Japan earthquake - contamination & consequences outside Fukushima NPP

etudiant

That makes sense. The cesium is mostly caught in the river mud and forest soil, although some is reextracted by the tree roots. The radiation scar on this part of Japan is consequently a long lived feature, rather than something that will wash away over a few seasons.
Still it also suggests that while people from the area should be careful about eating the mushrooms and burning the wood, they can live pretty normally otherwise.
Just hope this does not give the area's inhabitants a stigma.

tsutsuji

http://www3.nhk.or.jp/news/genpatsu-...120/index.html The NRA had a meeting on 20 November 2012 and decided to respond to inhabitants' unsatisfaction concerning health surveys. A 5 member Study team including Fukushima medical college professor(s) will review how surveys are done, and make proposals within this year about how to respond to long term low level radiation exposure. The study team will meet 3 or 4 times this month and next month. NRA chairman Shunichi Tanaka says "as there is no plan about long term low radiation exposure, inhabitants are expressing unsatisfaction and unsecurity. We want to build up proposals that respond to those voices".

Rive

I think it'll be a bit more complicated than that. After seasonal floods the flood-area of the rivers will always be re-contaminated and as it dries it'll produce a regular increase of fallout through the winds -> new hotspots around roads, roof-drainages and so on.

It'll require a continuous monitoring and cleanup operations to keep the limits.

Rive

Tsutsuji, do you have anything about the change of (preventive) Potassium iodide consumption over Japan?

tsutsuji

http://www3.nhk.or.jp/news/genpatsu-...122/index.html The NRA's evacuation criteria study team composed of external experts started the main discussions on 22 November. On 22 November, they confirmed that they want to create Japan's own decision making standard regarding when to take iodine pills, based on the IAEA's standards as a reference, on the plant status, and on measured values. Fukushima Daiichi was victim of a manifold disaster including earthquake, tsunami, and measurements were not sufficient. One expert says "In addition to monitoring, it is suggested to make practical use of predictive systems".The study team will reach conclusions by the end of this year, so that local government bodies can prepare evacuation plans by the end of next March.

tsutsuji

http://www3.nhk.or.jp/news/genpatsu-...129/index.html The government is starting an investigation over the fact that more than half of the so-called earthquake-related deaths, which means people dying when health deteriorates during prolonged evacuation life, or 1100 deaths, are located in Fukushima prefecture. Conducting hearings of inhabitants and local governments, they will check if the evacuation and government help after the nuclear accident were appropriate. The results of the investigation are expected next autumn. A preparatory meeting was held at the Reconstruction agency on 29 November. Reconstruction minister Hirano says "Several kinds of inspections have been done, but we still lack a unified survey. Information such as who gave the evacuation order, in which situation, is still not clear. We want to record the fact relationships, and to learn lessons from those."

zapperzero

Is all this implying that there were previously no such guidelines and no such system in place? Isn't this the exact kind of thing that the IAEA is supposed to concern itself with?

tsutsuji

At some point, the US embassy in Japan issued an evacuation order/advice to leave the 50 miles (80 km) range around the plant. This included Fukushima City and Koriyama, the two largest cities in Fukushima Prefecture. This illustrates the fact that there is not a worldwide consensus on what people should do, upon which criteria, when this kind of event happens.

tsutsuji

http://www3.nhk.or.jp/news/genpatsu-...0/1935_hp.html The ministry of Environment is starting a new website providing details on the decontamination progress status in each town or village. Where decontamination is performed under the direct responsibility of the national government, it is possible to find on maps the areas where decontamination has been started, and to access the radiation data before and after decontamination. Progress status of decontamination performed by local government bodies is also available.

http://josen.env.go.jp/ The new website.

http://josen.env.go.jp/area/details/...aha_h23_01.pdf For example, this is a report about the decontamination results around the town hall in Naraha town, with the radiation values before and after displayed on maps.

zapperzero

Certainly there isn't a consensus on what exactly to do in a particular scenario. I would have expected the IAEA to be much more serious about the existence and applicability of SAMGs, radioprotection and evacuation plans in general.

nikkkom

Guys, please remember that Chernobyl exists. Use data from there.

IIRC in Chernobyl it was found that Cs is essentially trapped by forests, washout is slow.

The pine trees growing over trenches of buried Red Forest still experience growth deformities, not surprising considering that they have ~1 MBq/kg in their wood...

zapperzero

http://rpd.oxfordjournals.org/conten...cs320.abstract
EARLY IN SITU MEASUREMENT OF RADIOACTIVE FALLOUT IN FUKUSHIMA CITY DUE TO FUKUSHIMA DAIICHI NUCLEAR ACCIDENT -

Masashi Takada and
Toshikazu Suzuki

zapperzero

Apparently contractors hired for decon work in Fukushima prefecture are cutting (lots and lots of) corners, dumping radwaste into rivers and such.
http://ajw.asahi.com/article/0311dis...AJ201301170063

nikkkom

"The photos show a man repeatedly kicking fallen leaves into a river in Tamura, Fukushima Prefecture, on Dec. 14."

Tamura is 40 kilometers West from Fukushima and lies in the area with Cs-137 levels below <300kBq/m^2.

If I would live there, I would _much_ prefer Cs-137 impregnated leaves to be gone to Pacific Ocean and diluted to zero than lingering around in some shallow dumps for decades to come. (Shallow because it is financially impractically costly to dig deep ones for all woody material existing in 40+ km radius around Fukushima.)

I recognize that public supervision in the form of press coverage is necessary to keep contractors honest.

But it often goes to the the idiotic levels of mass hysteria due to appalling lack of basic education, and lack of WILL to learn some data before getting hysteric and demanding impossible - that everything needs to be cleaned up 100% while not shipping any contamination anywhere.

Material contaminated by Cs-137 can not be destroyed. Isotopes do not burn, you know. It can be either buried, or diluted. Burial is a good solution, and it should be used for highly contaminated material, but it can't be used for everything. There should be a level of contamination below which the material is allowed to be disposed of in a cheaper way - yes, including dumping it into Pacific.

zapperzero

As far as I know, dumping radwaste into oceans is a big no-no... Iirc the Russians had taken to putting waste in the North Sea? And there was a big stink about it? And then it was France? And again there was a big Stink?

nikkkom

Uh oh. "Radwaste". You know, my poop is a "radwaste" too, it has 50 Bq/kg of K-40.

Where do you prefer Japanese to put 10 million tons of very slightly radioactive wood and leaves?

Borek

Several years ago Junior took a tourist trip to Chernobyl, and was told about results of different actions taken after the disaster.

Back in eighties during the cleaning up phase in some places they collected waste and covered it with the dirt/soil, and mounds are still radioactive. In other places it was not possible to collect the waste, so it was simply left and area was marked as no entry zone, and in the years that passed radioactive isotopes were flushed/diluted to the safe levels.

I am not trying to say dumping radwaste to oceans is a better solution, it is just that the final effect can be counterintuitive.