RADIOACTIVE WASTE STORED AT SCHOOLS, OLYMPIC SITE CONTAMINATED

RADIOACTIVE SOIL AT SCHOOLS AND OLYMPIC FACILITY.
CONTAMINATED MATERIAL HEAPED IN BAGS IN SCHOOL YARDS.

AFTER OVER 4 YEARS, I THOUGHT I HAD READ IT ALL, BUT CAME ACROSS THESE TWO NEWS ITEMS AND WAS BLOWN AWAY BY THE KNOWLEDGE THAT FUKUSHIMA PREFECTURE SCHOOLS THAT HAVE BEEN OPEN SINCE SHORTLY AFTER THE DAIICHI MELTDOWNS HAVE ONLY RECENTLY BEGUN TO DECONTAMINATE SCHOOLYARDS, OR ARE HOPING TO DO SO "IN THE NEAR FUTURE", OR ARE HOPING TO FINISH SCRAPING AWAY RADIOACTIVE SOIL BEFORE THE STUDENTS RETURN AFTER SUMMER BREAK!

CAN THIS BE FOR REAL?
KIDS HAVE BEEN GOING TO SCHOOL IN THE FUKUSHIMA PREFECTURE AND PARENTS KNOW THE SOIL THERE IS CONTAMINATED?

SOME ARE PROTESTING AND QUESTIONING, BUT THAT DOESN'T SAVE THE CHILDREN THE LIKELIHOOD OF RECEIVING LETHAL DOSES OF TEPCO's GARBAGE!

"Japanese citizens are balking at the lack of information and supervision of waste stored in public places, such as playgrounds.

The small sandy square in front of Yasushi Takemoto's apartment in Koriyama, a city of 328,000 about 150 miles north of Tokyo, looks like a normal public park. 

On a recent weekday morning, a group of children played on the swings while the retired dentistry professor strolled under the trees.

Beneath the soil in one unmarked, unfenced corner, however, lie hundreds of bags packed with radioactive dirt, sludge from drainage ditches, and other contaminated debris."

AND CHILDREN PLAY THERE!

JULY 19, 2015, THE JAPAN TIMES

"TANAGURA, FUKUSHIMA PREF. 
– The Environment Ministry on Saturday started work to transport radiation-tainted soil and other waste from an elementary school in Fukushima Prefecture, home to Tokyo Electric Power Co.’s Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant damaged in the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami, to an interim storage site in the same prefecture on a trial basis.

The ministry plans to finish the work before the end of August while schoolchildren are taking their summer holidays, officials said. 

A total of 1,500 cu. meters of soil and other tainted items from decontamination work are kept at Yashirogawa elementary school in the town of Tanagura."

BUT I FOUND WORSE!
SOME SCHOOL GROUNDS HAVE BEEN USED TO STORE RADIOACTIVE MATERIAL FROM OTHER PLACES, MATERIAL STORED IN...SACKS!

STACKED BAGS PILED UP ON SCHOOL GROUNDS, JUST BAGS? 

HOW CAN SACKS/BAGS STOP RADIOACTIVE WASTE FROM AFFECTING THOSE NEAR IT?

 "This marks the first transportation of tainted soil from a Fukushima school to the interim storage site that straddles the towns of Okuma and Futaba.

[REMEMBER THE NAME 'FUTABA']

Trial work to move polluted soil will begin also at FOUR OTHER Fukushima elementary schools soon. 

The amount of contaminated waste at the four schools in the city of Koriyama and the town of Asakawa totals about 1,500 cu. meters.

According to the Fukushima Prefectural Government, a total of 316,400 cu. meters of tainted soil is being stored at 1,173 locations in the prefecture, including schools and kindergartens, as of the end of March. 

The amount to be transferred to the interim storage site during fiscal 2015, which ends March 31, will be limited, prefectural officials said.

Decontamination at Yashirogawa elementary school was conducted from January to June this year. 

Soil and other waste from the cleanup work is kept mainly in sacks.

AND THAT'S OKAY?
NO ONE IN CHARGE AT THESE SCHOOLS IS CONCERNED ABOUT THE HEALTH OF EXPOSED STUDENTS?

The prefecture launched the experimental transportation program in March. 
About 43,000 cu. meters of waste from 43 cities, towns and villages will be transferred to the storage site within fiscal 2015. 

The work has been completed in six municipalities, including OKUMA AND FUTABA. "

I HOPE THE REPORTER WHO WROTE THAT WILL CHECK AGAIN!
THE WORK IS ONGOING ALL OVER THE FUKUSHIMA PREFECTURE,
AT OVER 1,000 SCHOOLS AND OKUMA AND FUTABA WILL BECOME "INTERIM STORAGE SITES"!

IT DOESN'T END WITH THE STUDENTS THOUGH.

JAPAN WILL HOST THE 2020 OLYMPICS, REMEMBER?

