No Return to Fukushima Exclusion Zone: Officially Uninhabitable. Radiation Greater Than 29 Hiroshimas, So Far.

The Japanese government will finally admit that radiation is making the area around Fukushima uninhabitable—but it's just one piece of a much more disastrous picture.

by Heidi Stevenson

24 August 2011

No one will be able to return to the exclusion area around the Fukushima nuclear power plant that's had three meltdowns and still spews radiation. The New York Times reports that the government will soon announce that the exclusion zone is uninhabitable, and may remain so for decades.

The prime minister is expected to go to Fukushima this Saturday to formally announce to former residents that their homes are lost. They cannot return to the 12-mile (20 kilometer) radius around the Fukushima nuclear power plant.

What has taken them so long can only be described as political machinations. The residents had to leave because of radiation that is known to contaminate for decades, at a minimum. There could not have been any possibility that residents would be able to return. Yet, the fiction was kept alive—and people's lives were kept on hold for months—simply so the enormity of the Fukushima nuclear disaster could be hidden away while political careers were secured and schemes could assure that there would be little public outlash at the plans to maintain nuclear power for energy.

Radiation Levels in Japan

Al Jazeera reports that Japanese scientists and doctors want a national mandate for testing food, water, soil, and the air for radioactivity that's still being spewed by TEPCO's fouled nuclear plant. Dr. Tatsuhiko Kodama, Professor at the Research Centre for Advanced Science and Technology and Director of the University of Tokyo's Radioisotope Center, wants to know:

How much radioactive materials have been released from the plant? The government and TEPCO have not reported the total amount of the released radioactivity yet.

Kodama's facilities have been measuring radiation across the Japanese nation. Their results are frightening. They have found that, since the earthquake over five months ago, the total amount of radiation released is greater than 29 "Hiroshima-type atomic bombs"! The amount of uranium that's been released is equivalent to about 20 Hiroshima bombs.

It will come as little surprise that Kodama believes the government's response has not been adequate.

Consider, also, that radiation levels greater than 10,000 millisieverts per hour were found just a couple of weeks ago. How much greater is unknown because geiger counters cannot register more than that.

Al Jazeera reports that Japanese doctors are now treating patients for ailments they believe were caused by radiation. Dr. Yuko Yanagisawa of Funabashi Futawa Hospital in Chiba Prefecture stated:

We have begun to see increased nosebleeds, stubborn cases of diarrhoea, and flu-like symptoms in children. We are encountering new situations we cannot explain with the body of knowledge we have relied upon up until now.

The situation at the Daiichi Nuclear facility in Fukushima has not yet been fully stabilised, and we can't yet see an end in sight. Because the nuclear material has not yet been encapsulated, radiation continues to stream into the environment.

Doctors are dismayed at the government's response of raising the accepted radiation limit for children from 1 millisievert/year to 20 millisieverts/year. Yanagisawa stated mildly:

This has caused controversy, from the medical point of view. This is certainly an issue that involves both personal internal exposures as well as low-dose exposures."

Kodama is an expert on internal effects of radiation, and is dismayed at the government's lack of response to food radioactivity:

Although three months have passed since the accident already, why have even such simple things have not been done yet? I get very angry and fly into a rage.

Radiation has a high risk to embryos in pregnant women, juveniles, and highly proliferative cells of people of growing ages. Even for adults, highly proliferative cells, such as hairs, blood, and intestinal epithelium cells, are sensitive to radiation.

Japan's Greenpeace Executive Director is direct:

It is utterly outrageous to raise the exposure levels for children to twenty times the maximum limit for adults. The Japanese government cannot simply increase safety limits for the sake of political convenience or to give the impression of normality.

But, of course, that's exactly what the Japanese government has done.

Dr. Helen Caldicott, founder and president of the Nobel Prize winning Physicians for Social Responsibility, is quoted by Al Jazeera on the concern for future generations:

Radioactive elements get into the testicles and ovaries, and these cause genetic disease like diabetes, cystic fibrosis, and mental retardation. There are 2,600 of these diseases that get into our genes and are passed from generation to generation, forever.

