'Colossal blunder' on radioactive cattle feed / Govt officials admit responsibility for foul-up that let tainted beef enter nation's food supply
The Yomiuri Shimbun
Officials of the Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Ministry have admitted they did not consider the possibility of cattle ingesting straw contaminated by radioactive substances emitted from the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant.
"This is nothing less than a colossal blunder by our ministry. It was beyond our expectations that straw would become a source of radioactive contamination," a ministry official said.
A total of 143 beef cattle suspected of being contaminated with radioactive cesium after ingesting straw that was stored outdoors have been shipped from Fukushima Prefecture and distributed to wholesalers, retailers and consumers in various prefectures.
Livestock farmers and others in the meat industry have attacked the government for its failure to prevent the problem.
On March 19, about one week after the outbreak of the crisis at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant, the agriculture ministry issued written instructions regarding livestock feed to farmers via local governments. The documents stipulated that any grass fed to livestock should have been reaped before the accidents at the plant, and stored indoors since the accident.
However, the instructions made no reference to rice straw.
In late April, the ministry set new regulations on livestock feed, stipulating that all feed must contain less than 300 becquerels of radioactive material per kilogram. However, the ministry failed to communicate this order to rice farmers who sell straw to livestock farmers.
Rice straw, which contains very little vitamin A, is unsuitable as a principle nutrition source for livestock. However, feeding it to beef cattle promotes the development of marbled fat, which is favored by many consumers. For this reason, many livestock farmers feed rice straw to cattle for several months prior to the animals being shipped to market.
Rice straw is generally reaped in autumn and then stored in warehouses, to protect it from the winter elements. "So we thought rice straw wouldn't have been affected by radioactive substances [leaked from the plant]," a senior agriculture ministry official said.
However, a man who works in the livestock industry in Fukushima Prefecture said it is "common knowledge" that in areas with little snowfall, some farmers leave straw in the open air in winter to dry.
"If grass is contaminated with radioactive substances, so is straw. Is that so difficult to figure out?" said a 33-year-old owner of a butcher shop in Hakusan, Ishikawa Prefecture.
The butcher used to sell top-grade beef from the Tohoku region at his shop, but since the nuclear accident sells only beef produced in western Japan.
"Until the government takes more effective action against this problem, I'll be scared to sell [Tohoku] beef at my shop," he said.
On April 18, the agriculture ministry ordered livestock farmers near the Fukushima No. 1 plant to have their cattle checked for radioactivity before shipment.
Experts soon voiced concerns about the value of the inspections, pointing out that while they may prevent workers at meat-processing plants from being exposed to radioactive substances, they do not measure the amount of radioactive substances absorbed internally by the cattle.
The checks involved electronically measuring the amount of radioactive material on the surface of the animals' bodies. Shipment is allowed if the detected radioactive emissions are below 100,000 counts per minute. The same amount of radioactive material on a human would require that person to undergo full-body decontamination.
So far, about 12,000 cattle have been subjected to the checks, and all have passed, the agriculture ministry said.
The ministry has asked livestock farmers to report the details of feed and water given to their cattle. But it is known that at least one farmer, who is based in Minami-Soma and shipped cattle contaminated with radioactive substances in excess of the provisional limit, gave an inaccurate report, the ministry said.
The contamination of beef from that farmer's cattle was discovered July 8.
The senior agricultural ministry official said: "We've sought to secure the safety of beef by managing the processes by which livestock farmers raise their animals. However, from the standpoint of protecting consumers, maybe we should have directly checked the safety of the meat."
Some Fukushima prefectural government officials said all cattle from the prefecture should be checked for internal radioactivity. The officials noted that mandatory checks for bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or mad cow disease, were introduced for all cattle after the disease was detected in Japan in 2001.
However, checking 90 brain tissue samples for mad cow disease takes only about three hours, whereas testing a single animal for internal radioactivity takes about an hour.
Also, germanium semiconductor devices used to conduct radioactivity checks cost 20 million yen each.
The local governments will inspect the safety of all beef and beef cattle if the central government orders them to do so, but they are already busy monitoring the safety of other food products.
The central government plans to restrict shipments of cattle raised in Fukushima Prefecture soon. However, it is estimated that several thousand beef cattle have already been shipped from the prefecture since the nuclear crisis began. Tracking and testing all the meat from those animals would be a difficult task.
"First of all, we need to restrict the shipment of beef, and then reorganize the framework for inspections," an official of the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry said.
"It would be difficult to inspect all the beef that's already been shipped. The priority is to find out which cattle might have been contaminated by eating rice straw. We do that by inspecting straw and cattle," the official said. (Jul. 18, 2011)
Lol, seeing as the beef itself is contaminated from eating contaminated food, I doubt it is that simple.
Agreed, but that's all they're checking. I found it ironic that they warn against the rice straw that was stored outside, and then in one of your previous posts, the mushrooms(clearly grown inside) were also contaminated..from what? Possibly tainted manure that came from inside a cow?
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09:07 AM
phonedawgz Member
Posts: 17091 From: Green Bay, WI USA Registered: Dec 2009
A huge problem with this discussion is the idea that contamination is 'black and white'. Clearly it is not. Trace contamination is not the same as items that are contaminated beyond regulatory limits.
I see little value in measuring the hide for radioactivity when early in the slaughtering process it is removed from the carcass. Just like the animal's fecal material these contaminates can be separated from the meat product.
No I wouldn't want to ingest either excessive radioactive contamination or the fecal products of beef.
The only way to be sure you're not eating contaminated food products is to measure each piece that goes in your mouth. The radioactive isotopes taken up by the animal may have wound up in many places inside, for instance, cesium and strontium tend to wind up in bones because chemically they're similar to calcium.
A person who waves a geiger counter over the whole cow, slaughters it and discards the hide, and considers the rest safe or prudent to consume without checking it is a fool.
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01:58 PM
Jul 20th, 2011
phonedawgz Member
Posts: 17091 From: Green Bay, WI USA Registered: Dec 2009
Japan Won't Rule Out Possibility Radioactive Fukushima Beef Was Exported Q By Aya Takada and Yuriy Humber - Jul 20, 2011 8:53 AM CT
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Japan’s government said it can’t rule out the possibility beef contaminated with radioactive material has been exported, as consumers and lawmakers accused authorities of negligence on food safety.
