July 15, 2013

Jul 15, 2013 | Fukushima Accident Updates

  • Prime Minister Abe says Fukushima food keeps him healthy. While supporting Fukushima candidate Masako Mori for the upcoming national election, the PM said he has been eating Fukushima-grown rice every day and it keeps him energetic, “Whenever I go to a summit meeting, I tell other leaders [that] I eat Fukushima-produced rice.” Many Japanese consumers and some Asian markets avoid Fukushima’s produce due to fears of radiation poisoning. Abe says the shunning of Fukushima foods is due to rumor and misinformation. He wants to show the food is safe and revive the area’s economy, “We’re going to wipe away the financial losses from this misinformation, speed up the rebuilding of the infrastructure, and use all our power to take up the rebuilding of Fukushima.” http://www.japantoday.com/category/politics/view/abe-claims-fukushima-food-keeps-him-healthy?utm_campaign=jt_newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_source=jt_newsletter_2013-07-13_PM
  • The PM has been visiting temporary living centers in Fukushima during his tour. However, some elderly people feel they are being left out of the loop. Many feel the Fukushima accident has not ended while others are frustrated because they cannot go home. They want to vote for candidates they feel will help them, but none have come to their prefabricated communities during the election campaign. While on-line campaigning is now available due to recent legislation, many of the elderly nuclear evacuees say they are not good at using computers so they really don’t know who to vote for. http://jen.jiji.com/jc/eng?g=eco&k=2013071500037
  • It seems most government funding for Tohoku reconstruction is either not being used or improperly spent. When PM Abe took office, he raised the reconstruction budget from $190 billion to $250 billion, but not much has changed. Only 1.2% of the temporary housing projects promised to tsunami refugees have been built, community relocation projects are at 1% and land reclamation stands at 2%. This is about the same as when Abe took office in January. Under the previous Tokyo regime, more than $10 billion of the money was diverted to projects that have little or nothing to do with Tohoku reconstruction. Abe is trying to get the money repaid, but only about $1 billion is expected to be reclaimed. Meanwhile, billions of dollars remain unspent because of a shortage of engineers and construction specialists willing to take on the work. The money is there, but there are not enough companies available to use it. Tokyo has a 2013 budget of $53 billion designated for making Japan more resilient to natural disasters and beefing-up tsunami protective barriers, but some politicians say it should be spent only on the Tohoku region to speed up its recovery. It also seems the government may be holding back about $1.5 billion intended for Fukushima decontamination work covering 36 communities in the prefecture. The Environment Ministry says the hold-up is due to their strict decontamination guidelines which make clean-up slow and tedious. Tepco must eventually reimburse the government, but much of the bill is being contested by the company because of decontamination ambiguities.  http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2013/07/14/national/reconstruction-work-still-slow-under-abe/#.UeP_q-vD8dU –- http://japandailypress.com/report-says-government-holding-back-over-60-of-fukushima-recovery-budget-1232258/
  • Mildly radioactive waste water was released to a Fukushima river in 2012. The 340 ton discharge was to the Iizaki river, which flows through the town of Minamisoma and is used for irrigation in areas outside the government-mandated exclusion zone. Nearly half of Minamisoma was outside the no-go zone at the time of the discharge. The town says they were never informed of the impending release, at the time. But JDC Corp., a government approved decontamination contractor, said they told the Japan Atomic Energy Agency of their plans, and JAEA says they passed the information on to the town. JAEA anticipated there would be no problems because the activity in the water was at 60 Becquerels per liter, well-below the limit of 90 Bq/liter. Now, the Environment Ministry is investigating to see if the information was shared in accordance with law. The problem stems from 60 tons of waste water at 100-120 Bq/liter having been mixed with 280 tons of water that contained very little contamination. The resulting mixture was discharged to the river, and now the town of Minamisoma doesn’t like it. http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2013/07/12/national/probe-launched-after-contractor-jdc-dumped-radioactive-water-into-river-for-irrigation-in-fukushima/#.UeAFlOvD8dU
  • A sea bass with more than 1,000 Bq/kilogram of Cesium was caught off the coast of Ibaraki Prefecture. The Cesium concentration is more than 10 times the national standard. Prefectural officials say it is the third-highest radioactive level found in a fish off the Ibaraki coast and the first since the spring of 2011. For the past two years, all fish from the Ibaraki waters have passed the health criterion, so they are surprised with the sea bass’ activity suddenly showing up. As a precaution, all Ibaraki sea bass will be removed from the marketplace. http://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/english/news/20130712_02.html
  • Tepco has posted a press handout detailing the water-proofing work being done at F. Daiichi. The effort is intended to prevent contaminated groundwater from reaching the station’s sea-barricaded inner port (quay). Diagrams show how hole-boring and chemical injections are being done. It also shows the locations of the groundwater sampling wells between units 1 and 2. http://210.250.6.22/en/nu/fukushima-np/handouts/2013/images/handouts_130708_03-e.pdf
  • A Jiji Press poll shows less than half of Japan’s public opposes nukes restarts. Those opposed came to 49.7%, those in favor were at 41.1% and 9.2% were undecided. The newspaper felt the poll indicated many Japanese remain cautious about restarts despite the new, tighter safety standards.  The poll also found that of all political parties competing with PM Shinzo Abe’s Liberal Democratic Party oppose restarts. The proportion of party supporters who oppose the restart were 87.5% for the Social Democratic Party, 76.9% for the Communist Party, 68.2% for Your Party, 66.7% for the Democratic Party of Japan, 57.9%  for New Komeito and 57.1%for Nippon Ishin No Kai (Japan Restoration Party). While not one of the central issues in next weekend’s upper house election, nuclear energy remains an issue of significance with the popular Press. http://jen.jiji.com/jc/eng?g=eco&k=2013071200714