukushima Daiichi fled the complex in the midst of the crisis. These 650 workers represent about 90 per cent of the workforce. Prior to this revelation, the official story, promulgated by media worldwide, had created the impression that workers at Fukushima had remained on site, showing great personal courage during the crisis. Even after the official story was exposed as 90% false, TEPCO refused to criticize any of its workers.
Commenting on this story on May 21, a Shimbun columnist noted that: "If the facts are hidden and treated as if they never happened, the Fukushima crisis will never be understood in its entirety, and no real lessons can be learned from the disaster." The same day, a Japanese court ruled against re-starting two nuclear reactors at Fukui in western Japan. The court ruled that the two reactors represented a serious risk to the public in the event of an earthquake. The power company said it would appeal the ruling. The prime minister said the ruling would not change his plans to re-start all Japan's nuclear reactors.
Who actually wants to learn any "real lessons" from Fukushima?
The struggle between lying and telling the truth about Fukushima seems likely to continue for a long time, especially with the Japanese government pressing to re-start its nuclear reactors and with few countries or world organizations willing to close the curtain on the nuclear age. But truth still has a constituency. In April, Katsutagka Idogawa, former mayor of Futaba in Fukushima prefecture, spoke out against the government's efforts to force former residents to return home despite radiation contamination:
Fukushima Prefecture has launched the Come Home campaign.… Air contamination decreased a little, but soil contamination remains the same. And there are still about two million people living in the prefecture, who have all sorts of medical issues. The authorities claim this has nothing to do with the fallout….
I remember feeling so deeply for the victims of the Chernobyl tragedy that I could barely hold back the tears whenever I heard any reports on it. And now that a similar tragedy happened in Fukushima, the biggest problem is that there is no one to help us. They say it's safe to go back … while in reality the 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?
Idogawa described his own symptoms, consistent with radiation poisoning, symptoms that persist even though he's moved to another prefecture. He says he's not getting treatment now and there's no place to go for help: "The nearest hospital refused to treat me. So I'm trying to restore my health through nutrition."
The Japanese government allowed Fukushima residents to start returning to their homes as of April 1, saying that it was safe. It was not safe. The government lied. On April 16, Asahi Shimbun reported some of the government's lies that put people at risk.
"The same thing happened with Hiroshima and Nagasaki," Idogawa said: "The authorities lied to everyone. They said it was safe. They hid the truth…. Japan has some dark history." And so does the rest of the world.

[Peter Lemkin]

Fukushima's Children are Dying

Harvey Wasserman | June 14, 2014

Some 39 months after the multiple explosions at Fukushima, thyroid cancer rates among nearby children have skyrocketed to more than forty times (40x) normal.
More than 48 percent of some 375,000 young peoplenearly 200,000 kidstested by the Fukushima Medical University near the smoldering reactors now suffer from pre-cancerous thyroid abnormalities, primarily nodules and cysts. The rate is accelerating.
More than 120 childhood cancers have been indicated where just three would be expected, says Joseph Mangano, executive director of the Radiation and Public Health Project.
The nuclear industry and its apologists continue to deny this public health tragedy. Some have actually asserted that "not one person" has been affected by Fukushima's massive radiation releases, which for some isotopes exceed Hiroshima by a factor of nearly 30.
More than 48 percent of some 375,000 young peoplenearly 200,000 kidstested by the Fukushima Medical University near the smoldering reactors now suffer from pre-cancerous thyroid abnormalities, primarily nodules and cysts.But the deadly epidemic at Fukushima is consistent with impacts suffered among children near the 1979 accident at Three Mile Island and the 1986 explosion at Chernobyl, as well as findings at other commercial reactors.

The likelihood that atomic power could cause such epidemics has been confirmed by the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission, which says that "an increase in the risk of childhood thyroid cancer" would accompany a reactor disaster.
In evaluating the prospects of new reactor construction in Canada, the Commission says the rate "would rise by 0.3 percent at a distance of 12 kilometers" from the accident. But that assumes the distribution of protective potassium iodide pills and a successful emergency evacuation, neither of which happened at Three Mile Island, Chernobyl or Fukushima.
The numbers have been analyzed by Mangano. He has studied the impacts of reactor-created radiation on human health since the 1980s, beginning his work with the legendary radiologist Dr. Ernest Sternglass and statistician Jay Gould.
Speaking on http://www.prn.fm's Green Power & Wellness Show, Mangano also confirms that the general health among downwind human populations improves when atomic reactors are shut down, and goes into decline when they open or re-open.