The government yesterday imposed a ban on beef shipments from areas near the crippled Fukushima nuclear plant after finding 637 cattle were fed hay containing radioactive cesium. Supermarkets including Japan’s biggest, Aeon Co., said the beef was sold in Tokyo and other cities.
“We cannot completely rule out the possibility” contaminated beef was also sold abroad, Yuichi Imasaki, the deputy director of the farm ministry’s meat and egg division said by phone today. “The chances are very low” because most countries have tightened rules on Japanese beef imports or banned them, he said.
The ban comes more than four months after the earthquake and tsunami wrecked the Fukushima Dai-Ichi power station causing the worst nuclear fallout since Chernobyl. Concerns about food contamination before yesterday’s ban cut beef exports by 16 percent in the last two months, while hotels and restaurants in the region, including Shangri-La Asia’s luxury chain dropped Japanese seafood from their menu.
“There has to be at least an independent investigation regarding the level of contamination to farming,” said Chris Busby, a visiting professor at the University of Ulster’s school of biomedical sciences and scientific secretary of the European Committee on Radiation Risk, a think-tank. Radioactive Hay
Busby is due to speak to Japanese lawmakers later today and has been testing radiation levels in Fukushima prefecture north of Tokyo and other areas.
Tainted hay was given to cattle in 19 farms in Fukushima, Niigata and Yamagata prefectures. Twelve cases of beef contamination were detected in eight prefectures, according to a statement from the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare.
Some beef from the 637 cattle contained cesium exceeding government standards and was sold to consumers, said Kazuyuki Hashimoto, an official at the food-monitoring division of the Tokyo metropolitan government. Aeon, Seven & I Holdings Co., and Marui Group said this week they had sold the tainted beef.
Seven & I traced back the origin of the beef it sold after the government announced the cattle contamination this week, spokesman Hiroyuki Hanamitsu said today by phone.
U.S. Import Ban
The U.S. has not allowed beef imports from Japan since April, 21, 2010, because of the possibility they may harbor foot-and-mouth disease, Matt Herrick, a spokesman for the Department of Agriculture, said today in an e-mail.
The danger from less-than-rigorous testing of produce leads to contaminated products on supermarket shelves and that creates a lack of confidence in all products, said Peter Burns, a nuclear physicist and former Australian representative on the United Nation’s scientific committee on atomic radiation.
“Like with Chernobyl, you don’t have people buying anything from Ukraine because it might be contaminated,” he said. “I would have thought that within two or three months they would have formed some sort of task force who has somebody in charge,” Burns, who has 40 years of radiation safety experience, said. Contaminated Products
Products including spinach, mushrooms, bamboo shoots, tea, milk, plums and fish have been found to be contaminated with cesium and iodine as far as 360 kilometers (225 miles) from Dai- Ichi. Tokyo Electric Power Co., the operator of the stricken station, said on June 14 it found cesium in milk tested near another nuclear reactor site about 210 kilometers from the damaged plant.
“The contamination occurred because the government did not take appropriate measures,” Yoko Tomiyama, chairwoman of the Consumers Union of Japan, said in a telephone interview yesterday. “They should take responsibility for their negligence.”
About 437 kilograms (963 pounds) of beef from a farm in Minami-Soma city, 30 kilometers from the Dai-Ichi nuclear station, was consumed in eight prefectures, according to the Tokyo metropolitan government, which detected the first case of tainted beef from the farm earlier this month. Cesium Beef
As much as 2,300 becquerels of cesium a kilogram was detected in the contaminated beef, according to the July 18 statement from the health ministry. The government limit is 500 becquerels per kilogram. Rice hay produced in Fukushima prefecture was found to contain as much as 690,000 becquerels, exceeding the 300-becquerel limit, according to the local government office.
For people who have eaten the beef, “the overall long-term implications of this are extremely minor as far as any potential harmful health effects,” said Burns. Though the reputational damage can end up “destroying whole industries,” he said.
Fukushima is the 10th biggest cattle-producing region in Japan, representing 2.7 percent of the total. The nation exported 541 metric tons of beef worth 3.4 billion yen ($42.8 million) last year, including premium wagyu meat.
Japan exported 49.1 tons of beef in May, 50.6 tons in April and 58.6 tons in March, according to the farm ministry’s data. Vietnam, Hong Kong and the U.S. were the biggest markets for Japanese beef in the year through March 2010.
“We are currently tracking all beef shipped from Fukushima prefecture. So far we’ve found no case of contaminated beef exports,” said Tomohiro Hagiya, an official at the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare’s food safety department.
Japan imported 204,543 tons of beef in the five months ended May 31, an increase of 11 percent from the same period last year, according to the agriculture ministry.
To contact the reporter on this story: Aya Takada in Tokyo at atakada2@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Peter Langan at plangan@bloomberg.net
Disclaimer : .2-.5 microsievert is a pretty low amount of radiation. 1 microsievert = 0.0001 rads Just interesting because its an airborne measurement. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Japan's science ministry says air above the ground about 150 kilometers from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant is as radioactive as areas 50 kilometers from the source of radioactivity.
The ministry on Wednesday released a map showing radiation levels at locations one meter above the ground in Miyagi Prefecture, north of Fukushima, based on the results of an aerial survey from June 22nd through 30th.
Radioactivity levels are highlighted in different colors.
Some parts of Kurihara City, about 150 kilometers north of the plant are light blue, indicating that the air there was 0.2 to 0.5 microsieverts per hour.
That's similar to areas close to the crippled plant, such as Iwaki City in Fukushima Prefecture, about 50 kilometers from the radioactive source.
Radioactive cesium far above the government standard was detected in rice straw for cattle feed collected by a supplier in Kurihara City.
A total of 1,349 cattle suspected of being fed rice straw containing radioactive cesium have been shipped to 45 of Japan’s 47 prefectures, a Kyodo News tally showed Wednesday.
Heavy rain brought by a tropical storm has increased the level of radioactive contaminated water at the basements of the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.
Typhoon Ma-on moved east off the southern coast of Japan's main island of Honshu. 115 millimeters of precipitation was recorded in Namie Town, north of the plant, between Tuesday and Thursday.
