Sunflowers ineffective in radiation decontamination

TOKYO (majirox news) — Sunflowers are virtually ineffective in soaking up radioactive cesium from contaminated soil, the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (MAFF) on Sept. 14.

Ministry officials carried out the tests from May in areas near the radiation-spewing Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.

Ministry officials said that sunflowers absorbed almost no cesium from contaminated soil.

MAFF discovered that of the numerous decontamination measures it has attempted in Fukushima prefecture, removing topsoil was the most effective. Taking away clumps of topsoil about 3 centimeters (2 inches) deep cut cesium levels by 97% in pastoral fields. Shaving 4 centimeters (2.75 inches) from topsoil in other areas reduced cesium by 75%.

Chemical hardening lowered cesium by 82%.

Tags: cesium, Forestry and Fisheries, Japan, MAFF, Ministry of Agriculture, radioactive cesium, Sunflowers

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Japan city declares nuclear Decontamination Month

Japan city declares nuclear Decontamination Month It is a daunting task. Contamination from the world's worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl has spread far and wide, across fields and farms, rivers and forests. Tens of thousands of residents have been forced to flee their homes. But, shovelful by shovelful, one half-empty city on the edge of the evacuation zone is fighting to bring its future back. Feeling forgotten and left largely to fend for themselves by the central government, officials in Minami-Soma, about 12 miles (20 kilometers) away from the tsunami-crippled Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear facility, have designated August as "Decontamination Month" in a campaign to woo spooked residents home. "We decided that we could not sit by and wait until Tokyo figured out what to do," said town official Yoshiaki Yokota. "It's an enormous task, but we have to start somewhere."
19 Aug After picking up a ton of international awards in recent years, Japan is no longer "the hidden secret of the whisky world," according to Dave Broom, author of The World Atlas of Whisky. Instead, the country's distillers are now recognized masters in "just bloody good whisky." Experts say Japan's climate - sweltering humid summers and cold winters - both speeds and slows cask maturation, imparting unique tastes. Japanese water, which has fewer minerals than Europe's, also plays a crucial role. "There's a transparency about the flavors," says Broom. "In Scotch you get this wonderful jumble of complexities, so things are kind of flying out and nipping at you from all angles. In Japan, there's slightly more control on the palate." (Time)
19 Aug An accomplished engineer from the township has admitted to federal prosecutors that he collected child pornography he downloaded from the Internet and bought from Japan, authorities said. Hakan Pekcan, 49, of the Basking Ridge section pleaded guilty Thursday to a count of possession of child pornography, U.S. Attorney Paul J. Fishman said. He faces up to 10 years in prison and $250,000 fine when is sentenced Nov. 22 in federal court in Newark. Court documents say that Pekan had illegal, sexually explicit images and videos of children on computers, hard drives and disks in his home, Fishman said. During a search in July 2010, federal officials raided the dwelling and seized the hardware, along with hundreds of DVDs. (mycentraljersey.com)
19 Aug The official climbing season for Mount Fuji is drawing to a close on Aug. 31, which means potential climbers should act fast. With 10 stations along the trails, most people begin their ascent to the summit of Japan's most famous mountain from the fifth station. Mount Fuji's crater is surrounded by eight peaks, and it usually takes around 90 minutes to circle the perimeter. Kengamine Peak is the highest point in Japan. (Japan Times)
19 Aug A prizewinning Chinese film depicting the 1937 Nanjing Massacre from a Japanese perspective will be screened Sunday in Tokyo. Directed by Lu Chuan of China, the 2009 film "Nanjing! Nanjing!" features as its central character a Japanese soldier played by Japanese actor Hideo Nakaizumi. The film, known in English as "City of Life and Death," won the best cinematography award at the 2009 San Sebastian International Film Festival in Spain. (Japan Times)
18 Aug Authorities confirmed Thursday the death of a second woman in a tour boat accident a day earlier on the Tenryu River in Shizuoka Prefecture, while continuing the search for the missing - two men and a 2-year-old boy. Also Thursday, police searched the headquarters of the tour boat operator, Tenryu Hamanako RailRoad Co., and related sites on suspicion of professional negligence resulting in death. The investigators are questioning boatmen on other vessels that were near the site at the time and other people to help determine the cause of the accident. Tenryu Hamanako RailRoad said the boat with 23 people aboard crashed into riverside rocks and sank stern-first after control of the vessel was in whirlpools. (Japan Times)

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Japan city declares nuclear Decontamination Month (AP)

MINAMI-SOMA, Japan – It is a daunting task. Contamination from the world's worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl has spread far and wide, across fields and farms, rivers and forests. Tens of thousands of residents have been forced to flee their homes.

But, shovelful by shovelful, one half-empty city on the edge of the evacuation zone is fighting to bring its future back.

Feeling forgotten and left largely to fend for themselves by the central government, officials in Minami-Soma, about 12 miles (20 kilometers) away from the tsunami-crippled Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear facility, have designated August as "Decontamination Month" in a campaign to woo spooked residents home.

