Fukushima Japan earthquake - contamination & consequences outside Fukushima NPP

[SteveElbows]

I am talking about reactor 2 releases on the main thread, and because this quickly gets into contamination issues I am following up something posted there in this thread instead:

As a resident of Tokyo, I find the SPEEDI stuff from the 15th all too interesting! I remember reading in the Tokyo Shimbun at the start of April that the 'unexpectedly high' radiation recorded in Tokyo was due to the fact that the reactor three plume which 'went out to sea' actually looped back and licked Tokyo and Chiba.

When the SPEEDI maps finally came out, this made some sense. Compare the shapes on these predictions:

http://www.mext.go.jp/component/a_menu/other/detail/__icsFiles/afieldfile/2011/05/10/1305748_0315_06.pdf

To this contamination map by Yukio Hayakawa @ Gunma University:

http://maps.google.co.jp/maps/ms?ie...2043,140.097656&spn=3.203668,4.257202&t=p&z=8

In my opinion no one has officially explained nor factored in the full significance of the contaminated green tea from Shizuoka (150km south west of Tokyo) yet, however those SPEEDI plumes just kiss Shizuoka too.

I'm also guessing the makeup of the reactor 3 plume should be significantly different from the reactor 2 plume due to the completely different release path - they should be able to 'fingerprint' them, right?

Using SPEEDI wind data, Reactor 3 explosion-related stuff seems to go out into sea where I am not convinced they will have tried to estimate it properly. Reactor 1 plume prediction area strongly overlaps north-west area that is implicated in reactor 2 release, further complicating matters.

Strength of wind, height of release, timing of rain and snow all complicate things further. At the moment if we assume reactor 2 is largely to blame, then one possible explanation is that initial release that went south spread out over a very wide area, hence no intense concentrations of contamination to the south, it dispersed much more widely. Then in the afternoon when wind direction shifted so that stuff went north-west, rain/snow timing caused large concentrations of this stuff to fall in a smaller area.

Either that or the quantity of radioactive substances released increased well after the explosive event of the 15th. On site radiation readings show around 3mSv during reactor 2 venting after 9pm on the 14th March, and then falling levels. After 6am 15th explosion the levels start to climb again, with highs of 8mSv at 8.31am and 11mSv at 9am. Levels go back up again to values such as 8mSv late on the 15th and also several highs on the 16th, with official reports blame both reactor 2 & reactor 3 for the march 16th releases. From what I can tell from SPEEDI & site wind info, we are looking at a period of roughly 1pm 15th->1am 16th (SPEEDI) or 12 noon 15th->11pm 15th (Site data) that the wind is blowing in a direction that would cause contamination to the north west.

There are also unknowns about how much of March 15th radiation on site & beyond may have been caused by events occurring at reactor building 4 on the same day, although subsequent evidence that 4 spent fuel damage may not be great might help us somewhat rule out 4 as a large factor.

 

[QuantumPion]

Some days ago, there was a discussion on the forum about comparing the impacts between a majpr accident in a nuclear plant and any other industrial accident. I was saying that there is no other industrial accident that has a so big impact on social communities than a nuclear one (I'm talking about a big one like this one for example, which could have been much worse in fact, I think that even some professionals from nuke industry start to, hardly but finally i would say, recognize it -think of one or several completely explosed SFP with fuel thrown in the air and falling around, with all he domino effects to anticipate). Some people were arguing that chemical accident like Bhopal did more dead people immediatly than Fukushima, which is true if you consider the time factor.

But can you list one single other INDUSTRIAL accident that creates what you describe, currently 110 to 150 000 people losing their homes? I don't...

That's why in my mind, nuke industry is no way an industry like the others. The potential social impacts are too big.

There was a coal mine fire in 1962 in Centralia, Pennsylvania. All of the residents had to leave due to the area being unstable and dangerous. It is still burning to this day, rendering the area off-limits, and is expected to continue for 250-1000 years.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centralia,_Pennsylvania

 

[Luca Bevil]

There was a coal mine fire in 1962 in Centralia, Pennsylvania. All of the residents had to leave due to the area being unstable and dangerous. It is still burning to this day, rendering the area off-limits, and is expected to continue for 250-1000 years.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centralia,_Pennsylvania

1.000 evacuees according to wikipedia, , with quite some time to realize the health danger, quite difficult to compare with either Chernobyl or Fukushima consequences.