Rain has been gathering in the buildings housing the reactors because the roofs were severely damaged by hydrogen explosions that occurred after the initial March 11th disaster.
Tokyo Electric Power Company or TEPCO, the plant's operator, says that at 7 AM local time on Thursday, the level of contaminated water pooled at the basement of the building of the No. 1 reactor was 44 centimeters up from the previous day.
Officials at the utility say that there is no immediate danger of the contaminated water spilling out.
But it is likely that the level of water will continue to rise for the time being. TEPCO says they are monitoring the situation.
Another disgruntled Japanese official has taken to the interwebs to air his grievances about the inadequate attention being paid to the welfare of residents of Minamisoma, a town about 25 kilometers away from the stricken Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant. Minamisoma last grabbed international headlines when the town's mayor posted an earnest appeal for help on YouTube two weeks after the March 11 disasters, bringing him worldwide attention and a nomination as one of the most influential people of the year from TIME.
In a bit of social media jiujitsu, Koichi Ohyama, a city council member, uses the same tactic to take Sakurai to task for asking residents who voluntarily evacuated to come back home. Ohyama says the mayor and the central government have been rushing to repopulate the town, putting economic interests ahead of residents' best interests. Selective spots in the 20-30 km band around the plant found to have high radiation levels were evacuated in the spring, but the mandatory order was never applied to Minamisoma.
Ohyama says he has been fielding concerns from residents who are scared to move back, worried about their drinking water and the schools, and says that there has never been a satisfactory answer from Tokyo as to where the large amounts of radioactive materials that the IAEA says were emitted in the first days of the Fukushima meltdown landed.
Ohyama's point is clear: however inconvenient it might be, this crisis is not over, especially not until residents have all the answers they deserve. Recent events do lend the sentiment credibility: Last week, consumers balked at a breakdown in the safety system designed to protect them from unwittingly buying irradiated food as officials announced that beef contaminated with radioactive cesium made it onto supermarket shelves around the country.
And on Thursday, just three days after Ohyama posted the video, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano said the government was due to announce more "hot spots" in Fukuhsima that are newly recommended for evacuation where radiation levels are persistently high.
Political wrangling aside, Ohyama's questions are reasonable ones that any YouTube viewer would want answered too if they were living in a city that's a ten-minute drive away from a nuclear power plant that recently experienced meltdown in three of its four reactors. The question is whether anyone is still watching. Ohyama himself says that the challenge the city faces is the calendar: "Now in Minamisoma, people are losing their protection from contamination just because a long time has passed since March 11."
Krista Mahr is a reporter at TIME. Find her on Twitter at @kristamahr. You can also continue the discussion on TIME's Facebook page and on Twitter at @TIME.
Evidently radioactive beef is good for you. <---my comment
"Do people who have eaten contaminated beef need to worry about their health?
Not unless a person continues to consume tainted beef over a long period of time. As of Thursday, the most highly contaminated beef found contained radioactive cesium of 4,350 becquerels per kilogram, according to the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry. The meat did not reach the market.
Eating 1 kg of the meat is roughly equal to a radiation dose of 82.65 microsieverts for a period during which radioactive cesium remains in one's body. If a person eats food with radioactive cesium, half the amount remains in the body for nine days for a baby younger than 1. But the duration gets longer as people age, and it takes 90 days for those aged 50.
The 82.65 microsieverts compares with the 100 microsieverts of radiation a person would be exposed to during a one-way air trip from Tokyo to New York."
Sounds good, but is that 82.65 microsieverts for the baby's 9 days or is that 82.65 microsieverts for the 50 year olds 90 days. If the baby only has the cesium in it for 9 days, it could not receive the same dose as the 50 year old.<---- my comment
So radioactive beef is good for you, no worries, but even better TEPCO redefines cold shut down and is no longer concerned about plugging the holes in the containment vessel. <---- my comment
"In the newly updated plan, released Tuesday, the two sides defined cold shutdown as bringing the temperature at the bottom of the pressure vessels in the stricken reactors to below 100 degrees." Note that is bottom of pressure vessel, not reactor core.
"To substantially reduce the amount of radioactive materials released from the plant, Tepco needs to get to the bottom of the problem: plugging holes or cracks in the reactors' containment vessels that are allowing contaminated water to flood on-site facilities, including the reactor buildings and turbine buildings, experts said.
The updated road map, however, includes no reference to this critical work in the second stage, even though it was mentioned in past plans. And without fixing this problem, it is difficult to say that the release of radioactive materials is under control."
If you read the article or paid attention to quotations you would have known that was my comments and they were sarcasm.
He deliberately misstated what you wrote in order to promote a false impression about your writing. In many places in this world that's called lying. Dunno what it's called here on PFF...
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07:04 PM
1fatcat Member
Posts: 1519 From: Zimmerman, Mn Registered: Dec 2010
So, is there anyone that kept up on this from the start that want to give a run down of whats happening with those nuk plants? Or do I have to read all 23 pages?
So, is there anyone that kept up on this from the start that want to give a run down of whats happening with those nuk plants? Or do I have to read all 23 pages?
Basically, the earthquake caused some damage, but the tsunami wiped out the backup generators (that were not protected) needed to circulate water to keep stored used fuel and the fuel in the reactors themselves from melting. They melted, heat disassociated water into hydrogen and oxygen which then blew up, blasting the outer buildings to pieces. Lots of radiation energy as well as radioactive isotopes blew out the top and also ran out into the ocean from cracks likely caused by the earthquake. This scenario was predicted years before by us but never acted on to protect the generators more. TEPCO is the name of the utility owning the reactors, their information has been consistently inaccurate, generally in the form of saying things were under control or weren't as bad as they could be, only being proven wrong repeatedly. Currently they're still struggling to stop radiation releases, more than 60,000 refugees are scattered from the area which has been declared off limits, many of whom's homes weren't damaged by the tsunami and only moderately by the earthquake. Radioactive elements are showing up in food, both ocean and land sourced. Plans were that they'd have things under control by Christmas, but now it looks like that isn't going to happen either. Who knows when, or if, the refugees will be allowed to return home and start rebuilding their homes, farms, and small businesses.
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07:35 PM
carnut122 Member
Posts: 9122 From: Waleska, GA, USA Registered: Jan 2004
So, is there anyone that kept up on this from the start that want to give a run down of whats happening with those nuk plants? Or do I have to read all 23 pages?
