No Weiners, no dildoes, just a Fukushima update June 16

[robdogbucky]

TEPCO starts up water treatment system, but massive radioactive waste feared

Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO) began a trial run of a radioactive water treatment system at the crippled Fukushima No. 1 Nuclear Power Plant on June 15 in a desperate effort to break away from the vicious cycle of injecting water into reactors to cool them and ending up with more contaminated water.

But even if the system, developed by France's Areva SA, were to operate smoothly, it would produce a massive amount of high-level radioactive waste that could affect TEPCO's roadmap to bring the troubled nuclear reactors under control by early next year.

"The water treatment system is moving along as scheduled, although contaminated water leaked from a pipe," Hidehiko Nishiyama, spokesman for the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency, told a news conference on June 15.

TEPCO, the operator of the troubled Fukushima No. 1 Nuclear Power Plant, will try to reach "Step 1" of the roadmap, in which radiation emissions are steadily declining, by mid-July. It hopes to reach "Step 2," in which leakages of radiation are controlled and amounts of radiation are drastically reduced, within three to six months...

http://mdn.mainichi.jp/mdnnews/news/20110616p2a00m0na015000c.html




Thursday, June 16, 2011

Evacuation urged for radioactive hot spots
Recommendation to leave limited areas outside 20-km zone won't be mandatory

By MASAMI ITO
Staff writer

The government decided Thursday to encourage the evacuation of residents living in radioactive hot spots outside the no-entry zone around the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant.

In-depth monitoring by the government found the hot spots outside the 20-km evacuation zone in numerous places, including in Date and Minamisoma in Fukushima Prefecture where levels of radiation exceeded the equivalent of 20 millisieverts per year.

According to Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano, the results of the monitoring showed that the hot spots were limited in scope, unlike the situation in the evacuation zone, and therefore the government determined that "an across-the-board evacuation or restrictions of industrial activities" were unnecessary.

But at the same time, Edano explained that the government decided to encourage their evacuation because it couldn't completely rule out the possibility of residents being exposed to more than the 20-millisievert benchmark…

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20110616x1.html



Radioactive water still threatens to overflow

The operator of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant is under pressure to ensure the flawless operation of a system to decontaminate radioactive water, which threatens to overflow.

More than 110,000 tons of the highly radioactive water has accumulated in the nuclear complex.

The amount is growing by 500 tons a day as fresh water is injected into reactors to cool them down...

...TEPCO has also yet to decide how to dispose of radioactive waste generated during the decontamination process.

Thursday, June 16, 2011 20:24 +0900 (JST)

http://www3.nhk.or.jp/daily/english/16_31.html



Radioactive material detected in Iwate pastures

The Iwate Prefectural Government has again detected a radioactive substance above the state limit in pasture grass in several areas in the prefecture. The prefecture asked farmers in the areas to refrain from feeding the grass to their livestock.

The prefectural government found on Tuesday radioactive cesium exceeding the limit of 300 becquerels per kilogram in grass collected from pastures in four areas, including Tono and Otsuchi. The areas are located about 150 to 200 kilometers north of the Fukushima nuclear power plant.

The Iwate government plans to conduct more detailed examinations in the four affected municipalities...

...High levels of radiation in pasture grass have also been reported in Fukushima Prefecture, which hosts the troubled nuclear plant, and neighboring prefectures.

Thursday, June 16, 2011 12:07 +0900 (JST)

http://www3.nhk.or.jp/daily/english/16_17.html



HIDDEN AGENDA: Moves to oust Kan may be linked to politicians in TEPCO's pocket
BY YASUAKI OSHIKA ASAHI SHIMBUN WEEKLY AERA
2011/06/16

Naoto Kan may leave a lot to be desired as a prime minister, but one thing's certain--he's never taken a dime from Tokyo Electric Power Co., the operator of the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant.

Kan's complete independence from TEPCO money--and pressure--may be the real reason so many lawmakers are trying to push him out the door. His calls to shift Japan away from nuclear energy and to break TEPCO into separate companies that handle power generation and power transmission threaten some very powerful special interests.

There are many lawmakers in both the ruling Democratic Party of Japan and the opposition Liberal Democratic Party who have taken TEPCO money for years and feel obligated to protect the company's interests.

The confrontation between those who want to protect TEPCO and those in government who want to drastically reform the company heated up from May 24 when the Kan Cabinet approved the establishment of two committees related to TEPCO…

http://www.asahi.com/english/TKY201106150199.html




Long way from being over, if ever.