I do not think anyone thinks that no-other energy related human endeavours can lead to very serious accidents, but I still have to find worst case scenarios and real accidents that are of a comparable scale.

 

[SteveElbows]

I do not think anyone thinks that no-other energy related human endeavours can lead to very serious accidents, but I still have to find worst case scenarios and real accidents that are of a comparable scale.

Try the Bhopal disaster.

 

[clancy688]

Try the Bhopal disaster.

...

We had that discussion a while ago. https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=486089

Starts at post #237Basic statement for Bhopal: High death toll came into being because the plant was right in the middle of a slum. Population in a radius up to 1km around the plant was 100.000 people. No wonder they get thousands of deaths if something blows up. Still it didn't contaminate half of the district as happened in Chernobyl and Fukushima. Today there are people living around the Bhopal plant. There won't be people living near Fukushima or Chernobyl for the next hundred years.

 

[Luca Bevil]

...

We had that discussion a while ago. https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=486089

Starts at post #237


Basic statement for Bhopal: High death toll came into being because the plant was right in the middle of a slum. Population in a radius up to 1km around the plant was 100.000 people. No wonder they get thousands of deaths if something blows up. Still it didn't contaminate half of the district as happened in Chernobyl and Fukushima. Today there are people living around the Bhopal plant. There won't be people living near Fukushima or Chernobyl for the next hundred years.

Yep. Quoted 100 %.
BTW, Steve my thanks for your painstaking efforts in the main 3d.
Great work no matter what the reliability of the underlying data was.

 

[Gary7]

Arnie Gundersen is again the darling of the conspiracy theorists due to his recent video claiming residents of Tokyo were breathing in 10 "hot particles" per day during April. He is also claiming that residents of Seattle were breathing in from 5 to 10 hot particles as well. Fukushima residents were apparently breathing in 30x as many hot particles.

He also drags out another factoid; that residents of Japan are tasting a "metallic taste" which is indicative of radioactive contamination.

I no longer know what to think about Arnie. Earlier on in the disaster, I found his discussion to be be very digestible and credible, but as time goes on I'm really concerned because he seems to be getting his information from some of the alternative news web sites, and it seems he is no longer looking at things with any objectivity. He bought the "Leaning Reactor #4" story hook, line, and sinker. He's now regurgitating the metallic taste myth, even though this has never been reported in Japan. Regarding the hot particle story, he says his information comes from "scientists using air filters".

Do any of the physicists here have an opinion on this hot particle story. Is it credible? Is it a worry? Tokyo and its environs has about 30 million people in it - me being one of them. Are we all breathing in 300+ hot particles, and if so, is there any meaning in this?

 

[zapperzero]

Do any of the physicists here have an opinion on this hot particle story. Is it credible? Is it a worry? Tokyo and its environs has about 30 million people in it - me being one of them. Are we all breathing in 300+ hot particles, and if so, is there any meaning in this?

What's this hot particle thing? I thought exposure was measured in Sievert?

 

[Borek]

Must be some unit invented for Joe Public.

 

[Gary7]

Its in his latest video, which is full of odd trivia. He's purporting that everyone in Tokyo breathed in 10 "hot particles" every day during the month of April. Same for Seattle (although he's made two different claims for Seattle, one that said they breathed in 5 per day, and another that suggested they breathed in 10 per day). I don't know how he came up with any of these figures. Different posters are already regurgitating this story on this forum. Its basically going viral on any website that has to do with Fukushima. Its the perfect meaningless sound bite for everyone who wishes to believe in Arnie's original story that "Fukushima is Chernobyl on Ssteroids (tm)". Arnie is saying his data comes from "scientists using air filters" (?!). He is full of circular logic, such as "we know the data is true because of the information coming from the air filters".

He's also talking about people in Tokyo experiencing a metallic taste, and he's tying this in with a similar phenomenon at Three Mile Island and Chernobyl. However he ignores the facts that: Tokyo is much farther away from the source of the radiation than the populations of Three Mile Island and Chernobyl/Pripyat, and, more importantly (crucially, I would say) there never was any report of people tasting a metallic taste in Tokyo. And if the people in Fukushima were ingesting 30 times the "hot particles" that Tokyoites were, you would imagine that the tastebuds of those in Fukushima were feeling like they were gobbling handfulls of metal.

