May 14, 2015

May 14, 2015 | Fukushima Accident Updates

  • 100 Tokyo-mandated Fukushima evacuees want more compensation money. To date, the 75,000 forced evacuees have been given 2.2 trillion yen (~$20 billion USD) in evacuation compensation. That’s more than a quarter of a million dollars apiece for every man, woman, and child; over a million dollars for a family of four. In addition, each evacuee gets another $1,000 per month for psychological stress. Further, evacuees owning property have garnered another ~$20 billion in compensation! But, for 100 evacuees from Namie, that is not enough. They come from an area that has been designated as “difficult to return”. The prospective plaintiffs plan on suing Tepco and the government for failing to make a firm plan for decontamination and robbing them of their homes. The suit is expected to be filed in Fukushima District Court as early as this summer. It should be noted that the alternative dispute resolution (ADR) system allows for such a filing. The possibility of the suit began when the recent proposal by the ADR to raise the monthly psychological stress subsidy to $1,500 was rejected by Tepco. Thus, residents of Namie feel justified in demanding more money. One prospective plaintiff said, “My distrust of the government has grown as it continues to turn a blind eye to TEPCO’s rejection of the proposed compromise. I decided to participate in the suit in order to make [TEPCO and the government] take responsibility.” While no damages amount has been set, a lawyer for the Namie residents mentioned the existing Tamura resident’s suit for more than $35 million…roughly $100,000 per Tamura plaintiff. http://mainichi.jp/english/english/newsselect/news/20150514p2a00m0na010000c.html — http://www.tepco.co.jp/en/comp/images/jisseki-e.pdf
  • F. Daiichi workers show general job satisfaction. 75% of the workers participated. 47.4% of the respondents said they feel a sense of satisfaction with their jobs, while only 14% said they did not. However, almost half of the workers and their families say they feel anxiety, with half of those stating the reason for their unease is possible health effects of low level radiation exposure. The others expressing anxiety said they worried about accidents and injuries while on the job. Tepco has decided to provide counseling for the workers, post a radiation exposure chart from the National Institute of Radiological Sciences, locate more monitors around the site to show actual radiation levels, display a poster to raise safety consciousness, and establish an interactive training facility to reduce risk of injury. The most common on-the-job complaint was that the company providing job instruction was different than the company paying them. This indicated that few of the thousands working at F. Daiichi understand contacting, sub-contracting, outsourcing, and basic labor laws. Tepco feels that when the new food service facility opens next month, many of the worker worries will become less common. http://www.tepco.co.jp/en/nu/fukushima-np/handouts/2015/images/handouts_150513_01-e.pdf
  • Japan’s new disaster recovery plan spreads the financial obligation locally…but not for nuclear. Until now, all recovery costs for the Great East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami of 2011 have been covered by Tokyo. However, when the new plan takes effect in late June, as much as half will be the responsibility of local governments. Reconstruction Minister Wataru Takeshita says the agency has “tried to ensure fairness” between the restoration of areas hit by the March 2011 disasters and those affected by other [prior] disasters. The new plan creates three categories of financial burden; fully-funded by Tokyo, partially-funded locally, and equally financed between Tokyo and local governments. Projects including rebuilding coastal levees and repair of ports and harbors would be partially funded by local governments, but mostly by Tokyo. Projects including road construction and/or repair, plus promotion of tourism, will be jointly funded in the same ratio as with local bodies unaffected by catastrophe. The change was spurred by the huge sums of restoration funds issued by Tokyo, but are currently being unspent and held by local governments in bank accounts. For example, Iwate Prefecture has about $300 million (USD) in “fiscal adjustment funds” and Miyagi Prefecture about $320 million. http://mainichi.jp/english/english/newsselect/news/20150512p2a00m0na015000c.html
  • The restart of the first Sendai station nuke probably won’t happen before the end of July, if then. The problem is how slowly the plant’s staff has been conducting pre-startup inspections. As of last week, they have only completed seven of the planned 180 items on the inspection list. The inspections began in early April. The Nuclear Regulation Authority blames this on plant owner Kyushu Electric Co. having set a timetable that is too optimistic. Kyushu Electric has added another 200 personnel to the process to speed things up. http://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/english/news/nuclear.html
  • Conditions are proposed for restart of the Hamaoka nuclear station. Hamaoka was the first Japanese nuke to be shuttered by former Prime Minister Naota Kan on May 14, 2011. This began the current nation-wide, economically-ruinous nuclear moratorium. Kan ordered the shutdown because he feared a Nanking Trench earthquake would cause a Fukushima-level accident at Hamaoka, forcing him to evacuate the entire Tokyo metropolitan area. Since then, the Japanese Press has generally assumed that Hamaoka will never be restarted. However, negotiations with the home prefecture’s governor and local communities indicates otherwise. Chubu Electric Co. has quietly garnered a safety agreement with the four municipalities within 10 kilometers of the station, which says, “When a nuclear reactor facility is set up or a change is made (to the nuclear plant), advance consent shall effectively be provided.” However, this does not constitute prior permission for restarts. For that, it seems Chubu Electric is open to the possibility of advance consent for restarts with regard to all eleven cities and towns within 30 kilometers. Chubu wants the 10 km safety agreement to be honored by the seven communities outside the 10km radius before they agree to the restart proposal. Shizuoka Gov. Heita Kawakatsu has said, “The power plant will not be operated without consent from the 11 cities and towns.” http://mainichi.jp/english/english/newsselect/news/20150514p2a00m0na012000c.html
  • Japan’s nuclear watchdog finds another potentially active fault…by Japanese standards. The Nuclear Regulation Authority defines “active” as the existence of geologic evidence to show movement within the past 130,000 years. For comparison, the USGA defines an active fault as one that has moved in the last 10,000 years. The NRA’s five member board investigating the faults under Shika Station in Ishikawa Prefecture says they have found one, and possibly two more faults that could be defined as active. Commissioner Akira Ishiwatari says the panel members “largely agreed” on the determination because four of the five panelists approved the finding. Hokuriku Electric Power Co. Vice President Yutaka Kanai said: “We take issue with that conclusion” and will present its “arguments at meetings on screening for restarts.” The draft report is forthcoming. If the NRA officially determines the three faults active, Japanese law might not allow either of the units at Shika to be restarted. http://english.kyodonews.jp/news/2015/05/352285.html — http://mainichi.jp/english/english/newsselect/news/20150513p2g00m0dm092000c.html — http://ajw.asahi.com/article/behind_news/social_affairs/AJ201505140050
  • The Ukraine considers drastically reducing the Chernobyl exclusion zone. The current “no-go” zone has a rough radius of 30 kilometers. The proposed radius will be reduced to roughly 10 kilometers. The 10km no-go zone will be turned into a “biosphere” while the outer region will be open to repopulation. Ecology and Natural Resources Minister Ihor Shevchenko said, “I have signed a document on the creation of the Chernobyl biosphere reserve, i.e., the nearest zone, some ten kilometers around the plant, will stay an exclusion zone, and the rest of the territory will be turned into the Chernobyl biosphere reserve. The radiation levels are safe there and economic activities can be conducted there.” He added that some locations inside the 10km radius will possibly allow people to live. http://russia-insider.com/en/society/ukraine-wants-reduce-chornobyl-exclusion-zone/ri6777 (Comment – this is important to the Fukushima’s Tokyo-mandated evacuees since not being allowed to go home is regularly justified by references to Chernobyl.)