Nearby children are not the only casualties at Fukushima. Plant operator Masao Yoshida has died at age 58 of esophogeal cancer. Masao heroically refused to abandon Fukushima at the worst of the crisis, probably saving millions of lives. Workers at the site who are employed by independent contractorsmany dominated by organized crimeare often not being monitored for radiation exposure at all. Public anger is rising over government plans to force familiesmany with small childrenback into the heavily contaminated region around the plant.
Following its 1979 accident, Three Mile Island's owners denied the reactor had melted. But a robotic camera later confirmed otherwise.
The state of Pennsylvania mysteriously killed its tumor registry, then said there was "no evidence" that anyone had been killed.

But a wide range of independent studies confirm heightened infant death rates and excessive cancers among the general population. Excessive death, mutation and disease rates among local animals were confirmed by the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture and local journalists.
In the 1980s federal Judge Sylvia Rambo blocked a class action suit by some 2,400 central Pennsylvania downwinders, claiming not enough radiation had escaped to harm anyone. But after 35 years, no one knows how much radiation escaped or where it went. Three Mile Island's owners have quietly paid millions to downwind victims in exchange for gag orders.
At Chernobyl, a compendium of more than 5,000 studies has yielded an estimated death toll of more than 1,000,000 people.
The radiation effects on youngsters in downwind Belarus and Ukraine have been horrific. According to Mangano, some 80 percent of the "Children of Chernobyl" born downwind since the accident have been harmed by a wide range of impacts ranging from birth defects and thyroid cancer to long-term heart, respiratory and mental illnesses. The findings mean that just one in five young downwinders can be termed healthy.
Physicians for Social Responsibility and the German chapter of the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War have warned of parallel problems near Fukushima.
The United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation (UNSCEAR) has recently issued reports downplaying the disaster's human impacts. UNSCEAR is interlocked with the United Nations' International Atomic Energy Agency, whose mandate is to promote atomic power. The IAEA has a long-term controlling gag order on UN findings about reactor health impacts. For decades UNSCEAR and the World Health Organization have run protective cover for the nuclear industry's widespread health impacts. Fukushima has proven no exception.
In response, Physicians for Social Responsibility and the German International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War have issued a ten-point rebuttal, warning the public of the UN's compromised credibility. The disaster is "ongoing" say the groups, and must be monitored for decades. "Things could have turned for the worse" if winds had been blowing toward Tokyo rather than out to sea (and towards America).
There is on-going risk from irradiated produce, and among site workers whose doses and health impacts are not being monitored. Current dose estimates among workers as well as downwinders are unreliable, and special notice must be taken of radiation's severe impacts on the human embryo.
UNSCEAR's studies on background radiation are also "misleading," say the groups, and there must be further study of genetic radiation effects as well as "non-cancer diseases." The UN assertion that "no discernible radiation-related health effects are expected among exposed members" is "cynical," say the groups. They add that things were made worse by the official refusal to distribute potassium iodide, which might have protected the public from thyroid impacts from massive releases of radioactive I-131.
Overall, the horrific news from Fukushima can only get worse. Radiation from three lost cores is still being carried into the Pacific. Management of spent fuel rods in pools suspended in the air and scattered around the site remains fraught with danger.
The pro-nuclear Shinzo Abe regime wants to reopen Japan's remaining 48 reactors. It has pushed hard for families who fled the disaster to re-occupy irradiated homes and villages.
But Three Mile Island, Chernobyl and the plague of death and disease now surfacing near Fukushima make it all too clear that the human cost of such decisions continues to escalatewith our children suffering first and worst.