I'll give it a shot, but you'll be better informed if you read it all. Japan had a Tsunami that nobody foresaw when building Fukushima. The unthinkable happened and the power plant with six reactors had no (or virtually no) power to cool the nuclear cores and the spent fuel pools(ALL backup systems designed to stop the unthinkable didn't). The politicians and power company gave a rosy picture or no picture at all when in reality it appears that 3 of the cores have melted. Millions of gallons of water have been (and continue to be)dumped into the cores. Much of that water escaped into the ocean and it's easy to conclude into the local ground-water. Various radio-active components have also escaped into the atmosphere. There are some that said, "don't worry all is OK." And, others who say that the nuclear industry and government are in a mutual conspiracy to promote nuclear power irregardless of the consequences to the environment. There are some that think nuclear power is the best thing since sliced bread and there are others who say the risks far outweigh the benefits. In Japan, something like 60,000 have been exiled from the exclusion zone that our(USA) government says is half of the radius it should be. Dennis6 posts the latest on the saga and although he has recently been noted for posting only the negative side of the story, admittedly, that's the only side of the story there is. If there was a positive side of the story, Phonedawgz would post it Oh, you wanted a run-down on the Nuke Plant and not the thread? In that case, you'd have to ask TEPCO and the Japanese government, and so far they haven't been very truthful.
[This message has been edited by carnut122 (edited 07-26-2011).]
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07:39 PM
dennis_6 Member
Posts: 7196 From: between here and there Registered: Aug 2001
July 24 (Bloomberg) -- Radiation threats to Japan's food chain are multiplying as cesium emissions from the crippled Fukushima Dai-Ichi nuclear power plant spread more widely, moving from hay to cattle to beef.
Hay contaminated with as much as 690,000 becquerels a kilogram, compared with a government safety standard of 300 becquerels, has been fed to cattle. Beef with unsafe levels of the radioactive element was detected in four prefectures, the health ministry said yesterday.
Agriculture Minister Michihiko Kano has said officials were unaware of the risk that rice farmers might ship tainted hay to cattle growers. That highlights the government's inability to think ahead and to act, said Mariko Sano, secretary general for Shufuren, a housewives organization in Tokyo.
"The government is so slow to move," Sano said. "They've done little to ensure food safety."
Prolonged exposure to radiation in the air, ground and food can cause leukemia and other cancers, according to the London- based World Nuclear Association.
A growing concern is that the release of radiation into waters near the Fukushima plant may multiply through the seafood chain.
Levels of cesium-134 in seawater near the Fukushima plant's No. 3 reactor rose to levels 30 times the allowed safety standards last week, according to tests performed by Tokyo Electric Power Co, national broadcaster NHK reported.
No Testing System
Japan has no centralized system to check for radiation contamination of food. Prefectural authorities in cooperation with local farmers conduct voluntary tests. Products including spinach, mushrooms, bamboo shoots, tea, milk, plums and fish have been found contaminated with cesium and iodine as far as 360 kilometers from Dai-Ichi.
Tokyo Electric said June 14 it found cesium in milk tested near another nuclear reactor site about 210 kilometers from the Fukushima plant.
The government is considering if it's feasible to test all cattle to prevent shipments of tainted meat to market, according to Yasuo Sasaki, senior press counselor for the agriculture ministry.
Four months after the earthquake and tsunami damage to the Fukushima plant, local governments short of equipment, staff and budget are struggling to test all farm products.
More than 2,600 cattle have been contaminated, Kyodo News reported yesterday, after the Miyagi prefectural government said 1,183 cattle at 58 farms were fed the tainted hay before being shipped to meat markets.
Coming after the government banned cattle shipments from Fukushima on July 19, the latest discoveries signal efforts so far haven't been sufficient to protect Japan's food chain.
-- With assistance from Keiko Ujikane and Pavel Alpeyev in Tokyo. Editors: Jim McDonald, Paul Tighe
This footage, from a recent meeting of indignant Japanese citizens and feckless Japanese government types should be a little shocking. Sadly, it’s just more of the same – ineptitude and inaction. By denying the right to avoiding radiation? OK, shocking.
The Tokyo meeting was meant to broach the push to expand the evacuation zone around Fukushima – a zone that’s proven inadequately and dangerously narrow. One Fukushima resident asks, “As other people do, people in Fukushima have the right to avoid the radiation exposure and live a healthy life, too. Don’t you think so?”
A Nuclear Safety Commission Of Japan rep, when pushed to go beyond his canned non-answer, deadpans “I don’t know if they have that right.” The crowd reacts as you would expect when told they nuclear-threatened welfare isn’t a concern. After being jeered at by the understandably outraged audience, and ignoring requests to test the radioactive content of young residents’ urine, the government panel packed up and left.
If you could compress the past four months’ anxiety, tension, crisis, inaction, confusion and stifled anger into one meeting room, you’d produce the above, this smouldering radioactive diamond of national failure. [via Boing Boing]
The operator of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant has begun looking for new ways to reduce the amount of contaminated water that is hampering efforts to stabilize the damaged reactors.
Tokyo Electric Power Company sent a remote-controlled robot into the No.3 reactor building on Tuesday to take photos of the piping and measure radiation levels.
TEPCO decided to use the robot to find methods of cooling the nuclear fuel in the first 3 reactors with less water.
The utility injects about 390 tons of water into the reactors every day, but most of it becomes contaminated with radioactive materials.
TEPCO says the temperature of the No.3 reactor is relatively stable, but it needs more water than the others because of leaks and other problems.
Reducing the volume of contaminated water is the key to putting the reactors under control, but a system for treating radioactive water has been hit by a series of troubles.
TEPCO hopes to eventually send workers into the buildings to find a way to pour water directly onto the fuel rods.
A newly released document says the Japanese government estimated in April that some 1600 workers will be exposed to high levels of radiation in the course of handling the reactor meltdowns at the stricken Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant.
The figure was released in a document from the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI), which is in charge of regulating Japan's nuclear industry, after the Japan Occupational Safety and Health Resource Center requested the information be made public, according an article published on Thursday in the Mainichi Daily News.
