On July 18, the residents of Fukushima prefecture posted a statement:
From the residents of Fukushima Prefecture
Please be noted that we, residents of Fukushima Shirakawa district (southern part of Fukushima prefecture) will perform action against the Ministry of Environment’s burning project of highly contaminated radioactive waste (more than 8000 Bq/kg) on 18th July, here in Samegawa.
Fukushima Disaster is not over, but the Ministry of Environment (MOE) is trying to bring another contamination plan all over the world.
Last fall, MOE secretly ordered Hitachi Zosen to construct a controversial radioactive waste incinerator in small village of Samegawa with only 4000 population. Construction has been completed late June, but there had been no prior information about the project, no such public consultation. Furthermore, last week,some landowners spoke out they never admitted nor signed the contract, but the government mysteriously announced they had all landowners consent to run the project.
It is the world-first demonstration incinerator, with unproven technology, and even MOE admitted the technology is still its experimental stage, but MOE and Hitachi Zosen would not stop the experimental incineration. Rather they have been rushing, because until now no other municipalities accept such dangerous facility. They say radioactive cesium could be caught by baghouse filtration, but it cannot catch gaseous substances and small particles like PM2.5 or nano-sized particles.
There is no way to stop radioactive cesium emitted from smokestack, it simply get into the atmosphere and travel the globe.
The location of incinerator is amidst the pastureland, rich in groundwater and forestry. Ironically, the level of radioactive cesium is comparatively low compared to other parts of Fukushima prefecture, and people are still living here, children are living here, cattle are living here. At the same time, people are dying, children are dying, they are having cancers.
How can we tolerate the second contamination by our own government? How can we believe the project of IAEA and nuclear power plant manufacturer? We are so angry. We have right to protect ourselves, our children, our lives and our district. There is no legitimacy for polluting project.
We ask you sirs to come to Samegawa on 18th and see what is happening here and what will happen all over the world. Please report our situation to your country so that we can protect our earth together. We are preparing English signboards to tell the people all over the world!
(Bold theirs; baghouse link mine.)
In the weeks immediately following the explosion at Fukushima Daiichi's nuclear reactor, the Japanese government gave approval for Tepco to release contaminated water into the sea. Tens of metric tons were dumped.
Even now, 400 metric tons of water a day flow into the below-ground levels of the destroyed reactor buildings, mix with the highly radioactive water used keep the reactor core below 32°F, and then pour into the ground, where it is supposed to be contained.
Tepco (Tokyo Electric Power Company) has belatedly announced that radioactive water breached the underground walls built near the shoreline of Fukushima, as reported here by Jen Hayden.
But, as Shinji Kinjo, head of a Fukushima task force for Japan's Nuclear Regulatory Agency (NRA), says, Tepco's "sense of emergency is weak... Right now, we have an emergency."
Tepco has been building the underground walls, using injected chemicals which turn the soil solid, but the contaminated water -- as water will -- has now sought its own level, and is working its way around the barriers.
That barrier, according to NBC WorldWide,
...[I]s only effective in solidifying the ground at least 1.8 metres below the surface.
By breaching the barrier, the water can seep through the shallow areas of earth into the nearby sea. More seriously, it is rising toward the surface - a break of which would accelerate the outflow.
Tepco has had an execrable record in dealing with the continuing crisis of containment at Fukushima Daiichi. They've focused more on the damaged reactor than on the steady release of radioactive material. In fact, when questioned about the current leaks,
TEPCO officials were unable to answer many of the watchdog officials' questions, including ones about the leaks' origin, their routes and how they can be plugged. They also acknowledged that they have neglected large amounts of highly contaminated water that has remained in maintenance trenches since the crisis, a risk also cited by the watchdog.
"It's a race against the clock," said Toyoshi Fuketa, a commissioner of the Nuclear Regulation Authority. "The top priority is to keep the water from escaping into the sea."
Until the current issues, Tepco reported a single leak one month after the tsunami damaged the reactor, and has insisted that since then there had been no further leaks into the ocean.
Now,
...TEPCO has estimated that up to 40 trillion becquerels of radioactive tritium, a water soluble element that can affect DNA but is believed to be less dangerous than cesium or strontium, might have leaked into the sea over the past two years. The company says the amount is within legal limits, but is much higher than is released under normal operations.
Tritium is far less harmful than caesium and strontium, which have also been released from the plant. Tepco is scheduled to test strontium levels next.
Tepco said on August 5 that caesium levels at an observation post 53 metres from the sea had jumped in the past week. Readings for caesium-134 were almost 15 times higher at 310 becquerels a litre.
Caesium-137, with a half-life of 30 years, was also 15 times higher than it had been five days ago at 650 becquerels a litre. A much larger spike in radioactive caesium in July in a different well led to Tepco overturning months of denials and admitting that radioactive water had been leaking into the sea.
Attempts were made to store the contaminated water: there are 1,000 enormous tanks around Fukushima Daiichi, but they're all nearly full. And now Tepco says it will be pumping out an additional 100 tonnes a day.
The government estimates that around 300 tons of radioactively contaminated water have been flowing into the bay of the Pacific Ocean each day since the disaster began.
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