[Peter Lemkin]

Fukushima £11bn cleanup progresses, but there is no cause for optimism

With 500,000 tonnes of contaminated water onsite and reactor 1 off limits until 2025, decommissioning will take 40 years

• Justin McCurry at Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant
  
• The Guardian, Thursday 13 November 2014 13.03 GMT
  

The new Alps (advanced liquid processing system) water-processing system at Fukushima Daiichi has raised hopes that it may be possible to decontaminate the radioactive water at the site. Photograph: Shizuo Kambayashi/AFP/Getty Images

The man in charge of cleaning up the wrecked Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant has admitted there is little cause for optimism while thousands of workers continue their battle to contain huge quantities of radioactive water.
The water problem is so severe that the plant's operator, Tokyo Electric Power [Tepco], and its myriad partner firms have enlisted almost all of their 6,000 workers in the 2tn yen (£11bn) mission to bring it under control, almost four years after a deadly tsunami sparked a triple meltdown at the plant.
But Fukushima Daiichi's manager, Akira Ono, said he believed workers had turned a corner in the long road towards decommissioning. "For three years we were dealing with the aftermath of the accident, so there was no way we could plan ahead.
"Even though I have no intention of being optimistic, it's possible to say that we can now start to look forward," Ono told the Guardian.
Each day about 400 tonnes of groundwater streams from hills behind the plant and into the basements of three stricken reactors, where it mixes with coolant water being used to prevent melted fuel from overheating and triggering another major accident.
Most of the contaminated water is pumped out and stored in tanks, but large quantities find their way to other parts of the site, including maintenance trenches connected to the sea.
Some of the 1,000 water tanks being used to store contaminated water at the Fukushima Daiichi site. Photograph: Shizuo Kambayashi/AFP/Getty Images So far, the plant has accumulated about 500,000 tonnes of contaminated water, which is being stored in more than 1,000 tanks occupying a large swath of the Fukushima Daiichi complex. By comparison, the partial meltdown at Three Mile Island in the US in 1979 produced 9,000 tonnes of toxic water.
"The contaminated water is the most pressing issue there is no doubt about that," Ono said. "Our efforts to address the problem are at their peak now. Though I cannot say exactly when, I hope things start getting better when the measures start taking effect."
Previous versions of Tepco's Alps [advanced liquid processing system] water treatment unit were plagued by technical hitches. In addition, tanks used to store the contaminated water were poorly assembled and suffered serious leaks, while plans to freeze water that has gathered in a trench near the damaged reactors are eight months behind schedule.
Work has begun on a 1.5km frozen barrier to prevent groundwater from reaching the reactor basements, but some experts, including Dale Klein, a former chairman of the US nuclear regulatory commission who now advises Tepco, have questioned its viability.
Despite doubts about its effectiveness, Tepco officials say the wall should be finished by next March, and completely frozen by May.
A Tepco worker in protective gear works at the back of the new Alps water-treatment system, which should be able to process 2,000 tonnes of contaminated water per day. Photograph: Shizuo Kambayashi/AP Along with the underground "ice wall", the utility is pinning its hopes on a new version of its Alps water treatment system that can remove more than 60 radioactive elements.
Recent "hot testing" of the apparatus has been successful, raising hopes that a solution to the water problem may not be far off, said Shinichi Kawamura, head of risk communication at Fukushima Daiichi.
"This is a high-performance system because it uses only filters and absorbents to remove the contaminants," Kawamura said. "The old system depended on chemical agents, which caused problems and created a lot more waste. We have confidence in this machinery."
As Japan moves closer to a return to nuclear power after the local authorities on the southwestern island of Kyushu this month gave their approval for reactor restarts, Tepco can claim a significant victory in its efforts to improve safety at Fukushima Daiichi.
The No 4 reactor's cooling pool. All of the 1,331 used fuel assemblies have now been removed and the plant hopes to empty the pool by the end of 2014. Photograph: Shizuo Kambayashi/AP This month, workers completed the removal of the 1,331 spent fuel assemblies from a storage pool in reactor No 4, which was badly damaged in a hydrogen explosion after the March 2011 disaster. The removal of the unused fuel rods should be complete by the end of the year.
Some experts had warned of a potential catastrophe had the fuel rods collided or been damaged during the operation; Japan's former ambassador to Switzerland, Mitsuhei Murata, went as far as claiming that "the fate of Japan and the whole world" depended on the successful removal of spent fuel from reactor No 4.
"This was a risky job, so when we removed the last fuel assembly we were delighted," said Yuichi Kagami, who oversees fuel removal at the reactor. "This was a big step forward in the decommissioning process."
The most dangerous and difficult jobs lie ahead, however. Tepco has yet to begin removing melted fuel from reactors 1, 2 and 3, where radiation levels are too high for humans to enter. Tepco engineers admit they do not know exactly where the damaged fuel is located.
Robots have been used to inspect debris inside reactor buildings, but none have been able to get anywhere near the melted fuel. The dangers posed by this unprecedented operation recently forced Tepco and the government to delay the planned start of fuel removal from reactor No 1 by five years, to 2025.
Decommissioning the entire plant is expected to take at least 40 years. The operation, including compensation for tens of thousands of people forced to evacuate their homes, will cost around 10tn yen (£55bn) [90bn$].