The government defines high exposure levels for workers as over 50 millisieverts per year. Under normal Japanese law, it is illegal for nuclear workers to be exposed to more than 100 millisieverts per year, but in the wake of the March 11 crises, the government raised the exposure limit to 250. The April 25 document, however, expresses concern for the safety of its dozens of other reactors: if this many of nuclear workers face such high exposure, they may be not be able to legally work at other nuclear plants in the coming year.
The number, it should be noted, is only an estimate. To date, only six workers have been recorded as exposed to more than 250 millisieverts per year, and less than 420 workers have been recorded as having been exposed to 50.
Meanwhile, on Monday, IAEA head honcho Yukiya Amano donned his own protective gear to get a look at the grounds of the crippled plant with members of Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO). (You can tell which one Amano is because, well, his name is written all over his white suit.)
Radioactive emissions from the site have dropped to a fraction of what they were in early days of the accident. A person standing at the edge of the plant today could expect to be exposed to about 1.7 millisieverts per year, compared to the worldwide average of 2.4 millisieverts per year of background radiation, according to the World Nuclear News.
That's the good news. The bad news is that that does not in any way take into account the long-term contamination from the radioactive elements that were dispersed over the ground and other surfaces in March. That contamination is thought to cover an area as large as 621 square miles — or, roughly, the size of Houston.
Krista Mahr is a reporter at TIME. Find her on Twitter at @kristamahr. You can also continue the discussion on TIME's Facebook page and on Twitter at @TIME.
Iwate may face similar ban amid radiation spread Miyagi beef cattle shipments barred
By MASAMI ITO Staff writer
The government ordered a complete ban Thursday on all shipments of beef cattle from Miyagi Prefecture after detecting radioactive cesium above the government limit in some local cattle.
The government is also considering placing a similar ban on beef cattle from Iwate Prefecture, where five cattle from Ichinoseki and Fujisawa have already been found contaminated with radioactive cesium exceeding the limit of 500 becquerels per kilogram.
That decision is expected to come next week, sources said.
The discovery of beef cattle from various prefectures in northeastern Japan with elevated levels of radioactive cesium has caused widespread concern.
The cattle were fed straw contaminated by fallout from the crippled and leaking Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant.
Miyagi is the second prefecture after Fukushima to be given orders to suspend shipments of beef but likely won't be the last.
"We feel regret for those in the stock-breeding industry but we will firmly continue to collect information and examine the situation from the viewpoint of safety," Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano said Thursday afternoon.
"And naturally, we will take measures if necessary."
Four of the six Miyagi Prefecture cattle are from Kurihara, and one each from Kakuda and Zao.
The farmers who shipped the six contaminated cattle and others who fed their cattle contaminated straw will be obliged to hold blanket tests on all of their slaughtered beef.
Other farmers will be required to test one cow on each ranch. About 30,000 beef cattle are shipped annually from Miyagi Prefecture.
The ban will be partially lifted at the request of the prefecture if steps to improve safety are implemented, the government said.
Edano added that the government would try to provide "appropriate compensation" to the farmers for the damages.
Many prefectural governments have decided to conduct blanket tests on their beef cattle, most recently Tochigi and Ibaraki.
Ibaraki will begin the testing Aug. 1 while Tochigi is expected to decide on the details next week.
The Miyagi, Gunma and Iwate prefectural governments have also already announced their intention to conduct tests for radiation contamination on all of their beef.
Miyagi Gov. Yoshihiro Murai told a press conference his government will screen meat from all cattle brought to the prefecture's two slaughterhouses from Monday.
About 90 head of cattle go through the two slaughterhouses every day, and the prefecture will ship those that test safe with a safety certificate.
Earlier reports said most of the contaminated beef came from cattle fed rice straw that was kept outside in Fukushima Prefecture during the reactor meltdowns. Some of the feed was shipped to other areas.
Fukushima Teacher Muzzled on Radiation Risks for School Children Q By Takahiko Hyuga - Jul 28, 2011 10:00 AM CT
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As temperatures soared to 100 degrees Fahrenheit on a recent July morning, school children in Fukushima prefecture were taking off their masks and running around playgrounds in T-shirts, exposing them to a similar amount of annual radiation as a worker in a nuclear power plant.
Toshinori Shishido, a Japanese literature teacher of 25 years, had warned his students two months ago to wear surgical masks and keep their skin covered with long-sleeved shirts. His advice went unheeded, not because of the weather but because his school told him not to alarm students. Shishido quit this week.
“I want to get away from this situation where I’m not even allowed to alert children about radiation exposure,” said Shishido, a 48-year-old teacher who taught at Fukushima Nishi High School. “Now I’m free to talk about the risks.”
After the March 11 earthquake and tsunami devastated the Tohoku region in Japan’s northeast, the central government evacuated as many as 470,000 residents, including 160,000 because of radiation risks from the crippled Dai-Ichi nuclear plant. More than 2 million residents including 271,000 children remain in Fukushima, Japan’s third-biggest prefecture by size.
The government is closely monitoring radiation levels, said Yoshiaki Ishida, an official at the Ministry of Education.
“We don’t think we are at a stage to tell Fukushima people to evacuate at this moment,” Ishida said.
Kiyoharu Furukawa, 57, assistant principal at Fukushima Nishi High, said the school told Shishido not to spend too much time talking about radiation during his classes as some students and parents complained. He confirmed Shishido resigned. ‘Invisible Snakes’
Radiation can damage human cells and DNA, with prolonged exposure causing leukemia and other forms of cancer, according to the World Nuclear Association. Children are more susceptible as their cells grow at a faster rate.
“It’s all invisible. The trees are still trees, people are shopping, the birds are singing and dogs are walking in the street,” said Chris Busby, a visiting professor at the University of Ulster’s school of biomedical sciences, who visited Fukushima prefecture last week to provide information on health risks. “When you bring out the (Geiger) machines, you can see everything is sparkling and everyone is being bitten by invisible snakes that will eventually kill them.”
Shishido will leave Fukushima for Sapporo, on the northern island of Hokkaido, on Aug. 8 to join his wife and two children aged 13 and 10, he said. The teacher aims to create a network there to help the 3,000 evacuees from Fukushima find jobs. Rent-Free Housing
Hokkaido is offering 2,140 apartments in public housing, some rent-free, to evacuees from Fukushima, Miyagi, Iwate and other prefectures affected by the quake and tsunami, said Toshifumi Imai, a Hokkaido housing official. The government also offers loans of as much as 500,000 yen ($6,400) without interest, he said.