 

[SteveElbows]

Yep. Quoted 100 %.
BTW, Steve my thanks for your painstaking efforts in the main 3d.
Great work no matter what the reliability of the underlying data was.

Thanks very much, and sorry for not realising Bhopal had already come up here.

As for Arnies hot particles, I don't pay much attention to him or to attempts to quantify this stuff. I do think the issue of internal exposure is worthy of much more attention though.

I would imagine that this risk will vary considerably between people, depending on what you do on a particular day in a particular location. If you manage to disturb some contaminated material that has settled, you could get more than your fair share.

I would hope that more could be done with data from Tokyo and beyond to give us a better sense of the scale of the problem there.

As I am still studying the estimated releases of March 15th I hope to have more to add to this subject in future.

 

[mikefj40]

Woods Hole has a research ship (RV Ka`imikai-o-Kanaloa) off the coast of Fukushima surveying the marine environment for contamination. They are blogging about their mission here:

https://www.whoi.edu/page.do?pid=68736

They aren't publishing results yet, presumably additional analysis will happen on land when the ship returns to port. It's interesting for the tools and methods they are using.

 

[jlduh]

There was a coal mine fire in 1962 in Centralia, Pennsylvania. All of the residents had to leave due to the area being unstable and dangerous. It is still burning to this day, rendering the area off-limits, and is expected to continue for 250-1000 years.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centralia,_Pennsylvania

It seems you like pretty much this example as you mentioned it several times to counterfight the remarks about nuclear consequences, and I'm a little bit surprised by this argument. But finally i start to like it also because it pretty well demonstrates that if it's the only one you can give to balance the nuke accident and its consequences, well i would say it's a little bit weak: 1000 people left their homes in Centralia, we are talking right now (but who knows for the future) of between 80 000 and 150 000 people evacuated around Fukushima!

Quite a scale difference ...

 

[QuantumPion]

It seems you like pretty much this example as you mentioned it several times to counterfight the remarks about nuclear consequences, and I'm a little bit surprised by this argument. But finally i start to like it also because it pretty well demonstrates that if it's the only one you can give to balance the nuke accident and its consequences, well i would say it's a little bit weak: 1000 people left their homes in Centralia, we are talking right now (but who knows for the future) of between 80 000 and 150 000 people evacuated around Fukushima!

Quite a scale difference ...

I've mentioned that example twice, both times in response to the same comment that only nuclear accidents create long term environmental damage. There are plenty more examples of other industrial accidents causing severe ecological consequences, I point to this one because its effects are particularly long lasting.

 

[clancy688]

A new post by EX-SKF. This time dealing with kids having nosebleed, diarrhea and lack of energy since the accident:

http://ex-skf.blogspot.com/2011/06/radiation-in-japan-nosebleed-diarrhea.html

Tokyo Shinbun (paper edition only, 6/16/2011) reports that many children in Koriyama City in Fukushima Prefecture, 50 kilometers from Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant, are suffering inexplicable nosebleed, diarrhea, and lack of energy since the nuke plant accident.

Hm. I don't know. Maybe the radiation is at fault. Maybe not. But I think the most likely explanation for these conditions would be mental stress since the earthquake and tsunami.
Children are very susceptible for such things, I think it's probable that the adults are naturally concerned for months now, and the children are becoming aware of this. That leads to mental stress which could manifest in physical illness.

At least I don't see any implication why radiation should be at fault for nosebleed and diarrhea.
But anyway, those illnesses are most likely consequences of the accident, whether the radiation is responsible or not.

 

[zapperzero]

I've mentioned that example twice, both times in response to the same comment that only nuclear accidents create long term environmental damage. There are plenty more examples of other industrial accidents causing severe ecological consequences, I point to this one because its effects are particularly long lasting.

Aren't you getting tired of doing this? It's bad, it's still getting worse, it can't be fixed (the exclusion zone, I mean). Yes other industrial accidents killed more people, faster. Yes, other industrial accidents also create no-go zones. So what? If you get beat up, you say "it's OK because the other gang down the street just murdered someone"?

Get over it. I know you're personally invested in this but... really. The Nile ain't just a river in Egypt, you know?

