Fukushima radiation spikes 7,000% as contaminated water pours into the ocean

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Cleanup crews trying to mitigate Japan’s never-ending radiation crisis at Fukushima ran into more problems recently after sensors monitoring a drainage gutter detected a huge spike in radiation levels from wastewater pouring into the Pacific Ocean.

The Tokyo Electric Power Company says radiation levels were up to 70 times, or 7,000 percent, higher than normal, prompting an immediate shutdown of the drainage instrument.

The first readings came around 10 a.m. local time on February 22, setting off alarms not once but twice as radiation levels spiked to extremely high levels.

“The levels of beta ray-emitting substances, such as strontium-90, measured 5,050 to 7,230 becquerels per liter of water between 10:20 a.m. and 10:50 a.m.,” reported The Japan Times. “TEPCO requires radioactivity levels of groundwater at the plant discharged into the sea to remain below 5 becquerels.”

TEPCO shut off leaky gutter, but radiation continued to spike throughout day

The gutter was quickly decommissioned to prevent further radiation emissions, but the leaks reportedly continued throughout the day, with radiation levels hovering between 10 and 20 times higher than normal. TEPCO says it doesn’t know what caused the sudden radiation spikes.

“With emergency surveys of the plant and monitoring of other sensors, we have no reason to believe tanks storing radioactive waste water have leaked,” stated a plant official to the media. “We have shut the gutter [from pouring water to the bay]. We are currently monitoring the sensors at the gutter and seeing the trend.”

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FULL ARTICLE

http://checkoutthehealthyworld.com/fukushima-radiation-spikes-7000-contaminated-water-pours-ocean/

Possible Causes Of Fukushima Frozen Wall Failures

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June 1st, 2016 

TEPCO reported last week that roughly 10% of the frozen wall is not working. Currently only certain sections are being actively frozen with other sections to possibly be frozen as they determine the cause and effect of the initial work.

One of the sections being frozen with some problems is near unit 1 on the sea side. TEPCO claimed that accumulated groundwater and gravel in the area may be contributing to the problem. TEPCO also indicated the wall is “riddled with holes”. These problems appear to be delaying the start for freezing of other sections of the wall. One action being considered is to put cement or other solidification agents in the problem areas. We  looked at these problem areas and what factors may be playing a role.

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FULL ARTICLE AND DIAGRAMS

http://www.fukuleaks.org/web/?p=15503

Have you seen images from Japan showing mountains of black bags filled with radioactive soil? You probably wondered what they are going to do with them, right?

Have you seen images from Japan showing mountains of black bags filled with radioactive soil? You probably wondered what they are going to do with them, right? The bags only last for a few years, and in fact, I’ve seen pictures of bags already broken with weeds sticking out from them.

Well, the mystery is solved. The government changed the law in secret meetings so that the radioactive waste is no longer radioactive. They raised the safety level from 100 becquerel per kg to 8000 becquerel per kg.

According to the secret meetings, the formerly radioactive material will be now safely used as construction material across the nation.

Now I wonder what they will do with the radio active water stored in already leaking giant tanks around the nuclear plants. They are right by the Pacific Ocean.

By the way, for those who can not grasp what all this oddity means, the simple way to understand is that instead of coming up with safe ways to take care of dangerous radioactive materials, the Japanese government decided to work with media and industry to make money off of people’s health. It is more profitable to spread radiation across Japan than taking care of people’s lives. And that way, those who take care of people’s health can make money too.

But if they are dead or surrounded by radiation everywhere, how do they appreciate money? I really think this whole capitalism thing is a huge fucking bullshit.

Japan to Recycle Waste Collected during Fukushima Decontamination:
http://www.laht.com/article.asp…

一億総被ばくの国家プロジェクト… 8,000ベクレル／kg以下の除染土を 全国の公共事業に！？: https://foejapan.wordpress.com/2016/04/15/8000bq_problem/

汚染土壌の再生利用は世界に前例の無い一大ナショナル・プロジェクト:http://oshidori-makoken.com/?p=2059

The picture is from: http://asama888.cocolog-nifty.com/blog/2015/…/post-5f2f.html

Japan to Recycle Waste Collected during Fukushima Decontamination – as building material

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TOKYO – The Japanese government announced Wednesday it will recycle the material collected during the decontamination of the Fukushima nuclear plant for construction purposes if radiation levels are found to be sufficiently low.

The government plans to store the waste collected from the radiation-affected region and use it as construction material in places outside the prefecture in northeastern Japan, within 30 years, reported state broadcaster NHK.

According to the country’s environment ministry, residue showing less than 8,000 becquerel per kg could be used in future to pave roads, build anti-tsunami walls and in other public works.

Over 90 percent of the material, accumulated since the 2011 disaster, could be re-used if the contaminated elements are removed, according to the authorities, who are, however, yet to develop the technology to separate waste with high radiation levels.

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more:
http://www.laht.com/article.asp?ArticleId=2408901&CategoryId=12395

TEPCO draws fire after apologizing to Niigata panel

Fukushima 311 Watchdogs

Niigata Governor Hirohiko Izumida, right, and Naomi Hirose, president of Tokyo Electric Power Co., hold a meeting at the Niigata prefectural government building in January.