AT ONE TRAINING FACILITY FOR OLYMPIC ATHLETES, SOIL DECONTAMINATION HAS ONLY RECENTLY GOTTEN UNDERWAY!

"QUICKLY, MAKE IT LOOK LIKE THIS PLACE IS SAFE FOR THE OLYMPICS, AND DON'T PAY ANY ATTENTION TO THOSE SCREAMING GEIGER COUNTERS!" 

July 13, 2015
DECONTAMINATION BEGINS AT OLYMPIC TRAINING FACILITY.


FUKUSHIMA -- Decontamination of the "J-Village" soccer facility near [ ONLY 20 KILOMETERS FROM DAIICHI1] the disaster-stricken Fukushima No. 1 Nuclear Power Plant began on July 13, with plans to accommodate players ahead of the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.

The Ministry of the Environment is handling decontamination of the facility, which was tainted with radioactive materials during the Fukushima nuclear disaster. 

It is slated to re-open in April 2019, providing accommodation and training facilities for Japan's men's and women's Olympic soccer teams.

J-Village spans an area of about 50 hectares. 
A total of 6.9 hectares that hold structures including the central building are to be decontaminated by March 2016. 
Ten of the 12 fields are currently used for purposes including housing some 1,000 TEPCO employees.

 By March, 2017, the facilities on the fields and the main office for recovery operations are to be moved to places including the town of TOMIOKA. 

TEPCO will THEN decontaminate the fields, and some of them will open for use in the summer of 2018. "

AN OLYMPIC TRAINING FACILITY, WHERE MANY FOREIGN ATHLETES WILL COME, LOCATED JUST 20 KILOMETERS FROM DAIICHI #1...

WHY?

AS THESE TOWNSHIPS' NAMES ARE MENTIONED, WE NEED TO SEE HOW CLOSE THEY ARE TO THE DAIICHI #1 FACILITY.

Japanese towns, villages, and cities around the Daiichi nuclear plant. 
The 20km and 30km areas had evacuation and sheltering orders, and additional administrative districts that had an evacuation order are highlighted.

FUTABA, OKUMA, NARAHA, NAMIE, TOMIOKA WERE CLOSEST AND EVACUATED FIRST, BUT NOW PEOPLE ARE BEING ALLOWED BACK WHEN WE KNOW RADIOACTIVE WASTE IS STORED THERE AND THEIR SOIL AND WATER ARE STILL CONTAMINATED, WHEN EVERY TIME THE WIND BLOWS IN THEIR DIRECTION THEY GET NEWLY CONTAMINATED, WHEN THE DAIICHI FACILITY HAS CONTAMINATED THE MAJOR AQUIFER BENEATH IT?

CAN WE CALL THIS MADNESS?

ONE MAN DID:

"Yasushi  Takemoto, a resident of the apartment complex shown above) learned about the plan to bury the waste from a neighbor. 
When he called city hall to request a public meeting explaining the plans, he was turned down. 
But by filing freedom-of-information requests, he learned that at least 20 similar pits exist at parks and other public spaces in the city.

He believes local officials are breaking the law by failing to inform residents and ensure the sites are properly monitored."

MAY HE CONTINUE TO PROTEST UNTIL SOMEONE LISTENS AND ACTS!

THE JAPANESE GOVERNMENT AND TEPCO HAVE ARGUED SINCE 2011 THAT PEOPLE CAN LIVE "SAFELY" IN THE CONTAMINATED ZONE!

"The Japanese government has pinned its recovery plan on a massive cleanup that, in theory, will allow residents to live safely in contaminated areas, rendering unnecessary a large, long-term exclusion zone like the one surrounding the ruined Chernobyl reactor. 

The Environment Ministry estimates that the cleanup, which extends far beyond the exclusion zone, will generate between 15 million and 31 million cubic meters of waste in Fukushima Prefecture.   

Some towns, however, still haven't found places to build their temporary storage sites. With no other choice, residents, school administrators, and local park departments are burying bags of debris on their property or piling them outside under plastic sheets.

In official lingo, this is called "on-site storage." 

Laws don't require signs to be posted at these sites or ground water nearby to be monitored because, since the waste is stored on the same property where it was collected, it's thought to be less likely to cause new health risks than if it were moved.

Waste was being stored on-site at 1,027 schools and 788 parks prefecture-wide as of late August, according to Fukushima's local government. Including private residences and shops, Koriyama had 597 such sites as of September.

In December, 2012, Tokiko Noguchi went to city hall with five other mothers from Koriyama to ask officials why signs were not posted at storage sites in parks. Ms. Noguchi, who runs a parents' group dedicated to protecting children from radiation, was concerned about children playing above buried waste. She says officials told her signs might lead to discrimination against nearby residents, or might cause people to throw more garbage in the park. "I'm very angry," she says. "The city isn't protecting us."