Dr. Yanagisawa further states:

Incidence of cancer will undoubtedly increase. In the case of children, thyroid cancer and leukemia can start to appear after several years. In the case of adults, the incidence of various types of cancer will increase over the course of several decades.

To be exposed to radiation, to be told there is no immediate effect, and afterwards to be stricken with cancer—what it is like to suffer this way over a long period of time, only the survivors of the atomic bombings can truly understand.

Already, some of the survivors of Fukushima are starting to understand, too.

I suppose quoting the Japanese government's response to all this would be considered fair. But this is not an issue of sides. This is an issue of lives—and Japan's government has dealt with the lives of its citizens as if they were pawns in a chess game. The lives of future generations are at risk, and they respond with evasions, not even attempts at solutions. In fact, they didn't even respond to Kodama's report of radiation levels; they simply ignored it.

Extent of the Coverup

None of this even considers the radioactive releases into the ocean and groundwater, or the plumes that have traveled around the world. In fact, where are the reports of where the radioactivity is heading? The truth is that Japan is not alone in the coverup. All the world's industrial nations are involved.

In the United States, there was a quake of about 6.0 intensity. Don't think that the US nuclear plants sailed through it, because they didn't. Bloomberg reported that the North Anna nuclear power plant operated by Dominion Resources went onto backup diesel generator power when the offsite power was knocked out on 23 August. One of the four generators wasn't operational, because the quake broke coolant piping.

The plant was supposedly built to withstand a quake of just that size, and it didn't quite manage. And the real story is worse than that. The Charleston Earthquake of 1886, a quake of about 7.0, was much stronger. Yet, no plans were made for a nuclear power plant to withstand a quake greater than 6.0—and it didn't quite manage that, anyway.

Quake sensors were removed from the North Anna Power Station nuclear plant during the 1990s. The reason was budget cuts. Oh—and Dominion Virginia Power, the plant's owner, has been planning to add a third reactor to the location. It'll be interesting to see if their plans go forward.

In June, a nuclear plant situated along the Mississippi River nearly went into a disaster status when flooding almost swamped the spent fuel rod pools. It may have come to within inches. Had the flood covered the spent fuel pools, radioactivity would have spread down the Mississippi River.

I can report from personal experience that another plant, Rancho Seco near Sacramento, California, came very close to meltdown nearly 30 years ago in California. The reason had nothing to do with natural disasters, though. Simple greed was at the root of it. The company that owned the plant had chosen not to do necessary routine maintenance, so that they could show a bigger profit. The blame was successfully placed on the design of the plant, which was most assuredly defective—making the failure of maintenance even more egregious. The public never knew the extent of the accident.

Obviously, the United States nuclear industry is plagued by exactly the same sorts of problems as Japan's.

The nuclear power industry has gone rogue—and our governments are aiding and abetting their crimes. The people of Japan are starting to suffer from the Fukushima disaster, and people all over the world will, also. Of course, our governments will almost certainly attempt to hide it, just as they've done everywhere. Chernobyl. Fukushima. Almost Three Mile Island and at least three other places in the United States.

Arnie Gundersen Video

Arnie Gundersen's Fairewinds analysis stated that the reactors' cores had continued to function after being shut down in April. That was, of course, pooh-poohed by the powers-that-be. A new report, though, by University of California scientists appears to support the claim. Radioactive ³⁵Sulphur is formed by neutrons hitting sodium atoms (as in salt) and forming the Sulphur isotope. The scientists found it in radioactive clouds over California, timed such that it almost certainly came from Fukushima's huge water vapor discharges.

Another claim by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission was that there were no problems with the spent fuel pools. However, plutonium—which had to come from the spent fuel pools—was found over a mile from the plant.

This, and more information is revealed, along with the logic and facts supporting Gundersen's claims, in the following video. (The upshot is that the Japanese government and TEPCO still have no coherent program to mitigate the Fukushima disaster.

Arnie Gundersen's Update (11:00)

New Data Supports Previous Fairewinds Analysis, as Contamination Spreads in Japan and Worldwide from Fairewinds Associates on Vimeo.

This article exists because of the great updates from Viviane Lerner.
Thank you, Viviane!

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