 

[Gary7]

A new post by EX-SKF. This time dealing with kids having nosebleed, diarrhea and lack of energy since the accident

This was one of the most meaningless non-stories I have read. A kid's nose starts bleeding and the family takes her to the doctor who diagnosis her nose bleeds as hay fever. Somehow Tokyo Shinbun is allowed to report this as widespread radiation sickness, and of course the conspiracy bloggists lap it up, all the while complaining about spin from the mainstream media. The kid wasn't even in Fukushima after the earthquake until the end of March (when presumably the most radiation was getting spread around).

If a kid who wasn't in Fukushima started developing nosebleeds as a result of radiation, wouldn't every child in Fukushima now be bleeding profusely?

 

[quasi44]

I would say that without doubt, there are going to be many places where contamination will be much higher, being that the area is so low and that so much material and contaminated water were pushed inland. As to what they are telling their people is safe; I'd like to remind that many of those people moved to the region after the A-bombs. Many of those people are much more susceptible to cancers and other defects-mutations because of the markers they carry/pass on, and that makes this 'all-safe' BS something I wouldn't subject my kids to.

 

[razzz]

This was one of the most meaningless non-stories I have read. A kid's nose starts bleeding and the family takes her to the doctor who diagnosis her nose bleeds as hay fever. Somehow Tokyo Shinbun is allowed to report this as widespread radiation sickness, and of course the conspiracy bloggists lap it up, all the while complaining about spin from the mainstream media. The kid wasn't even in Fukushima after the earthquake until the end of March (when presumably the most radiation was getting spread around).

If a kid who wasn't in Fukushima started developing nosebleeds as a result of radiation, wouldn't every child in Fukushima now be bleeding profusely?

If you can't read anything else about this matter due to your bias, then at least read the Foreword in this book-report http://www.strahlentelex.de/Yablokov%20Chernobyl%20book.pdf"

In part:

... Declassified documents of that time issued by Soviet Union/Ukraine governmental commissions in regard to the first decade after 1986 contain data on a number of people who were hospitalized with acute radiation sickness. The number is greater by two orders of magnitude than was recently quoted in official documents. How can we understand this difference in calculating the numbers of individuals who are ill as a result of irradiation? It is groundless to think that the doctors’ diagnoses were universally wrong. Many knew in the first 10-day period after the meltdown that diseases of the nasopharynx were widespread. We do not know the quantity or dose of hot particles that settled in the nasopharyngeal epithelium to cause this syndrome. They were probably
higher than the accepted figures.
To estimate doses of the Chernobyl catastrophe over the course of a year, it is critical to
consider the irradiation contributed by ground and foliage fallout, which contaminated
various forms of food with short-half-life radionuclides. Even in 1987 activity of some of
the radionuclides exceeded the contamination by Cs-137 and Sr-90. Thus decisions to
calculate dose only on the scale of Cs-137 radiation led to obvious underestimation of
the actual accumulated effective doses. Internal radiation doses were defined on the basis
of the activity in milk and potatoes for different areas...

Many other links to more current reports are listed by the commenters under the http://ex-skf.blogspot.com/2011/06/radiation-in-japan-nosebleed-diarrhea.html#comments"

 

[Gary7]

Kindly note that I do not believe the region is entirely safe. What I believe is that the physician on duty, who is, I trust, far better qualified than I, has found the girl to be suffering from seasonal allergies. SKF has chosen to claim that "many children...are suffering from inexplicable nosebleed" and has made this claim under the headline "Radiation in Japan".

Fair enough.

My contention is that
a) the article mentions two children with nosebleeds, one who was diagnosed with seasonal allergies.
b) the child in question was not in the area when the highest releases were recorded, thus the claim regarding Chernobyl, i.e. "Many knew in the first 10-day period after the meltdown that diseases of the nasopharynx were widespread" would seem to be irrelevant to this particular person, since she was not in the region in the 10 days after the accident. I would also challenge the thinking that says two children with nosebleeds constitute widespread diseases of the nasopharynx.

To repeat; I do not believe the region, particularly the corridor stretching from Fukushima Daichi to Fukushima City, is at all safe. I would not wish my kids to be there, and I sympathize with the families who are struggling to decide what to do. I note with interest that the doctor also ordered blood tests on the child, which I think was a prudent thing to do, and should hopefully give some peace of mind. If the blood tests come back and they show something related to radiation, I would be extremely surprised.

