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Read the article from NYTimes written soon after the Fukushima nuclear accident. Based on our discussion in class and your reading of the Chernobyl report of the Nuclear Energy Agency (relevant chapter is chapter 2:
https://www.oecd-nea.org/rp/chernobyl/c02.html
) critically discuss the issue of hotspots raised in the article. Is the government justified to act in the manner it did, or were the recommendations of the International Commission of Radiological Protection too stringent?You can check the current recommendations by going to the website of ICRP (
https://www.icrp.org
).
Citizensʼ Testing Finds 20 Hot
Spots Around Tokyo
Toshiyuki Hattori, who runs a sewage plant in Tokyo, surrounded by sacks of radioactive
sludge. Kazuhiro Yokozeki for The New York Times
TOKYO — Takeo Hayashida signed on with a citizensʼ group
to test for radiation near his sonʼs baseball field in Tokyo after
government officials told him they had no plans to check for
fallout from the devastated Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant.
Like Japanʼs central government, local officials said there was
nothing to fear in the capital, 160 miles from the disaster zone.
Then came the test result: the level of radioactive cesium in a
patch of dirt just yards from where his 11-year-old son,
Koshiro, played baseball was equal to those in some
contaminated areas around Chernobyl.
The patch of ground was one of more than 20 spots in and
around the nationʼs capital that the citizensʼ group, and the
respected nuclear research center they worked with, found
were contaminated with potentially harmful levels of
radioactive cesium.
It has been clear since the early days of the nuclear accident,
the worldʼs second worst after Chernobyl, that that the
vagaries of wind and rain had scattered worrisome amounts of
radioactive materials in unexpected patterns far outside the
evacuation zone 12 miles around the stricken plant. But
reports that substantial amounts of cesium had accumulated
as far away as Tokyo have raised new concerns about how far
the contamination had spread, possibly settling in areas where
the government has not even considered looking.
The governmentʼs failure to act quickly, a growing chorus of
scientists say, may be exposing many more people than
originally believed to potentially harmful radiation. It is also
part of a pattern: Japanʼs leaders have continually insisted
that the fallout from Fukushima will not spread far, or pose a
health threat to residents, or contaminate the food chain. And
officials have repeatedly been proved wrong by independent
experts and citizensʼ groups that conduct testing on their own.
“Radioactive substances are entering peopleʼs bodies from
the air, from the food. Itʼs everywhere,” said Kiyoshi Toda, a
radiation expert at Nagasaki Universityʼs faculty of
environmental studies and a medical doctor. “But the
government doesnʼt even try to inform the public how much
radiation theyʼre exposed to.”
The reports of hot spots do not indicate how widespread
contamination is in the capital; more sampling would be
needed to determine that. But they raise the prospect that
people living near concentrated amounts of cesium are being
exposed to levels of radiation above accepted international
standards meant to protect people from cancer and other
illnesses.
Japanese nuclear experts and activists have begun agitating
for more comprehensive testing in Tokyo and elsewhere, and a
cleanup if necessary. Robert Alvarez, a nuclear expert and a
former special assistant to the United States secretary of
energy, echoed those calls, saying the citizensʼ groupsʼ
measurements “raise major and unprecedented concerns
about the aftermath of the Fukushima nuclear disaster.”
The government has not ignored citizensʼ pleas entirely; it
recently completed aerial testing in eastern Japan, including
Tokyo. But several experts and activists say the tests are
unlikely to be sensitive enough to be useful in finding micro
hot spots such as those found by the citizensʼ group.
Kaoru Noguchi, head of Tokyoʼs health and safety section,
however, argues that the testing already done is sufficient.
Because Tokyo is so developed, she says, radioactive material
was much more likely to have fallen on concrete, then washed
away. She also said exposure was likely to be limited.
“Nobody stands in one spot all day,” she said. “And nobody
eats dirt.”