“People in Hokkaido were supposed to take the public housing,” said Imai. “Most of them are still available.”
Shishido said he was instructed by school officials not to tell his students that they should wear masks or about how radiation would affect their health. He deleted some comments from his blog after receiving those orders in May.
“I saw little boys playing baseball in a cloud of dust, and I wondered who can protect their future,” said Kanako Nishikata, a 33-year-old housewife with a son, aged 11, and daughter, aged 8. “It’s shocking to learn a teacher is quitting because he can’t protect the students.”
A group of parents and children from Fukushima plan to visit Education Minister Yoshiaki Takaki in Tokyo on Aug. 17 to ask him to evacuate children from the prefecture, she said. Within Limits
Fukushima Nishi High, which has 873 students, had readings of 0.07 microsieverts per hour in the school building and 1.5 microsieverts per hour in the playground on July 14, still within the safety limits set by the prefecture and government, Furukawa, the assistant principal said. The school continues to hold gym classes and sports club activities outside, he said.
“I don’t think the children are safe either, and I know the radiation level is still high,” Furukawa said. “These days, they are wearing short sleeves and no masks.”
An official at the Fukushima Prefectural Board of Education, who didn’t want to be identified, said he was surprised that Fukushima Nishi High clamped down on Shishido’s views. The board has sent counselors to the 301 schools it oversees to ensure that children are not suffering from mental problems, the official said. The board also asks students and teachers to wash their hands and gargle after playing outside, the official said. Radiation Exposure
About a fifth of the 1,600 schools in Fukushima are exposed to at least 20 millisieverts of radiation a year, the Network to Protect Fukushima Children from Radiation said, citing the most recent government readings in April. That’s the limit for an atomic plant worker set by the International Commission on Radiological Protection.
More than three-quarters of the schools receive radiation readings of 0.6 microsievert per hour, said the network, a group comprising 700 parents. That’s 10 times more than the readings in Shinjuku, central Tokyo, on average.
Miyuki Sato, a 36-year-old housewife who evacuated to Kyoto this week with her two children, attended a town hall with government officials in Fukushima on July 19. She said that even after leaving her home, she still has a 120,000 yen monthly mortgage to pay off.
“You may say we should keep children at home if we think it’s dangerous, but kids need to play outside if they want to pick flowers or collect beetles,” said the mother of a 9-year- old son and a year-old daughter. “Please get all the children out of Fukushima. Please offer financial aid for us.”
To contact the reporter on this story: Takahiko Hyuga in Tokyo at thyuga@bloomberg.net
Apparently TEPCO hasn't done a comprehensive block by block search for fallout zones yet, since every day we are "surprised" that more Cesium and other isotopes are showing up in new place after new place.
I'm visualizing TEPCO and the nuclear industry over there doing the thing with three monkeys, one eyes covered, one mouth covered, and one ears covered.
How can anyone keep more nucleotides from contaminating farm and ranch land, thus rendering all that produce ruined, without a comprehensive survey? Does the industry over there even have the physical and financial resources to determine how many hundreds of square miles they contaminated?
Meltdowns can also occur in the spent fuel ponds if cooling is lost. These ponds are even less protected as they are outside the primary containment (Figure 3). Storage pond accidents are becoming more frequent when the ponds are filled beyond design capacity. At Fukushima, built in 1971, some 500,000 used fuel rods have accumulated. This is ten times the amount which the ponds were designed for. In many American plants, the spent-fuel pools represent a worse radiation threat than the reactors, because they contain far more uranium than is in the reactor cores.
If TEPCO had installed these systems they could saved the taxpayers and the Japanese economy tens of billion dollars. This is yet another example where the taxpayers are asked to pay for the results of shortcuts that earned nuclear industry CEOs hundreds of millions of dollars. When will the cost to taxpayers be factored into the true cost of nuclear power? More importantly, why is it even rational to not do so?
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dennis_6 Member
Posts: 7196 From: between here and there Registered: Aug 2001
Damaged Nuclear Fuel Rod Stuck At Japanese Plant for 17 Years
Updated: Thursday, 28 Jul 2011, 6:35 AM EDT Published : Thursday, 28 Jul 2011, 6:35 AM EDT
By NewsCore
OMAEZAKI, Japan - A damaged nuclear fuel rod was stuck inside a reactor at Japan's ageing Hamaoka nuclear plant after an accident 17 years ago and is still there, the plant's operator said Thursday.
The operator, Chubu Electric Power Co., said experts were unable to remove the spent fuel rod from the plant, located 125 miles (200 kilometers) southwest of Tokyo, Kyodo News reported.
The rod was stored inside a special container in the spent fuel pool of a decommissioned reactor. The company sought help from domestic and foreign experts on how to safely extract it, but no solution was found so far.
Nuclear safety is a major issue in Japan following the March 11 earthquake and tsunami that triggered a nuclear disaster at the Fukushima nuclear plant.
Japan shut down the Hamaoka facility, which is located near a tectonic fault line, pending safety improvement
Meltdowns can also occur in the spent fuel ponds if cooling is lost. These ponds are even less protected as they are outside the primary containment (Figure 3). Storage pond accidents are becoming more frequent when the ponds are filled beyond design capacity. At Fukushima, built in 1971, some 500,000 used fuel rods have accumulated. This is ten times the amount which the ponds were designed for. In many American plants, the spent-fuel pools represent a worse radiation threat than the reactors, because they contain far more uranium than is in the reactor cores.
If TEPCO had installed these systems they could saved the taxpayers and the Japanese economy tens of billion dollars. This is yet another example where the taxpayers are asked to pay for the results of shortcuts that earned nuclear industry CEOs hundreds of millions of dollars. When will the cost to taxpayers be factored into the true cost of nuclear power? More importantly, why is it even rational to not do so?
After tornadoes, TVA will replace emergency sirens
By Eric Fleischauer, For the TimesDaily
Published: Thursday, July 28, 2011 at 3:30 a.m. Last Modified: Wednesday, July 27, 2011 at 10:34 p.m.