What I believe most explicitly is that two cases of nosebleeds (a girl and her brother, the girl who was found to be suffering allergies) mentioned in the article do not constitute evidence of a widespread health concern. I also think the nosebleeds could easily be related to the stress of moving to and from their home. I think this story is similar to the claim that many people in Tokyo were tasting a metallic taste after the accident, which was simply untrue. If there were radiation levels that would cause immediate widespread health issues, the evidence of this would be much more apparent than what is currently being reported.

 

[Borek]

If you can't read anything else about this matter due to your bias, then at least read the Foreword in this book-report http://www.strahlentelex.de/Yablokov%20Chernobyl%20book.pdf"

Yablokov's book is being criticized as biased. You accuse others of being biased, but you offer biased opinions to show you are right - it never works.

Besides, Yablokov book is not considered a peer reviewed work, and as such doesn't meet PF criteria of a valid source.

 

[jlduh]

The problem with leopards spots illustrated by this recent TV video: contamination 1000 times higher than limit measured at 80kms distance fron the reactors, so way outside of the no entry zone:



As i see things evolving around these reactors, the picture that is drawn day after day shows that the no stay zone will have, soon or late, be expanded to new areas in the future. The japanese government won't be able to resist long to the pressure of populations with increasing fears based on alarming data and measurements (dangerous strontium for example has been found more than 60 kms away from the nuke plant). The problem with well known leopards spots phenomenon is that it doesn't draw a nicely shaped go/no go frontier, it is far more complex than that, especially in a country densely populated with geographical elements (like mountains and valleys + typhoons spreading stuff) which concentrates contaminations in some areas.

Japan is not Ukraine. Land is scarce for all the people, so as long as further abnormal contamination shows up in areas further than the no go zone, government will have to expand the no entry procedure to new areas in the next months and maybe years, no doubt in my mind about this.

But evacuations decisions will have to be balanced with several other factors: how is the evacuation really possible for so many people on the long term (remember that increasing the diameter of the zone will imply more and more people to be evacuated, and this is not a linear relation!), how can all people accept this without many ones staying even if decisions say to leave?

One way or another, it means that a fair part of japanese population will have to live in an environment more or less radioactive for a good amount of time. Proponents of the hormesis theory can be very happy: they will have a full scale experiment there. I even advice them to move closer to their subject study by going to live in these areas for the next 30 years with their families...

It has been considered that Chernobyl played a significant role in the fall of USSR a few years later (even if there has been of course other reasons), considering the specificities of Japan geography and density of population, i have a hard time considering that Japan can keep its position in the world economy having to deal with such a mess in the long long run. Land is scarce and lost lands will exacerbate this, IMHO. This decline will be a long term process (also in the perception of the severity of consequences of this accident which will reveal weeks after weeks and months after months) but I don't see how this can be different than this scenario, based on what we already know and what we are going to learn in the the next months...

 

[Azby]

If you can't read anything else about this matter due to your bias, then at least read the Foreword in this book-report http://www.strahlentelex.de/Yablokov%20Chernobyl%20book.pdf"

In part:


Many other links to more current reports are listed by the commenters under the http://ex-skf.blogspot.com/2011/06/radiation-in-japan-nosebleed-diarrhea.html#comments"

I'll tread gently.

--Yes, it's important to investigate whether or not there's anything unusual behind the symptoms being described in Koriyama. In fact everyone in the area, and everyone who has evacuated, should visit the doctor regularly and see mental health counselors as well. Their lives have been horribly disrupted, not to mention their diets, probably their sleeping habits, their exercise habits, and there is tons of anxiety in the air. Domestic disputes are on the rise. Everyone is affected both mentally and physically by all this. It would be amazing if we didn't see widespread symptoms like the ones reported. But whether or not radiation exposure has anything to do with it is another matter. But it's important to find out. I think there are serious issues to be investigated and articles like that one trivialize them.

--I believe that regions around Chernobyl have suffered a collapse in health terms as well as other social breakdowns, and that these effects are long-lasting. Some of it is due to radiation itself, but how much? I've been reading interesting research by Moller and Mousseau on birds after Chernobyl, and they turn up a lot of effects. Some species proliferate, some don't, some that eat insects that nest in the ground don't fare well if those insects are affected by ground radiation that doesn't affect the birds directly, etc.. The cascade of environmental effects is unpredictable in many respects, and so we need to be vigilant. We have a duty to continue to investigate possible health risks from low doses of radiation on humans, but so far the fact is that none have been found.