NIIGATA–Even when they apologize, executives of Tokyo Electric Power Co. can still manage to draw additional criticism.

The executives, who hope to restart one of the largest nuclear power plants in the world in Niigata Prefecture, held talks here March 23 with a nuclear technology committee set up at the prefectural government.

Takafumi Anegawa, chief nuclear officer of TEPCO, offered an apology for the utility’s misleading responses to the committee’s repeated inquiries about the meltdowns at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant.

Specifically, Anegawa acknowledged that TEPCO could have declared the triple meltdown at the plant a few days after the crisis unfolded following the Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami on March 11, 2011, instead of two months later.

TEPCO said late last…

View original post 847 more words

Radioactivity in the Ocean: Diluted, But Far from Harmless

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by Christina MacPherson 

Environment 360 7 April 2011 

With contaminated water from Japan’s crippled Fukushima nuclear complex continuing to pour into the Pacific, scientists are concerned about how that radioactivity might affect marine life. Although the ocean’s capacity to dilute radiation is huge, signs are that nuclear isotopes are already moving up the local food chain. by Elizabeth Grossman Over the past half-century, the world has seen its share of incidents in which radioactive material has been dumped or discharged into the oceans. A British nuclear fuels plant has repeatedly released radioactive waste into the Irish Sea, a French nuclear reprocessing plant has discharged similar waste into the English Channel, and for decades the Soviets dumped large quantities of radioactive material into the Arctic Ocean, Kara Sea, and Barents Sea. That radioactive material included reactors from at least 16 Soviet nuclear-powered submarines and icebreakers, and large amounts of liquid and solid nuclear waste from USSR military bases and weapons plants.

Still, the world has never quite seen an event like the one unfolding now off the coast of eastern Japan, in which thousands of tons of radioactively contaminated water from the damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant are pouring directly into the ocean. And though the vastness of the ocean has the capacity to dilute nuclear contamination, signs of spreading radioactive material are being found off Japan, including the discovery of elevated concentrations of radioactive cesium and iodine in small fish several dozen miles south of Fukushima, and high levels of radioactivity in seawater 25 miles offshore.

How this continuing contamination will affect marine life, or humans, is still unclear. But scientists agree that the governments of Japan, the United States, and other nations on the Pacific Rim need to ramp up studies of how far this contamination might spread and in what concentrations.

“Given that the Fukushima nuclear power plant is on the ocean, and with leaks and runoff directly to the ocean, the impacts on the ocean will exceed those of Chernobyl, which was hundreds of miles from any sea,” said Ken Buesseler, senior scientist in marine chemistry at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts. “My biggest concern is the lack of information. We still don’t know the whole range of radioactive compounds that have been released into the ocean, nor do we know their distribution. We have a few data points from the Japanese — all close to the coast — but to understand the full impact, including for fisheries, we need broader surveys and scientific study of the area.”

Buessler and other experts say this much is clear: Both short-lived radioactive elements, such as iodine-131, and longer-lived elements — such as cesium-137, with a half-life of 30 years — can be absorbed by phytoplankton, zooplankton, kelp, and other marine life and then be transmitted up the food chain, to fish, marine mammals, and humans. Other radioactive elements — including plutonium, which has been detected outside the Fukushima plant — also pose a threat to marine life. A key question is how concentrated will the radioactive contamination be. Japanese officials hope that a temporary fishing ban off the northeastern Japanese coast will be enough to avert any danger to human health until the flow of radioactive water into the sea can be stopped…….

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FULL ARTICLE
[link to nuclear-news.net] 
http://nuclear-news.net/2016/03/23/radioactivity-in-the-ocean-diluted-but-far-from-harmless/

FUKUSHIMA : A Nuclear Story: free documentary (shot between 2011-2015) in-depth exclusive interview with ex-Prime Minister Naoto Kan

link to http://www.nuclearstory.com
 www.nuclearstory.com

“A powerful documentary – shot from March 11th, 2011 through March 2015 – that sheds some light on what really happened at the Fukushima nuclear power plant after the 2011 earthquake and the tsunami that followed.

Open publication – Free publishing

An exclusive journey of four years inside the triple tragedy which hit Japan on March 11, 2011, following Italian Sky News reporter Pio d’Emilia who has lived in Japan for more than thirty years. Pio was in Tokyo the day of the earthquake. After travelling across all the municipalities hit by the tsunami and after illegally entering the so-called “exclusion zone” already established but loosely enforced by the government he actually reaches the gate of the nuclear plant. He would not be allowed inside the plant though: to do this, he had to wait until June 2013 when Tepco, the plant operator, allows the first pool of foreign journalists in.

In his quest to unfold Fukushima’s still on-going nuclear disaster, he collected over 300 hours of footage consisting of shocking images and interviews with local people, local authorities and officers, focusing on what he calls the social “collateral effects” of past and present decisions by the government and the nuclear community. An in-depth exclusive interview on what really happened at Fukushima with ex-Prime Minister Naoto Kan eventually tells us how Tokyo – and probably Japan – was saved from a much greater catastrophe by chance”