A Tennessee Valley Authority official said Wednesday the authority plans to correct a problem that left only 12 of Browns Ferry Nuclear Plant’s required 100 emergency sirens working after the April 27 tornadoes.
“We’re looking at procuring, bringing in and installing emergency sirens that would have a battery backup capability so they would be able to withstand a loss of electrical supply for some period of time,” said Bill McCollum, chief operating officer of the TVA.
The same power loss that left 88 sirens useless also caused problems at the nuclear plant.
All three reactors shut down automatically April 27. Because of the distraction of reactor personnel, according to a report TVA filed this month with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, water levels dropped in the Unit 1 reactor when the water boiled off faster than it was replaced. The cooling systems that control the temperature of the reactors and spent fuel rods stopped working for 47 minutes on April 28, 57 minutes on May 2 and 40 minutes on May 12.
Also, shortly after the tornadoes came within seven miles of the plant, a valve failed, the diesel-driven generator for the security station failed, a diesel-driven fire pump failed and the plant lost power to the chemical lab.
During many of those incidents, the emergency sirens were without power.
McCollum said TVA was aware of the vulnerability of the siren-warning system before the tornadoes.
“It was always recognized that you might lose siren capability during some sort of natural disaster,” McCollum said.
In addition to the loss of electrical supply, he said, “you can also have sirens that could be damaged due to direct impact from a tornado or some other natural event. Part of the emergency planning has always had procedures in place for ... other measures you would take following a natural disaster to be able to alert the public and handle potential evacuations.”
Working with local emergency management agencies, TVA had recognized the need for sirens that can survive a loss of external power some time before March 11, when a nuclear disaster in Fukushima, Japan, triggered closer scrutiny of disaster-response issues by TVA and the NRC, TVA spokesman Ray Golden said.
McCollum said he expected the replacement sirens to “come in over the next several months.”
Eddie Hicks, director of Morgan County Emergency Management Agency, said he would welcome a Browns Ferry siren system that had backup power. Eighteen of the Browns Ferry sirens are in Morgan County. The EMA also has a separate siren system for disasters not involving the nuclear plant.
“Our other siren system does have (backup power),” Hicks said. “You’ve got to understand that the TVA system is maybe 30 years old. The technology changed. We wanted the battery backup on the newer system.”
Morgan County’s non-TVA sirens, which can operate on backup power, are about 15 years old, Hicks said.
Other changes
TVA also is considering implementation of other changes that would increase its readiness in the event of a natural disaster, including some prompted by the NRC.
In a July 12 report, an NRC task force made numerous recommendations for U.S. nuclear power plants after studying the Fukushima disaster.
Nuclear reactors in Fukushima lost power after an earthquake and tsunami damaged the power grid. Flooding destroyed the diesel generators intended to provide the reactors with backup power. The power loss, combined with earthquake-related damage, caused reactor meltdowns and the widespread release of radioactive particles.
The NRC report recommends U.S. power plants increase the time in which plants can cope with a complete loss of power and diesel generators to eight hours. Batteries at Browns Ferry provide power for four hours.
McCollum said TVA is looking at either replacing its four-hour batteries with eight-hour batteries, or acquiring generators that can recharge the existing batteries.
The NRC report recommended upgrades to the spent-fuel pools and hydrogen-release vents of reactors, including those at Browns Ferry, which have the same design as the Fukushima reactors. It also recommended that nuclear plants have connections permitting pump trucks to spray water on the spent-fuel pools for manual cooling.
McCollum said TVA came to similar conclusions after its own analysis of the Fukushima event, and plans to implement some before a final NRC report is issued.
He said TVA has begun the process of purchasing diesel-powered pumps and installing water pipes to facilitate cooling if a disaster compromises other systems.
In response to its analysis of the Fukushima meltdown, TVA already has purchased additional satellite phones to permit communication despite a disaster that disables other communications systems, Golden said.
McCollum said any plant upgrades made as a result of lessons learned from Fukushima have the potential of increasing costs for ratepayers.
“Every dollar that TVA spends on everything that we do is ultimately paid for through power revenue,” McCollum said. “We’re concerned about cost, but we’re also committed to doing the right thing in running our nuclear plants.” http://www.timesdaily.com/a...ace-emergency-sirens
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Jul 29th, 2011
dennis_6 Member
Posts: 7196 From: between here and there Registered: Aug 2001
The operator of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant says it will extract air from troubled reactors at the plant to measure the amount of radioactive substances. The work is part of efforts to curb the amount of radioactivity released into the atmosphere.
Up to around one billion becquerels of radioactive substances are believed to be released every hour from reactors No.1, 2 and 3. It is not known how accurate this figure is because it was worked out by taking readings of the air on the plant's premises.
Tokyo Electric Power Company plans to extract air inside the containment vessels of the reactors through pipes. The extracted air will be analyzed by a device set up on the first floor of the reactor buildings.
The operation is intended to obtain accurate data on what kind of radioactive substances are being released and in what quantity.
The air extraction is expected to begin later on Friday for the No.1 reactor and in early August for the No.2 unit. No plans have been decided for the No.3 reactor due to high radiation levels in part of its building.
TEPCO hopes the findings may also help the company grasp the extent of leakage of nuclear fuels into the containment vessels.
Under the second phase of its plan to stabilize the plant, TEPCO aims to minimize the release of nuclear materials and bring the reactors to a stable state called a cold shutdown over the next 6 months.
Nearly 50,000 tons of sludge at water treatment facilities has been found to contain radioactive cesium as the result of the accident at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. Over 1,500 tons is so contaminated that it cannot be buried for disposal.
Water treatment facilities in eastern and northeastern Japan have been discovering sludge containing cesium.
The health ministry says there is 49,250 tons of such sludge in 14 prefectures in eastern and northeastern Japan.
A total of 1,557 tons in 5 prefectures, including Fukushima and Miyagi, was found to contain 8,000 or more becquerels per kilogram. This sludge is too radioactive to be buried for disposal.
The most contaminated sludge, with 89,697 becquerels per kilogram, was discovered at a water treatment facility in Koriyama City, Fukushima.
The ministry says 76 percent of the roughly 50,000 tons of radioactive sludge is being stored at water treatment plants and they have no ways to dispose of most of it.