--As for Yablokov's book, I've read it and annotated it. My reaction may have been the opposite of yours. I thought,"How can anyone find this convincing?" I found chapters 1, 3 and 4, on the spread of contamination, environmental consequences, and radiation protection, respectively, to be the most objective and useful (though not unquestionably so). But chapter 2, on human health, is riddled with so many flawed arguments, faulty data, contradictions, and unsupported conclusions that I can't make much use of any of it.

He frequently says things like, "The appreciable increase in newborns with both major and minor developmental anomalies is one of the undeniable consequences of the Chernobyl catastrophe." (p133) But the data he presents doesn't demonstrate that. It often suggests associations, or correlations, but correlation is not causality. And unfortunately, he often fails to even demonstrate correlation convincingly.

Other criticisms:
--He states that he rejects the use of Western norms of scientific proof, especially the need to demonstrate statistical significance. That's like saying,"No, I can't promise that any of this data is valid." This is one reason the Union of Concerned Scientists, a watchdog group I consider fairly reliable, and whom many consider "too careful," concluded that the findings of the book should be discounted when evaluating radiation risk.

--Other reviewers have pointed out that the authors ascribe every post-Chernobyl increase in illness to radiation effects, and rarely discuss other possible causes.

--Still others, upon reviewing original papers cited in the book, have pointed out that the epidemiology is often fatally flawed. There are many cases where confounding factors have not been evaluated or otherwise taken fully into account. For instance, increases in cancer rates are shown, but no attempt is made to ascertain whether the subjects were smoking more or drinking more since the disaster.

--The New York Academy of Sciences distanced themselves from the book after it was published, stressing that it had not been peer-reviewed; in other words, they could make no assertions as to the truth of Yablokov's claims.

There are quite a few more criticisms to be leveled at this book. It's strident, accusatory, and alarming enough to influence a lot of peoples' opinions, but there's not enough solid scientific evidence in it to make it convincing to people who dig a little deeper, and who, like me, are looking for useful sources of information on radiation risk.

And don't get me started on Dr. Chris Busby. His work is frequently cited in Yablokov's book, and they co-edited the ECRR's 2006 study. Busby is all over the media, but he's one of the sloppiest, most intellectually dishonest scientists I've ever encountered. For example, in the late 1990's Busby self-published research claiming to find clusters of higher incidence of leukemia near the Sellafield plant in the UK; a media frenzy ensued. The CERRIE committee, of which he was a prominent member, was convened expressly to investigate that and the possibility of other previously under recognized risks from low-level radiation. Another committee member calmly pointed out that not only were there leukemia clusters near Sellafield and other power plants, but also in locations where plants were proposed but not built yet, and in many other locations as well. Busby ether did not look for such examples, or if he did, ignored them. It's unforgivably bad science, and his science is almost always like this. That Yablokov finds him to be acceptable scientific partner makes me question his standards.

My personal opinion is that Yablokov would have done the world a much greater service if he had found funding to translate the most relevant 1000 or so Russian and Eastern European papers in full into English, and just published those without hype and commentary so scientists all over the world could pick them over to find the useful data. Maybe there's still time to do that.

 

[SteveElbows]

Great stuff Azby, very thoughtful and helpful analysis of that document for someone like me who does not know much about it.

 

[jlduh]

5,77 microSv/h at ground level in Tokyo suburb (220 kms from Daichi)

http://enenews.com/5-77-microsieverts-per-hour-of-radiation-measured-near-tokyo-at-ground-level-govt-is-desperately-trying-to-keep-it-quiet-video

 

[Borek]

5,77 microSv/h at ground level in Tokyo suburb (220 kms from Daichi)

I think it was already reported in one of the threads.

 

[Azby]

5,77 microSv/h at ground level in Tokyo suburb (220 kms from Daichi)

http://enenews.com/5-77-microsieverts-per-hour-of-radiation-measured-near-tokyo-at-ground-level-govt-is-desperately-trying-to-keep-it-quiet-video

There was a bit of discussion about this on the Tokyo radiation Levels Facebook group last week.
http://www.facebook.com/Tokyo.Radiation.Levels

People there and at Safecast

http://safecast.jp/

http://safecast.jp/2011/06/discover-validate/

http://groups.google.com/group/safecast-japan/

have been measuring levels very diligently for the past couple of months. The consensus about the claims in the video:

1) This reading is higher than those on the ground in Koriyama, Fukushima Prefecture, while the location of the video is in Chiba, 200km away, which makes the readings extremely suspect. Hotspots have been found in Chiba, but are in the in the 0.5uSv/hr range.