[Peter Lemkin]

Japanese doctors threatened for revealing data on how bad Fukushima-related illnesses really are Gundersen: We had pregnant sisters in Tokyo deliver two dead babies and one with deformities that's alive; Gov't refuses to disclose miscarriages or stillbirths around Fukushima (AUDIO)

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Published: November 12th, 2014 at 11:52 pm ET

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Excerpts from Nuclear Hotseat w/ Libbe HaLevy, Nov. 12, 2014 (at 33:15 in):

• Nuclear expert Arnie Gundersen, Fairewinds Energy Education: We have firsthand knowledge from at least a half dozen Japanese doctors… who have said they have been threatened… if they speak frankly to their patients about the health effects that they're experiencing; or if they frankly speak in public about their fears and, in fact, measurements of how bad radioactive illnesses really are. So we know of at least a half a dozen doctors who are being sat on', and if 6 are, you can be certain that many more are as well. It's a pressure that's being applied up and down the spectrum… [You would now expect] exactly what we're seeing earlier cancers and thyroid nodules. Then over the next 15 to 20 years, increased organ cancers as well as muscular cancers… The fact of the matter is, we're going to see cancers in that 4 to 30 year time span. And I still stand by what I've been saying now for 3 years. I think there will be a million extra cancers as a result of Fukushima Daiichi.
  

• Gundersen: For Asahi Shimbun, a major newspaper, to basically call on people to [move] back home based on the [claim there's no increase in birth defects]… is absolutely absurd. The number they're not giving us is how many stillbirths and how many miscarriages there's been in relation to the rest of Japan and those are radiation-induced. You'll get a stillbirth or you'll get a miscarriage when a fetus is deformed or it is already developing cancer… The Japanese are not reporting stillbirths and miscarriages in Fukushima… That's a much better indication… There are 35 million people in the Tokyo Metropolitan Area [and] their homes are contaminated… We had two women, sisters, both pregnant at the same time one with twins, and one with a single baby. Two of the kids were stillbirths. The other was born with a deformity. They had the metallic taste in their mouth as the babies were in [the womb]. They lived in Tokyo, 130 miles from the accident. They're people, they're not statistics… and they've got no place to run…. no place to go.
  

Download the full interview here

[Peter Lemkin]

