Published: October 23rd, 2012 at 2:45 am ET
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Title: One year on, Fukushima still fights uphill battle to decontaminate farming district
Source: Mainichi Japan
Date: Oct. 18, 2012
h/t Fukushima Diary
[...] The residents of the Onami district are frustrated with the government’s inaction, with one of them saying, “Are they forcing us to tolerate high radiation doses?”
[...] because the district is not in a government-designated evacuation zone, there is no government support for local residents.
[...] The Fukushima Municipal Government believes that the high radiation doses have gathered in street gutters as a result of “soil re-deposition” in which radioactive substances were pushed down by rains and winds.
The Fukushima Municipal Government asked the Ministry of the Environment to conduct the second round of decontamination in spring this year, but there has been no reply so far. An official of the Fukushima Municipal Government said, “Because it is so costly, they may be waiting for the radiation levels to go down naturally without conducting decontamination.”
First example given by Mainichi
A 68-year-old woman in the district has been measuring radiation levels [...] her home was decontaminated in April this year, the level of radiation was 226 microsieverts per month, but it rose to 238 microsieverts in June, 246 microsieverts in July and 251 microsieverts in August.
Second example given by Mainichi
The radiation dose neighborhood association chief Toshihiko Kurihara, 71, measured in a street gutter near his house dropped to the 2-microsievert-per-hour level after the first round of decontamination in March this year from the 9-microsievert-per-hour level registered before the decontamination. However, the radiation level there stood at 10.36 microsieverts per hour in August. “It starts rising in a matter of time after decontamination,” he said with a sigh.
Published: October 23rd, 2012 at 2:45 am ET
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sending...
Meltdown from a single nuclear plant ruins the land, sea, people, crops, livestock. Everything.
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“Are they forcing us to tolerate high radiation?” The new normal.
“It starts rising in a matter of time after decontamination,” he said with a sigh. The need.
The Fukushima Municipal Government asked the Ministry of the Environment to conduct the second round of decontamination in spring this year, but there has been no reply so far. An official of the Fukushima Municipal Government said, “Because it is so costly, they may be waiting for the radiation levels to go down naturally without conducting decontamination.” The way of things.
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The units of measurement in the two examples are not the same. The first example uses "microsieverts per MONTH", which cannot be directly compared to the second example's "microsieverts per HOUR".
The measurements in the first example could be converted to μS/h and would be about 0.33 μS/h
Using the pre-3/11/11 standard of 1 millisivert per as normal background radiation, we see that the first example is about 3 times higher, but the second example is much worse: 90 times normal background radiation level.
If you are not aware of the different units being used, it might appear as if the first example is the worst of the two.
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Typo: Third paragraph should read: "1 millisievert per YEAR"
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Second the above, in fact once again I'd warn against the possibly intentional obfuscation of measurements. First of all sieverts are almost always highly questionable to begin with. Sieverts is a measure of the effect of the radiation in biological tissue, which is a measurement you'd like to have… the problem is that to know Sieverts, you have to know the exact make-up of the radiation – alpha, beta, gamma and neutron counts (and energy), the distance to the source and the body-part affected. Because portable radiation counter aren't able to properly measure all of the radiation types, Sieverts are determined by fudging with different conversion factors, which can be more or less arbitrarily determined by the measurer.
It may be fine to say "background radiation is so-and-so microsieverts", but as soon as it's "giving a yearly radiation dose of" or "radiation of millisieverts" one is in very dangerous zone because the error margins can be 50% or more. I don't know what is the solution, since sieverts are probably best we've got, but realize that at least unless measuring method and error margins are given, sieverts are an estimate at best.
And specifically pertaining to this news article, there is no such unit as "microsieverts/month". I can't think of any reason for someone to use that kind of unit other than to internationally obfuscate things so people will start thinking "200 microsieverts/hour? Oh that's nothing, that old lady had more..".
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Also bear in mind, most of the radiation3 databases effects data has been calibrated on animals, not people and on External dose, not internal dose.
There are really only 3 human databases for radiation health. 1) Nuclear workers, who are usually
working in contained environments, 2) Hiroshima, 3) Chernobyl.
It' smy gut feel that internal doses ( inhaled, consumed, drunk) are about 10X worse for you then external doses, and more importantly, cause unexpected illness.
High external dose causes cancer, persistent internal dose, damages the circulatory system. it took years for westerners to understand that chernobyl was damaging the hearts of children.
it's also clear that children are much more sensitive to internal dose then adults.
Expect to see, the children of Tohuko, getting sicker as time goes by.
(Ob, BTW, much of the dose curves assume a human is a cylinder of water, not a complex of muschle, bone, fats, etc)… SO the interaction potentials are tied to hydrogen, not carbon.
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Also note that if we take the "microsieverts/month" at face value, we get:
April: 226 / (30*24) = 0.314 μS/h
May: Not given.
June: 238 / (30*24) = 0.331 μS/h
July: 246 / (31*24) = 0.331 μS/h
August: 251 / (31*24) = 0.337 μS/h
The rising tren is still there, but not as strong.
Before Fukushima Japan background radiation average has been given as 1.5 mS/year (excluding medical), 1500 / 365*24 = 0,171 μS/h
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Since FukU is still producing huge amounts of radiation and the coriums are still emitting from underground, radiation levels are predicted to KEEP RISING over time, no matter what spin TEPCO puts on things.
Add on top of that radiation, the following…
Dr. Chris Busby; Consequences of Burning Radioactive Waste In Japan; via A Green Road
http://agreenroad.blogspot.com/2012/04/dr-chris-busby-consequences-of-burning.html
No Solutions For Nuclear Disasters Or Nuclear Waste; via A Green Road http://agreenroad.blogspot.com/2012/04/no-solutions-for-nuclear-disasters.html
Japan seems to be bent on COMPLETELY destroying itself through secrecy, coverups, denial and spin, rather than on solving the problems intelligently.
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Our friend..Lori Mochizuki..is having a bit of a 'monologue'.
I think I’m doing 100% right. If not, I’ll be simply weeded out, but that’s not my business.
My grandparents like to hunt tangerine and edible wild plants, and they love to give it to people. They give green tea too. so I won’t meet them. They won’t understand me at all. They’ll think I betrayed them.
This makes me more and more existentialist. I have two ways to go. Fall off in the death valley of sense of guilty, or Keep my iron heart and go on. 1,2,3..ok, nothing happened. Let’s go.
I don’t believe in heaven or hell. Now is all. There’s nothing more. Hate me if you want, if it makes you feel better. but you can’t just stop me.
[Column] Disaster doesn’t dream a dream
http://fukushima-diary.com/2012/10/column-disaster-doesnt-dream-a-dream/
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Above text should be in quotations..as it is drawn from the text.
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