2) The device used appears to be a DP802i, a cheap Chinese model. It seems to be very poorly calibrated at least.

A lot of people I know are using this site and consider it well-run and reliable:

http://www.nnistar.com/gmap/fukushima.html

 

[jlduh]

Hotspots at Chiba in the range of 0,5micro Sv/h... Humm on the facebook page one guy wrote this yesterday (Kashiwa is in between Tokyo and Chiba, around 50 kms west of Tokyo), and measured 13 microSv/h close to Kashiwa JR Station, again close to a gutter (this guy has used various Geiger counters).

Jon Anderson
I'm in Kashiwa and there are hot spots everywhere. Just today I took a reading of 13.0µSv/h right near Kashiwa JR station right on the ground near the gutter. I have used several different geiger counters all over the Kashiwa / Matsudo area with several different people, including Yomiuri newspaper, Asahi Television, and the Wall Street Journal. My spouse is the one responsible for the online petition to Kashiwa City to measure and remove contaminated waste, soil/debris. We also helped bring about change at Mikuni yochin, they were the first school to measure radiation and actually remove all the soil from their school in Kashiwa. I am available to go out and take readings anytime.

Are you surprised that higher levels of contamination concentrate in the dust/mud from rainwater? This has been confirmed by very high readings in sludge from waste water plants at good distance from the NPP, to me this is not surprising that we can find such high concentrated areas of contamination. Personally i wouldn't like to live close such spots, and i think anybody can understand concerns of people around...

 

[Azby]

Hotspots at Chiba in the range of 0,5micro Sv/h... Humm on the facebook page one guy wrote this yesterday (Kashiwa is in between Tokyo and Chiba, around 50 kms west of Tokyo), and measured 13 microSv/h close to Kashiwa JR Station, again close to a gutter (this guy has used various Geiger counters).



Are you surprised that higher levels of contamination concentrate in the dust/mud from rainwater? This has been confirmed by very high readings in sludge from waste water plants at good distance from the NPP, to me this is not surprising that we can find such high concentrated areas of contamination. Personally i wouldn't like to live close such spots, and i think anybody can understand concerns of people around...

That is a high reading, and it looks legit. It makes me revise my previous opinion concerning the 5.77uSv/hr in the video. I know there are high readings in gutters, etc. I guess we'll need to come to grips with the difference between hotspots that are measured in hundreds of meters or more, and those measured in meters or less, and what the implications are for remediation. I admit I've generally been focussed on the larger ones.

 

[Luca Bevil]

I'll tread gently.

--Yes, it's important to investigate whether or not there's anything unusual behind the symptoms being described in Koriyama. In fact everyone in the area, and everyone who has evacuated, should visit the doctor regularly and see mental health counselors as well. Their lives have been horribly disrupted, not to mention their diets, probably their sleeping habits, their exercise habits, and there is tons of anxiety in the air. Domestic disputes are on the rise. Everyone is affected both mentally and physically by all this. It would be amazing if we didn't see widespread symptoms like the ones reported. But whether or not radiation exposure has anything to do with it is another matter. But it's important to find out. I think there are serious issues to be investigated and articles like that one trivialize them.

--I believe that regions around Chernobyl have suffered a collapse in health terms as well as other social breakdowns, and that these effects are long-lasting. Some of it is due to radiation itself, but how much? I've been reading interesting research by Moller and Mousseau on birds after Chernobyl, and they turn up a lot of effects. Some species proliferate, some don't, some that eat insects that nest in the ground don't fare well if those insects are affected by ground radiation that doesn't affect the birds directly, etc.. The cascade of environmental effects is unpredictable in many respects, and so we need to be vigilant. We have a duty to continue to investigate possible health risks from low doses of radiation on humans, but so far the fact is that none have been found.

--As for Yablokov's book, I've read it and annotated it. My reaction may have been the opposite of yours. I thought,"How can anyone find this convincing?" I found chapters 1, 3 and 4, on the spread of contamination, environmental consequences, and radiation protection, respectively, to be the most objective and useful (though not unquestionably so). But chapter 2, on human health, is riddled with so many flawed arguments, faulty data, contradictions, and unsupported conclusions that I can't make much use of any of it.