September 21, 2015 The Fukushima Fix

by Robert Hunziker


Japan's Abe government claims portions of Fukushima Prefecture (original population 2 million) are safe for habitation, radioactivity is acceptable; whereas scientific data by third-party NGOs indicates otherwise, stay away!
PM Abe's specific maneuvers towards rehabilitation give the appearance that the Fukushima full-blown nuclear meltdown is relatively minimal in comparison to Chernobyl's disastrous explosion of 1986. After all, to this day, Chernobyl after 30 years is still a 30km "exclusion zone" where nobody is allowed due to excessive levels of radiation.
Meanwhile, back in Japan, PM Abe is moving people back into former restricted zones four years after the fact.
It remains an open question as to whether the Fukushima aftermath will be worse than Chernobyl. After all, the China Syndrome may be actively at work at Fukushima and as such could last over many lifetimes.
Still, the immediate direct exposure of radiation over population centers at Chernobyl was significantly more than Fukushima of which 80% drifted out into the Pacific Ocean.
But, that may be slight solace because, horrifyingly, nobody knows where the Fukushima melted cores are located, nobody knows; it's absolutely true, nobody knows whether the molten cores are within the containment vessels, outside of the vessels, deep in the ground, or cataclysmically traversing towards the water table.
Regardless, PM Abe's directive appears to be: "No problem, we've cleaned up a whole lot of the mess outside of the immediate meltdown… so, move back into former restricted areas."
Still, it's nearly impossible to give an all-clear signal at this stage, especially with the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station containment vessels completely out of control with wild atom-splitting rogue radionuclides spewing into the Pacific Ocean, and who knows where else (Einstein must be spinning in his grave).
The China Syndrome Worry
"While a molten reactor core wouldn't burn all the way through to China' it could enter the soil and water table and cause huge contamination in the crops and drinking water around the power plant. It's a nightmare scenario, the stuff of movies. And it might just have happened at Fukushima," Eben Harrell, Was Fukushima a China Syndrome? Time Magazine, May 16, 2011.
If Chernobyl is a leading indicator of Fukushima's future, "Chernobyl offers many lessons about what Princeton University engineering professor Robert Socolow calls the afterheat' of a nuclear disaster, but it's the generational lesson that's most important. Because some of the isotopes released during a nuclear accident remain radioactive for tens of thousands of years, cleanup is the work not just of first responders but also of their descendants and their descendants' descendants. Asked when the reactor site would again become inhabitable, Ihor Gramotkin, director of the Chernobyl power plant, replies, At least 20,000 years," Eben Harrell, Apocalypse Today: Visiting Chernobyl, 25 Years Later, Time Magazine, April 26, 2011.
As of June 12th, 2015, the Abe government is returning residents to the Iitate village in Fukushima's Prefecture four short years post the nuclear plant meltdowns, and by the upcoming 2018 year, the prime minister is eliminating state compensation to victims.
Not only that, but since August 2015, PM Abe is reopening nuclear facilities, the Sendai No. 1 reactor has already resumed full-scale commercial operations.
Contrariwise, according to former PM Naoto Kan, who was prime minister during the Fukushima disaster: "I now consider nuclear energy to be the most dangerous form of energy, and the risks associated with it are too great for us to continue generating atomic power," Former Japanese PM Naoto Kan: Fukushima Radically Changed my Perspective, Deutsche Welle, Feb. 25, 2015.
One of the issues in trying to assess the dangers, as well as timing of recovery, for Fukushima is believability. Who can be trusted? In that regard, the Abe government's enactment of strict extraordinarily broad secrecy laws, similar to WWII, with the threat of prison sentences up to 10 years for any violators of indeterminately wide-open secrecy laws undermines confidence in believability of the Japanese government, by definition.
On the other hand, respected third-party NGOs seem more reliable, if only because they do not have an axe to grind, no broad open-ended secrecy laws, no threats of prison sentences, no scare tactics, no public demonstrations in opposition, no lost revenues, no cleanup costs, no threats to human health, no threats to marine life, and no connections to the upcoming 2020 Tokyo Olympics.
Greenpeace/Japan Exposes Failure of Fukushima Decontamination (July 21, 2015)
Greenpeace Japan presumably takes issue with Prime Minister Abe's declaration that people can safely move back to parts of Fukushima Prefecture.
Greenpeace Japan conducted a radiation survey and sampling program in Iitate, a village in Fukushima Prefecture. Even after decontamination, radiation dose rates measured ten times (10xs) the maximum allowed to the general public.