Tokyo residents knew soon after the March 11 accident, when
a tsunami knocked out the crucial cooling systems at the
Fukushima plant, that they were being exposed to radioactive
materials. Researchers detected a spike in radiation levels on
March 15. Then as rain drizzled down on the evening of March
21, radioactive material again fell on the city.
In the following week, however, radioactivity in the air and
water dropped rapidly. Most in the city put aside their jitters,
some openly scornful of those — mostly foreigners — who
had fled Tokyo in the early days of the disaster.
But not everyone was convinced. Some Tokyo residents
bought dosimeters. The Tokyo citizensʼ group, the Radiation
Defense Project, which grew out of a Facebook discussion
page, decided to be more proactive. In consultation with the
Yokohama-based Isotope Research Institute, members
collected soil samples from near their own homes and
submitted them for testing.
A baseball stadium in Tokyo was found to be contaminated with radioactive cesium. There
have been calls for broader testing. Hiroyuki Ito for The New York Times
Some of the results were shocking: the sample that Mr.
Hayashida collected under shrubs near his neighborhood
baseball field in the Edogawa ward measured nearly 138,000
becquerels per square meter of radioactive cesium 137, which
can damage cells and lead to an increased risk of cancer.
Of the 132 areas tested, 22 were above 37,000 becquerels
per square meter, the level at which zones were considered
contaminated at Chernobyl.
Edwin Lyman, a physicist at the Union of Concerned
Scientists in Washington, said most residents near Chernobyl
were undoubtedly much worse off, surrounded by widespread
contamination rather than isolated hot spots. But he said the
37,000 figure remained a good reference point for mandatory
cleanup because regular exposure to such contamination
could result in a dosage of more than one millisievert per year,
the maximum recommended for the public by the International
Commission on Radiological Protection.
The most contaminated spot in the Radiation Defense survey,
near a church, was well above the level of the 1.5 million
becquerels per square meter that required mandatory
resettlement at Chernobyl. The level is so much higher than
other results in the study that it raises the possibility of testing
error, but micro hot spots are not unheard of after nuclear
disasters.
Japanʼs relatively tame mainstream media, which is more likely
to report on government pronouncements than grass-roots
movements, mainly ignored the citizensʼ groupʼs findings.
“Everybody just wants to believe that this is Fukushimaʼs
problem,” said Kota Kinoshita, one of the groupʼs leaders and
a former television journalist. “But if the government is not
serious about finding out, how can we trust them?”
Hideo Yamazaki, an expert in environmental analysis at Kinki
University in western Japan, did his own survey of the city and
said he, too, discovered high levels in the area where the
baseball field is located.
“These results are highly localized, so there is no cause for
panic,” he said. “Still, there are steps the government could be
taking, like decontaminating the highest spots.”
Since then, there have been other suggestions that hot spots
were more widespread than originally imagined.
Last month, a local government in a Tokyo ward found a pile of
composted leaves at a school that measured 849 becquerels
per kilogram of cesium 137, over two times Japanʼs legally
permissible level for compost.
And on Wednesday, civilians who tested the roof of an
apartment building in the nearby city of Yokohama — farther
from Fukushima than Tokyo — found high quantities of
radioactive strontium. (There was also one false alarm this
week when sky-high readings were reported in the Setagaya
ward in Tokyo; the government later said they were probably
caused by bottles of radium, once widely used to make paint.)
The governmentʼs own aerial testing showed that although
almost all of Tokyo had relatively little contamination, two
areas showed elevated readings. One was in a mountainous
area at the western edge of the Tokyo metropolitan region,
and the other was over three wards of the city — including the
one where the baseball field is situated.
The metropolitan government said it had started preparations
to begin monitoring food products from the nearby mountains,
but acknowledged that food had been shipped from that area
for months.
Mr. Hayashida, who discovered the high level at the baseball
field, said that he was not waiting any longer for government
assurances. He moved his family to Okayama, about 370
miles to the southwest.
“Perhaps we could have stayed in Tokyo with no problems,”
he said. “But I choose a future with no radiation fears.”