He frequently says things like, "The appreciable increase in newborns with both major and minor developmental anomalies is one of the undeniable consequences of the Chernobyl catastrophe." (p133) But the data he presents doesn't demonstrate that. It often suggests associations, or correlations, but correlation is not causality. And unfortunately, he often fails to even demonstrate correlation convincingly.

Other criticisms:
--He states that he rejects the use of Western norms of scientific proof, especially the need to demonstrate statistical significance. That's like saying,"No, I can't promise that any of this data is valid." This is one reason the Union of Concerned Scientists, a watchdog group I consider fairly reliable, and whom many consider "too careful," concluded that the findings of the book should be discounted when evaluating radiation risk.

--Other reviewers have pointed out that the authors ascribe every post-Chernobyl increase in illness to radiation effects, and rarely discuss other possible causes.

--Still others, upon reviewing original papers cited in the book, have pointed out that the epidemiology is often fatally flawed. There are many cases where confounding factors have not been evaluated or otherwise taken fully into account. For instance, increases in cancer rates are shown, but no attempt is made to ascertain whether the subjects were smoking more or drinking more since the disaster.

--The New York Academy of Sciences distanced themselves from the book after it was published, stressing that it had not been peer-reviewed; in other words, they could make no assertions as to the truth of Yablokov's claims.

There are quite a few more criticisms to be leveled at this book. It's strident, accusatory, and alarming enough to influence a lot of peoples' opinions, but there's not enough solid scientific evidence in it to make it convincing to people who dig a little deeper, and who, like me, are looking for useful sources of information on radiation risk.

And don't get me started on Dr. Chris Busby. His work is frequently cited in Yablokov's book, and they co-edited the ECRR's 2006 study. Busby is all over the media, but he's one of the sloppiest, most intellectually dishonest scientists I've ever encountered. For example, in the late 1990's Busby self-published research claiming to find clusters of higher incidence of leukemia near the Sellafield plant in the UK; a media frenzy ensued. The CERRIE committee, of which he was a prominent member, was convened expressly to investigate that and the possibility of other previously under recognized risks from low-level radiation. Another committee member calmly pointed out that not only were there leukemia clusters near Sellafield and other power plants, but also in locations where plants were proposed but not built yet, and in many other locations as well. Busby ether did not look for such examples, or if he did, ignored them. It's unforgivably bad science, and his science is almost always like this. That Yablokov finds him to be acceptable scientific partner makes me question his standards.

My personal opinion is that Yablokov would have done the world a much greater service if he had found funding to translate the most relevant 1000 or so Russian and Eastern European papers in full into English, and just published those without hype and commentary so scientists all over the world could pick them over to find the useful data. Maybe there's still time to do that.

In your gentle words "I believe that regions around Chernobyl have suffered a collapse in health terms as well as other social breakdowns, and that these effects are long-lasting. Some of it is due to radiation itself, but how much? I've been reading interesting research by Moller and Mousseau on birds after Chernobyl, and they turn up a lot of effects. Some species proliferate, some don't, some that eat insects that nest in the ground don't fare well if those insects are affected by ground radiation that doesn't affect the birds directly, etc.. The cascade of environmental effects is unpredictable in many respects, and so we need to be vigilant. We have a duty to continue to investigate possible health risks from low doses of radiation on humans, but so far the fact is that none have been found."

I share your evaluation that the cascade of environmental effects is unpredictable.

Given that I hardly can understand your claim "so far the fact is that none have been found".
Not even the highly debatable (to say the least) Chernobyl forum report has reached that conclusion. Instead they reache the 4.000 additional tyroid cancers conclusion.

I do believe that regions around Chernobyl have suffered a collapse in health terms.
And quite obviously associate that with the massive release of radioactive material that happened there. Any additional psychological stress there (in excess to the not excellent average condition in the former Soviet Union) is in any case casually related to the accident.

Some volunteer work there may give to readers a more precise sensation about that ... much more precisely than evaluating the effects that there might or might not have been observed in birds, or trees.

As an observation sample I'd rather rely on the children that many italian (and not only italian) families have welcomed as guests in these yeras to let them clear at least a bit their bodies from Cs137.

We have a long way to go to fight this monster.
To put it gently.