According to Greenpeace Japan: "The Japanese government plans to lift restrictions in all of Area 2 [2], including Iitate, where people could receive radiation doses of up to 20mSV each year and in subsequent years. International radiation protection standards recommend public exposure should be 1mSv/year or less in non-post accident situations. The radiation limit that excluded people from living in the 30km zone around the Chernobyl nuclear plant exclusion zone was set at 5mSV/year, five years after the nuclear accident. Over 100,000 people were evacuated from within the zone and will never return." (Greenpeace Press Release, July 21, 2015).
So, Chernobyl's 5mSV/year radiation limit morphs into the possibility of 20mSV radiation each year for some areas of Fukushima, subjecting residents to what?
According to Green Cross International, founded in 1993 by Mikhail Gorbachev, who was president of the Soviet Union when Chernobyl exploded: Both Chernobyl and the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant disasters are categorized as Level 7 events defined as a major release of radioactive material.
"However, the number of people affected by radiation in Japan has tripled when compared to Chernobyl, says Nathalie Gysi of Green Cross Switzerland… water leakage at the Fukushima Daiichi power plant remains a problem four years after… There continue to be rising doubts over the safety of seafood, such as radioactivity levels in tuna and other fish." (Green Cross Int'l March 11, 2015).
The Green Cross International 2015 Fukushima Report was prepared under direction of Jonathan M. Samet, MD, University of Southern California professor Keck School of Medicine and chair Department of Preventive Medicine, using the same standards as a similar 2012 study of Chernobyl.
According to the report: "Continued exposure to low-level radiation, entering the human body on a daily basis through food intake, is of particular consequence."
Morphologically Defective Fir Trees
According to the National Institute of Radiological Science/Japan ("NIRS" est. 1957 as Japan's only institute of radiology science) fir trees in Fukushima are exhibiting "strange growth patterns," meaning the trees are stunted and showing morphological defects, in particular bifurcation or the splitting of a tree body into two parts at the tip. Thus, further normal tree growth is stopped dead.
Fir trees normally extend upward in growth patterns with two or more branches each year. However, 98% of inspected fir trees within a 3.5km area of the Fukushima damaged nuclear plants have severe defects. NIRS believes radiation causes abnormalities of fir trees "without a top bud," hence no more normalized growth. Results of inspected trees found 125 out of 128 abnormal.
Thus, begging the question: If tree growth is stunted/deformed within 3.5km of the damaged nuclear plants, what's the analogous impact on people?
Missing Birds
According to CBS News (April 16, 2015): "Birds are becoming a rarity around the damaged nuclear site… dramatic reductions… in terms of swallows in Fukushima, there had been hundreds if not thousands in many of these towns where we were working. Now we are seeing a few dozen… It's just an enormous decline," (Dr. Tim Mousseau, biologist, University of South Carolina, Dwindling Bird Populations in Fukushima, sc.edu, 4/14/15).
Fukushima Myths
Chris Harris, a former senior nuclear reactor operator for over three decades and currently a nuclear consultant, claims Fukushima is an extinction level event: Containment is a myth, there isn't any; cold shutdown is a myth; cooling is a myth because there is no way to measure cooling when nobody knows where the nuclear fuel is located; waste processing is a myth; cleanup is a myth because it's a "waste generation facility" that won't stop.
Voices Within Japan
According to Yauemon Sato, the ninth-generation head of a sake brewery, since 1790, and the president of Aizu Denryok, an electric utility: "You know the caldron of hell? You will be sent to hell and will be boiled in that caldron if you do evil. And there are four such caldrons in Fukushima… And the disaster has yet to end. It continues to recur every day. More than 300 tons of water, contaminated with intense levels of radioactive substances, are being generated every day," The Asahi Shimbun, May 1, 2015.
Hiroaki Koide, professor (retired) at Kyoto University Research Reactor Institute reacts to PM Abe, as of April 24, 2015:
"The Prime Minister [said Fukushima] had been brought to a close. My reaction on hearing his words was, Stop kidding.' Reality is, though 4 years have passed, the accident has not yet been brought to a close at all… The Japanese government has issued a declaration that this is an emergency situation. As a result, normal laws do not have to be followed. What they are saying is that, in these very high radiation exposure level areas, they have basically abandoned people to live there. They've actually thrown them away to live there… The Cs-137 that's fallen onto Japanese land in the Tohoku and Kanto regions, so much so that this area should all be put under the radiation control area designation [the Kanto region includes Tokyo and is home to over 40 million people]."
