Fukushima: Disaster Response is to Spread Radioactive Waste to the Commons

Japan has doubled down on the nuclear industry’s routine practice of spreading radioactive pollutants to public air space and to common waterways.^[1]

In addition to the pumping of tens of thousands of tons of radioactively contaminated cooling water to the Pacific Ocean from the Fukushima-Daiichi reactor complex, the government has announced its intention to spread around the country as much as 14 million cubic meters of radioactively contaminated soil, reportedly for road-building, construction projects, and even agricultural underlayment. Last September the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna — which promotes the nuclear reactor industry around the world — declared that the plan to disperse the waste “is consistent with international safety standards.”^[2]

The federal government in Tokyo announced a cabinet-level meeting set for this month to discuss its plans to disperse the contaminated soil in public works projects. In 2016, a government study group outlined the plan to allow 14 million cubic meters of contaminated soil generated from decontamination in Fukushima Prefecture, to be used for public works projects and agricultural land development nationwide, if it emits less than 8,000 becquerels-per-kilo of cesium-137.^[3] The becquerel is a measure of radioactivity, and vast areas were contaminated with wildly varying amounts of cesium-137 and other radio-isotopes which spewed from Fukushima’s three out-of-control reactors during their simultaneous meltdowns in March 2011.

The contaminated soil was scraped up and removed from farms, school yards, public parks, and other green spaces during the government’s attempt to “decontaminate” thousands of square kilometers around the Fukushima-Daiichi site. These millions of bags have been kept in the open air for years at over 1,000 “temporary storage sites” in Fukushima prefecture and elsewhere.

The Japan Times reported in 2015 that there were then 22 million cubic meters of the poisoned soil in bags.^[4] Four years ago The Hindu said that there were 20 million cubic meters, and that by early 2019 the collection and bagging of the waste had cost the government $27 billion.^[5]

Fukushima’s cesium fallout contaminated over 9,000 square kilometers (3,474 sq. miles) of forests, farmland and residential areas, according to a 2019 European Geosciences Union assessment of the decontamination work, that was published in the journal Soil. The Indian daily The Hindu reported in January 2020 that the EGU authors warned, “No decontamination activities are planned for the majority of forested areas, which cover about 75 per cent of the main contaminated area,” and that “outdoor workers in the special decontamination zone (of 1,117 sq. km area) may as a group be exposed to more than the government’s long-term suggested limit of radiation.”^[5]

To make way for the public’s acceptance of spreading this radioactivity in civic works and agriculture, the government has increased by 80 times the “allowable” level of cesium in the collected soil to be employed. Hajime Matsukubo, with the Nuclear Information Centre in Tokyo, has warned that the standard for soil contamination was previously just 100 becquerels per kilogram. The new 8,000 Bq/kg goes “against their own recommendations,” and “[m]y fear is that once they relax this rule, they can then go on and ease all sorts of other rules,” Matsukubo said.^[6]

Twice already Japan has significantly weakening radiation exposure standards after the triple meltdowns: the government increased the permitted radiation dose to infants, children and adults from 1 millisievert-per-year to 20; and in 2023 it reduced from 64 to 30 the number of radioactive materials it will measure in seawater outside the Fukushima radioactive wastewater release pipe.

The daily Yomiuri Shimbun reported Dec. 5, 2024 that Tokyo actually tested the use of some contaminated soil in farm fields, “harvesting cucumbers and daikon radishes in fields where the [radioactive] soil has been covered with normal soil and using it to raise the ground level.” Rain moving through cesium-contaminated soil will of course move this long-lived radioactive waste into groundwater.

The cesium-contaminated soil should be containerized and kept out of the environment for up to 300 years (after which the cesium has decays to other elements). But the government has arbitrarily decided that a certain amount of contamination will be permitted in spite of the risks posed to handlers, transport works, nearby residents and to surface and ground water.

For more: A detailed evaluation of Japan’s deceptive plan to use contaminated soil in public works projects is available from the Citizens’ Nuclear Information Center (Tokyo), at https://cnic.jp/english/?p=7917 .

Notes

[1] In the United States, a record of daily radioactive releases from reactors is prepared by the owners themselves, delivered to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and made public in their “Annual Radioactive Effluent Release Report.” See a recent one about the Monticello reactor in Minnesota HERE: https://www.nrc.gov/docs/ML2413/ML24135A191.pdf

[2] The Japan Times, Sep 11, 2024, https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2024/09/11/japan/iaea-fukushima-radioactive-soil/

[3] Friends of the Earth Japan, August 25, 2021, https://311mieruka.jp/info/en/reports/radioactive-soil-and-materials/

[4] The Japan Times, March 13, 2015, japantimes.co.jp/news/2015/03/13/national/delivery-of-radioactive-soil-to-interim-storage-begins-in-fukushima/

[5] Frontline, The Hindu, Jan. 28, 2020, https://frontline.thehindu.com/science-and-technology/article30543453.ece

[6] South China Morning Post, Sep 12, 2024, https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/politics/article/3278105/japans-plan-reuse-fukushima-soil-infrastructure-gains-iaea-support-despite-concerns?module=perpetual_scroll_0&pgtype=article

The post Fukushima: Disaster Response is to Spread Radioactive Waste to the Commons appeared first on CounterPunch.org.