BUT YET THEY ARE REOPENING SCHOOLS AND CONTINUING IN ALREADY-OPENED SCHOOLS WHERE RADIOACTIVE WASTE IS STACKED IN BAGS?

"Another example of resumed schooling concerns the town of NAMIE, also near the crippled nuclear power plant. 

The town opened an elementary school and junior high school in the Fukushima Prefecture city of Nihonmatsu in August 2011 after consolidating six elementary schools and three junior high schools. 


Kiichiro Hatakeyama, superintendent of the Namie Municipal Board of Education, said the town wanted to reopen all schools... 

The town of TOMIOKA reopened four elementary and junior high schools and a kindergarten by renovating factory facilities in the town of MIHARU six months after the nuclear meltdowns but came under fire from town residents for taking such action too late. "

THE OLYMPICS WILL CONVENE "OFFICIALLY" IN TOKYO, BUT ATHLETES AND TOURISTS WILL BE HOUSED OUTSIDE TOKYO IN MANY CASES.
WHERE?
WHERE, EXACTLY?

IS TOKYO SAFE?

"Radiation leaking from Japan's tsunami-damaged nuclear power plant has caused Tokyo's tap water to exceed safety standards for infants to drink, officials said Wednesday, sending anxiety levels soaring over the nation's food and water supply."

As the disaster happened, enormous levels of radiation hit Tokyo. 
The highest radiation detected in the Tokyo Metro area was in Saitama with cesium radiation levels detected at 919,000 becquerel (Bq) per square meter, a level almost twice as high as Chernobyl’s “permanent dead zone evacuation limit of 500,000 Bq” 
(Source: Radiation Defense Project).

HAS TOKYO BEEN DECONTAMINATED?
WOULD THEY DARE DO THAT OPENLY?

THAT WOULD BE AN ADMISSION THAT TOKYO SHOULD HAVE BEEN EVACUATED AS SO MANY EXPERTS ADVISED THE JAPANESE PRIME MINISTER TO DO. 

[After the Fukushima disaster, ambient levels of radiation in Washington State went up 40,000 times above normal...WASHINGTON STATE...SO WHAT WERE THE REAL READINGS IN TOKYO?]

BUT, AS WE RECALL, HE SAID THAT WOULD "DESTROY JAPAN ECONOMICALLY"!

WHICH IS MORE IMPORTANT, THE ECONOMY OR HUMAN LIVES?

YET HE DARED INVITE THE WORLD TO JAPAN FOR THE OLYMPICS?

I WOULDN'T GO, NOT EVEN PROTECTED BY 10 YARDS OF LEAD!

SOME MAY RECALL THAT THE U.N. (UNSCEAR)
ISSUED AN "ALL-CLEAR" BASICALLY ABOUT FUKUSHIMA AND JAPAN.

THAT WAS REPUDIATED IN QUITE FORCEFUL LANGUAGE BY A GROUP OF GERMAN PHYSICIANS AND SCIENTISTS.
IN THEIR REBUTTAL THEY WROTE, IN PART...

“The Fukushima nuclear disaster is far from over. 
It is impossible at this point in time to come up with an exact prognosis of the effects that the Fukushima nuclear disaster will have on the population in Japan… the UNSCEAR report represents a systematic underestimation and conjures up an illusion of scientific certainty that obscures the true impact of the nuclear catastrophe on health and the environment.”

DENIAL OF TRUTH HAS KILLED MANY DOWN THROUGH THE AGES.
I MOST SINCERELY HOPE THAT THOSE IN CHARGE IN JAPAN AND HERE HAVE A GOOD ATTACK OF REMORSE AND ONE OF GUILT AND COME CLEAN WITH THE WORLD, HELP THOSE OF US WHO ARE WONDERING AND WAITING FIND THE TRUTHS WE NEED TO SURVIVE THIS.

I HOPE THERE'S STILL TIME TO DO THIS AND WILL KEEP HOPING UNTIL THERE'S NO MORE BREATH IN ME.

YOU SEE, IT'S THOSE INNOCENT CHILDREN I CAN'T FORGET, JUST LIKE THE INNOCENTS OF CHERNOBYL AND ALL CHILD VICTIMS OF ALL SUCH DISASTERS, AND OF NUCLEAR TESTING, AND OF LEAKING NUCLEAR FACILITIES THAT HAVEN'T BLOWN UP....YET. 

IT'S THE CHILDREN THAT KEEP ME WRITING AND HOPING SOMEONE CAN FIND A WAY TO AT LEAST SAVE THE CHILDREN.

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MORE ON THE GROUNDWATER AND TEPCO's REFUSAL TO USE NEW TECHNOLOGY TO REDUCE RADIATION LEVELS IN ALL THAT WATER...
http://www.ccnr.org/Water_Everywhere_2014.pdf