Footnote on Cs-137: Cesium-137 is one of the most problematic fission isotopes as it easily moves and spreads in nature and has a half-life of 30 years. It is deadly dangerous, for example: The Kramatorsk Radiological Incident of 1989 in Ukraine a small capsule of Cs-137 was discovered inside concrete walls of an apartment building, probably part of a measurement device, lost and accidentally mixed with gravel used to make concrete. For over 9 years two families lived in the apartment. By the time the capsule was discovered, 6 residents had already died from leukemia.
Fortunately for PM Abe, unfortunately for radiation victims, radiation is a silent destroyer that slowly progresses over time. In fact, it takes 5-40 years for the incubation period to take hold. Next year is the 5th year.
Nevertheless, when hit by powerful rapid radiation exposure, too much too soon, physical damage occurs relatively quickly, now experienced by sailors of the USS Reagan that served in Japan in 2011.
U.S. Sailors File Lawsuit
Two hundred U.S. sailors of the USS Reagan have a pending lawsuit filed in San Diego against TEPCO, General Electric, EBASCO, Toshiba and Hitachi through the law offices of Bonner & Bonner, Sausalito, CA. The plaintiffs won a crucial battle in the U.S. District Court/San Diego last year, allowing the case to move forward.
"The lawsuit is based on the sailors' participation in Operation Tomodachi (meaning "Friends"), providing humanitarian relief after the March 11, 2011 devastation caused by the Earthquake and Tsunami. The lawsuit includes claims for illnesses such as leukemia, ulcers, gall bladder removals, brain cancer, brain tumors, testicular cancer, dysfunctional uterine bleeding, thyroid illnesses, stomach ailments and a host of other complaints unusual in such young adults. The injured servicemen and women will require treatment for their deteriorating health, medical monitoring, payment of their medical bills, appropriate health monitoring for their children, and monitoring for possible radiation-induced genetic mutations," Press Release, The Law Offices of Bonner & Bonner, Sausalito, CA.
According to the press release, up to 70,000 U.S. citizens were potentially affected by the radiation and will be able to join the class action suit, which alleges that TEPCO deliberately lied to the public and the U.S. Navy about radiation levels at the time the Japanese government was requesting help.
Therein lies a prime example, although only alleged, of why official sources in Japan cannot be trusted. Moreover, as far as convincing evidence goes: How is it that a disproportionately high number of very young naval personnel, all from the same ship, have severe medical problems like leukemia and brain cancer?
Furthermore, according to Charles Bonner, Esq.: Additional plaintiffs with serious aliments from radiation are continuing to come forward.
The Fukushima nuclear disaster is a grim tragedy that is extremely difficult to fully understand or gain trustworthy information, in large measure because the Japanese government instituted a new secrecy law, Act on the Protection of Specially Designated Secrets, Act No. 108 that is extraordinarily broad and provides up to 10 years in prison for release of "state secrets," which may be subjectively, not objectively, defined by government bureaucrats… oh, isn't that just grand!
Essentially, Japan surreptitiously institutes news blackouts of any information that government employees don't like, carte blanche.
"On Dec. 10, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's new special secrets law took effect despite overwhelming public opposition. The new law gives bureaucrats enormous powers to withhold information produced in the course of their public duties that they deem a secret entirely at their own discretion and with no effective oversight mechanism to question or overturn such designations. The law also grants the government powers to imprison whistle-blowers, and prohibits disclosure of classified material even if its intention is to protect the public interest. This Draconian law also gives the government power to imprison journalists merely for soliciting information that is classified a secret," Abe's Secrets Law Undermines Japan's Democracy, The Japan Times, Dec. 13, 2014.
Once again: "This Draconian law gives the government power to imprison journalists merely for soliciting information." For merely soliciting information, for merely soliciting information, gives the government power to imprison journalists for merely soliciting info…. some footprints should never stop.
"Susumu Murakoshi, president of the Japan Federation of Bar Associations, says the law should be abolished because it jeopardizes democracy and the people's right to know. Meiji University legal scholar Lawrence Repeta agrees with Murakoshi," Ibid.
What democracy?
Thus, on the surface, by all appearances, the government of Japan has something to hide. It must be really big. Why else adopt a hard-hitting secrecy law on the heels of the worst disaster to hit Japan since America dropped A-bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. Japan's citizenry really should expect consolation rather than aggravation, intimidation, and terrorizing by their own government.
At the end of the day, George Orwell's 1984 has captivated a radiantly glowing ancient country.

Robert Hunziker lives in Los Angeles and can be reached at roberthunziker@icloud.com