Amy Goodman: Nuclear Power: Re-evaluating the Risks

[marmar]

Democracy Now!, via YES! Magazine:




.....(snip).....


Amy Goodman: You have said, Kevin Kamps, that a cover-up is a huge part of this story, as it was with Chernobyl. Why?

Kevin Kamps: Well, I mean, as Harvey indicated, if the U.S. Navy—and as you reported—if the U.S. Navy, which is a hundred miles away, has to move an aircraft carrier away from the shore because the radioactivity levels are of concern, then all of these assurances by Tokyo Electric Power Company and the Japanese government that everything's really OK—I mean, a statement made two days ago by the chief spokesman for the government, the secretary of the cabinet, was that the evacuation is underway, and the wind is blowing out to sea, so everything is really going to be OK. Well, we have indications that the wind direction may change towards the mainland of Japan. So, those false assurances are not helping the situation.

And another question that needs to be asked is, well, if the wind is blowing out to sea, what's in that direction? Well, the United States is in that direction. And we see, again, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission saying no harmful level of radioactivity could reach the United States. While we're in the middle of this crisis, a new reactor is now melting down. How did they determine that the containments are going to hold? How did they determine that the radioactivity will not blow in large quantities to the United States?

Amy Goodman: I want to go back to Yurika Ayukawa, joining us from Tokyo, and also share with you our condolences for the horrific catastrophe that your country is undergoing right now. You're formerly with the Citizens' Nuclear Information Center, now a professor of the environment at Chiba University in Japan. What is the government telling you? And are you satisfied with that right now?

Yurika Ayukawa: What the government and the Tokyo Electric is saying is what—just as just Kevin explained. They are trying to downgrade the critical situation and make the people don't get worried or—so, we are totally not sure. There's no transparency about the information that they are saying. They don't give enough—actually, maybe they don't actually know precisely what to say, but nothing concrete is being announced. So, we don't know what is really going on. So, there's no transparency in what they're speaking.

So, there's no—on the other hand, just as Kevin said, there's nothing spoken about the spent fuel pools. So that's maybe a really—another hazardous matter that will come up later, after this thing is, you know, finished. And I'm very unsatisfied with what—how the government is treating this. And if—there was an article in The New York Times about this radioactive contamination by U.S. air flight, the U.S. Navy. I wish you could make it a big story that could appear in the Japanese newspapers, because all the Japanese people are thinking, all the government is thinking, is only about Japan. They are not thinking what kind of effects it will bring to other countries. And I just read that the French embassy is making the French people living in Japan to leave the country. So, it's really—that kind of thing should make news in Japan, but it's not. ............(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.yesmagazine.org/planet/reevaluating-the-risks-of-nuclear-power-after-japan