- The initial reports on 4,500 Fukushima residents who lived within 20 km of the power complex reveals no-one has internal and external exposure posing a health threat. In fact, the highest exposure, two boys from Futaba Village adjacent to Fukushima Daiichi property, received a total of 3 millisieverts. This is more than 30 times less than the theoretical minimum dose for negative health effects, and more than 300 times less than the statistical threshold of biological harm. Among the others tested, eight people received 2 millisieverts, six registered 1 millisievert and the remaining 4,447 residents had less than 1 millisievert. As should be expected, exposures diminish with distance from the plant. (Japan Times)
- Another relatively high radioactive hot spot has been discovered, this time in a residential area of Chiba City. The hot spot covers an area of about 3 square meters on vacant property. The contact reading with resident’s survey meters was 57.5 microsieverts/hr, which is the highest yet found outside the Fukushima Daiichi accident region. Local Chiba workers covered the hot spot with sand and a plastic sheet, dropping the surveyed level to below 0.4 microsieverts per hour. Officials will be investigating the discovery on Monday in order to ascertain its cause. (Japan Today and Mainichi Shimbun)Today (Monday), the Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology Ministry conducted an on-the-spot inspection and they have discovered the source of the “mini-hot spot”. It is a broken concrete drainage “ditch” about a foot below the surface of the ground. The soil around and above the break acted as a filter for the trace Cesium levels in the flow of rainwater run-off, which caused a relatively high concentration of the isotopes. Ministry surveys s around the hot spot were actually 14.6 microsieverts at 5cm above the ground and ~2 microsieverts at one meter height. Sand and plastic coverage lowered the level to about 0.6 microsieverts. The Ministry will consult with city officials on ditch repair, soil removal and disposal. (Mainichi Shimbun)
- Japan’s Science Ministry has begun a “hot spot telephone hotline” to deal with public discoveries of relatively high radiation areas outside Fukushima Prefecture. The Ministry wants local governments and citizens’ groups to identify sites where radiation exposure at one meter above the ground is more than one microsievert higher than the surrounding area. They also ask local governments to carry out simple decontamination work, such as clearing mud from ditches, before calling in Ministry assistance. Clearing ditches and gutters will usually drop exposures down to local levels, if not lower. If the exposure readings remain 1 microsievert above the surrounding area, then the local governments are to make the call. (NHK World)
- Many municipalities are against having mid- and long-term storage facilities in their regions for contaminated soil and waste from other municipalities. 162 cities, wards, towns and villages responded to the survey, of which 104 municipalities said they have either started or are planning to decontaminate radioactive materials. However about 46% say they will not take wastes from other Prefectures, and 52 % say they are “undecided” on the issue. Over half of the municipalities in Fukushima Prefecture declined to host such facilities. On a related note, 7% said the final repository for all contaminated waste ought to be in Fukushima Prefecture, 8% said “outside Fukushima Prefecture” and 85% said they had “no idea” on the location of a final site…just as long as it’s not in their own prefecture. Only 15 municipalities say they have set up temporary facilities where radioactive wastes can be kept before being transferred to interim storage facilities. A total of 80 percent either said they do not have such temporary facilities or don’t know whether or not they will establish such facilities. Of them, 69 percent cited difficulty in gaining local residents’ approval as the reason for the delay. Many of the municipalities blamed the central and prefectural governments for failing to provide information and leaving all the decontamination efforts to municipalities. (Mainichi Shimbun)
- The Forestry Agency says it will be OK for local governments to temporarily store contaminated wastes in public forests. Trees will be felled to clear sites for above-ground storage. Lower-level material will be piled up in plastic bags. The higher-level materials will be bagged and placed in concrete bunkers. The temporary storage sites will be built in forests within the jurisdictions of local governments that have collected the material. Sites will be located “tens to hundreds of meters” from residences. Residents who strongly opposed plans to store contaminated soil in school yards or playgrounds asked the Forestry Agency to come up with another method. This will not include sludge and ash from waste treatment plants and incinerators which continue to pile up. (Yomiuri Shimbun)
- A small number of residents who voluntarily evacuated from areas around the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant say they should receive compensation or at least a government acknowledgment that their homes are no longer safe. This is the second time in two months that residents who lived outside the evacuation zones and left only because they fear radiation, have asked for government money. (Asahi Shimbun)