Tick tock

[barbtries]

1. thank you for posting this.

as usual i'm left with more questions than answers when it comes to this absolute catastrophe.
question of the day is: they're recommending but not requiring evacuations now. does that mean that the government doesn't have any obligation to resettle the people who choose to leave? and if not, how many people will be stuck there without the means to leave?
:(

[robdogbucky]

2. Fukushima cuts off welfare to 160 families

Fukushima cuts off welfare to 160 families

Three local governments in Fukushima Prefecture have cut off welfare to about 160 households who received compensation for the nuclear plant accident and donations for survivors of the March 11th disaster.

The decision was based on a directive issued by the Health and Welfare Ministry last month. The directive says that if the total amount received exceeds the minimum needed for basic necessities, the excess is regarded as income and makes the recipient ineligible for welfare.

Minami Soma City cut off payments to about 150 of its 400 households on welfare. The other municipalities are Naraha and Iwaki.

The municipalities say the households can apply to get back on welfare as soon as they run out of money.

Thursday, June 16, 2011 19:45 +0900 (JST)

http://www3.nhk.or.jp/daily/english/16_26.html




Yokohama checks school lunches for radiation

Yokohama City, located hundreds of kilometers from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, has begun radiation testing of vegetables for school lunches.

The city started the tests on Thursday in response to parents' concerns about whether food served in school is safe for their children, given the widespread fallout from the Fukushima plant.

Yokohama plans to test one type of vegetable per day before using it the next day. The city also plans to release the test results on its website.

On Thursday, technicians at a lab in the city cut up 2 kilograms of green peppers and put them in a machine for measuring radiation...

Thursday, June 16, 2011 18:09 +0900 (JST)

http://www3.nhk.or.jp/daily/english/16_24.html




Thursday, June 16, 2011

Number of people receiving welfare tops 2 million mark
Kyodo

There were 2.02 million people receiving welfare as of March, close to the record 2.04 million in the aftermath of World War II, while the number of households on welfare in March hit an all-time high of 1.46 million, the government said.

The total number of people was almost equivalent to the record monthly average of about 2.04 million logged in fiscal 1952, the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry said Tuesday.

A total of 549 households began to receive welfare benefits in March and April after losing their homes and jobs as a result of the March 11 calamity, including the Fukushima nuclear crisis.

Of the 549 households, 268 were headed by a person of working age, the ministry said. The figure, however, excludes data from municipalities heavily hit by the disaster, including Ishinomaki, Miyagi Prefecture...

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20110616a3.html

[barbtries]

6. thank you again.

so, if they're destitute the government will only give enough for subsistence. apparently the poor people will be stuck in the hot spots. the death toll will never be counted. very sad.

[meow mix]

3. k&r

even with no purple dildoez

[robdogbucky]

4. More collateral damage from disasters

Fukushima farmer kills self over N-plant

The Yomiuri Shimbun

FUKUSHIMA--A cattle farmer in Soma, Fukushima Prefecture, who hanged himself left an apparent suicide message that read, "I wish there wasn't a nuclear plant ," it has been learned.

The man was forced to kill some of his cows and close his dairy business due to the crisis at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant.

According to sources, the man's body was found Saturday in a cattle house where he had hanged himself. Written on the wall in white chalk were a number of messages, including, "I've lost all my motivation to work," and "To other cattle farmers, don't succumb to the nuclear plant."

In Soma and nearby areas, farmers were temporarily banned from shipping unprocessed milk after radiation leaked from the plant. The man had to dispose of the milk produced by his cows, and as of early this month had been forced to kill 30 of his cows.

(Jun. 15, 2011)

http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/national/T110614004193.htm

[robdogbucky]

5. Don't tell me someone listened to Greenpeace?

Japan plans to move pregnant women from far-flung radiation


TOKYO | Thu Jun 16, 2011 8:26am EDT

(Reuters) - Japan plans to ask pregnant women and children to move away from radiation "hotspots" that were found far away from the crippled Fukushima nuclear plant, the government said on Thursday, reflecting new anxieties about the spread of radioactivity.

The government will not, however, evacuate entire towns, but rather homes where residents could be exposed to more than 20 millisieverts of radiation per year. Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano told reporters.

Twenty millisieverts is the annual radiation limit the government has set for school children in Fukushima, where workers at the Daiichi plant 240 km (150 miles) from Tokyo are battling to bring under control the worst nuclear crisis since Chernobyl.

Following the earthquake and tsunami in March that resulted in the nuclear disaster the government has set up a forced evacuation zone within a 20 km (12 mile) radius of the plant after deciding that radiation levels there were too high for human habitation.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/06/16/us-japan-nuclear-evacutation-idUSTRE75F24E20110616