It says more than 54,000 tons of additional sludge has not been checked for radioactive materials.
The ministry plans to study how to dispose of the radioactive sludge.
Nuclear plant workers developed cancer despite lower radiation exposure than legal limit The late nuclear power plant worker Nobuyuki Shimahashi's radiation exposure monitoring databook indicated The late nuclear power plant worker Nobuyuki Shimahashi's radiation exposure monitoring databook indicated "Y" or yes for jobs he could engage in before some of them were corrected to say "N" or no. (Mainichi)
Of 10 nuclear power plant workers who have developed cancer and received workers' compensation in the past, nine had been exposed to less than 100 millisieverts of radiation, it has been learned.
The revelation comes amid reports that a number of workers battling the crisis at the Fukushima No. 1 Nuclear Power Plant were found to have been exposed to more than the emergency limit of 250 millisieverts, which was raised from the previous limit of 100 millisieverts in March.
According to Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry statistics, of the 10 nuclear power plant workers, six had leukemia, two multiple myeloma and another two lymphatic malignancy. Only one had been exposed to 129.8 millisieverts but the remaining nine were less than 100 millisieverts, including one who had been exposed to about 5 millisieverts.
Nobuyuki Shimahashi, a worker at the Hamaoka Nuclear Power Plant, where operations were recently suspended by Chubu Electric Power Co., died of leukemia in 1991 at age 29. His 74-year-old mother Michiko remembers her son dropping from 80 kilograms to 50 kilograms and his gums bleeding.
Shimahashi was in charge of maintaining and checking measuring instruments inside the nuclear power plant as a subcontract employee. He had 50.63 millisieverts of radiation exposure over a period of eight years and 10 months.
His radiation exposure monitoring databook, which was returned to his family six months after his death, showed that more than 30 exposure figures and other listings had been corrected in red ink and stamped with personal seals. A worker in the No. 1 reactor building at the Fukushima No. 1 Nuclear Power Plant is seen in this May 9 photo. (Photo courtesy of Tokyo Electric Power Co.) A worker in the No. 1 reactor building at the Fukushima No. 1 Nuclear Power Plant is seen in this May 9 photo. (Photo courtesy of Tokyo Electric Power Co.)
Even after he was diagnosed with leukemia, the databook had a stamp indicating permission for him to engage in a job subject to possible radiation exposure and a false report on his participation in nuclear safety education while he was in reality in hospital.
"The workers at the Fukushima nuclear power plant may be aware that they are risking their lives while doing their jobs. However, the state and electric power companies should also think about their families. If I had heard it was 'dangerous,' I would not have sent Nobuyuki to the nuclear power plant," Michiko Shimahashi said. "The workers who have done nothing wrong should not die. The emergency upper limit should be cut immediately."
Workers' compensation for nuclear power plant workers rarely receives a mention.
Koshiro Ishimaru, 68, leader of a civic group in the Futaba district in Fukushima Prefecture, notes that six workers at the stricken Fukushima nuclear power plant applied for workers' compensation before the nuclear disaster and four received recognition. Only two of the four identified themselves.
"There are many people who are benefiting from the nuclear power plant and do not want other members of this small community to know about compensation," Ishimaru points out.
When it comes to being entitled to workers' compensation due to diseases other than cancer, the hurdle is much higher.
Ryusuke Umeda, a 76-year-old former welder in the city of Fukuoka, worked at the Shimane Nuclear Power Plant run by Chugoku Electric Power Co. in Matsue and the Tsuruga Nuclear Power Plant run by Japan Atomic Power Co. in Tsuruga, Fukui Prefecture, between February and June 1979.
He soon had symptoms such as nose bleeding and later chronic fatigue before having a heart attack in 2000. He suspected nuclear radiation, applied for workers' compensation in 2008 but was rejected. Workers install a pressure sensor inside the No. 1 reactor building at the Fukushima No. 1 Nuclear Power Plant on June 3, in this photo provided by Tokyo Electric Power Co. Workers install a pressure sensor inside the No. 1 reactor building at the Fukushima No. 1 Nuclear Power Plant on June 3, in this photo provided by Tokyo Electric Power Co.
His radiation exposure stood at 8.6 millisieverts. Umeda says, "Nuclear power plant workers have been used for the benefit of plant operators. If left unchecked, there will be many cases like mine."
The current guidelines for workers' compensation due to radiation exposure only certify leukemia among various types of cancer. In these cases compensation is granted only when an applicant is exposed to more than 5 millisieverts of radiation a year and develops leukemia more than one year after being exposed to nuclear radiation. For other types of cancer, the health ministry's study group decides if applicants are eligible for workers' compensation. http://mdn.mainichi.jp/mdnn...2a00m0na010000c.html
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dennis_6 Member
Posts: 7196 From: between here and there Registered: Aug 2001
Chubu Electric: NISA tried to deceive public forum
Chubu Electric Power Company says the government's nuclear agency asked it to make sure that questions in favor of nuclear power be asked at a government-sponsored symposium in 2007.
In a report submitted to the government on Friday, the utility said the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency requested that it gather participants and have local residents pose prearranged questions at the forum held in Shizuoka Prefecture, central Japan.
The utility said it refused NISA's request to arrange the questions, citing difficulties with ensuring compliance. But senior officials of the Hamaoka nuclear power plant sent e-mails to employees and visited affiliate companies in an effort to comply with the request.
An official of Chubu Electric Power Company said on Friday that his firm issued calls to the public to participate in the forum.
He said he doesn't think the act was an outright breach of the law. But he added that it could have led to the misunderstanding that his firm was trying to manipulate public opinion, and he offered apologies.
The revelation comes after Kyushu Electric Power Company came under fire for submitting fake e-mails in support of a restart of idled nuclear reactors in a government-sponsored meeting for local residents in June.
Following the scandal, the industry ministry ordered the 6 Electric Power Companies to conduct an internal investigation of its activities aimed at winning local support for nuclear power.
"lets use big numbers to scare everyone! HOLY CRAP!
This comment is over the 75k becquerels a kilogram, Now you see that number is too high too even bury.
"A total of 1,557 tons in 5 prefectures, including Fukushima and Miyagi, was found to contain 8,000 or more becquerels per kilogram. This sludge is too radioactive to be buried for disposal."