"We decided that we could not sit by and wait until Tokyo figured out what to do," said town official Yoshiaki Yokota. "It's an enormous task, but we have to start somewhere."

Before the disaster, nearly 70,000 people lived in Minami-Soma. But, nearly six months later and despite relatively low radiation readings in most parts of town, more than 30,000 have left, nearly one-third of them from areas outside the official evacuation zone.

City officials fear that unless action is taken to demonstrate most of the town is safe for habitation, many may never return.

So, for the past week, the city has contracted local crews to hose down its schools, parks and community centers. The goal is to reduce by more than one-half the levels of radioactivity measured at places in the city where people gather.

The campaign has created a buzz of activity in the still-shaken town.

The work crews, clad in hazmat suits, also use bulldozers and powershovels to remove contaminated topsoil from public places, particularly school playgrounds. The washoff from the hosings and the mounds of contaminated topsoil are then moved to less-used areas and buried in huge trenches.

"I'm glad to see them here," Kiyomi Takahashi said as she watched a crew wash down a kindergarten adjacent to the school where her daughters are due to begin the first and sixth grade next week. "I still have my concerns, but it's important that our city is out there showing that it is doing something."

For the time being, a large swath of Minami-Soma remains completely off limits.

That is because it is within a 12-mile (20-kilometer) no-go zone set up by Tokyo days after the March 11 tsunami touched off meltdowns, explosions and fires at the Fukushima plant. All told, nearly 21,000 people were killed or remain missing after the tsunami, which devastated Japan's northeast coast.

But outside the no-go zone, contamination levels vary dramatically, depending on the local terrain. Most of Minami-Soma is registering below government safety limits, meaning residents who evacuated earlier in the crisis may now return home if they so choose.

Still, most have stayed away because they fear for their health.

"We want to show them that it is safe, and that we are doing everything we can to make it even safer," Yokota said. "Part of what we are doing is symbolic. It is intended to reassure our residents. It's also just to show that we will not sit idly by."

Some experts have reservations about the decontamination campaign.

Hiroaki Koide, a radiation specialist and associate professor at Kyoto University's Research Reactor Institute, said simply removing the top three inches (5 centimeters) of soil has been shown to reduce radiation levels by about 90 percent.

But he noted that the trees, roads and farmland near the decontaminated schools cannot be easily cleansed — and radiation from them can spread in the larger environment. Further, babies, children and pregnant women are the most vulnerable to radiation-related illnesses, and are generally advised to avoid exposure whenever possible.

"Any exposure would pose a health risk, no matter how small," Koide said. "There is no dose that we should call safe."

Another problem that has slowed the central government from acting to help is what to do with the irradiated soil, washoff and debris in the long-term.

"We have been trying to find storage and waste-processing plants, but so far we haven't been very successful," acknowledged Goshi Hosono, the minister in charge of the nuclear crisis response. "We are trying to persuade waste-processing plants, but there are local residents who oppose that."

He stressed that Tokyo is not blind to the dilemma of communities like Minami-Soma, however.

"We must try to remove contamination from the residents' daily lives as quickly as possible," he said earlier this week.

___

Associated Press writer Mari Yamaguchi contributed to this story from Tokyo.

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Japan city declares nuclear Decontamination Month - The Associated Press

Japan city declares nuclear Decontamination MonthBy ERIC TALMADGE, Associated Press – 2 hours ago 

MINAMI-SOMA, Japan (AP) — It is a daunting task. Contamination from the world's worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl has spread far and wide, across fields and farms, rivers and forests. Tens of thousands of residents have been forced to flee their homes.

But, shovelful by shovelful, one half-empty city on the edge of the evacuation zone is fighting to bring its future back.

Feeling forgotten and left largely to fend for themselves by the central government, officials in Minami-Soma, about 12 miles (20 kilometers) away from the tsunami-crippled Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear facility, have designated August as "Decontamination Month" in a campaign to woo spooked residents home.

"We decided that we could not sit by and wait until Tokyo figured out what to do," said town official Yoshiaki Yokota. "It's an enormous task, but we have to start somewhere."

Before the disaster, nearly 70,000 people lived in Minami-Soma. But, nearly six months later and despite relatively low radiation readings in most parts of town, more than 30,000 have left, nearly one-third of them from areas outside the official evacuation zone.

City officials fear that unless action is taken to demonstrate most of the town is safe for habitation, many may never return.

So, for the past week, the city has contracted local crews to hose down its schools, parks and community centers. The goal is to reduce by more than one-half the levels of radioactivity measured at places in the city where people gather.

The campaign has created a buzz of activity in the still-shaken town.

The work crews, clad in hazmat suits, also use bulldozers and powershovels to remove contaminated topsoil from public places, particularly school playgrounds. The washoff from the hosings and the mounds of contaminated topsoil are then moved to less-used areas and buried in huge trenches.

"I'm glad to see them here," Kiyomi Takahashi said as she watched a crew wash down a kindergarten adjacent to the school where her daughters are due to begin the first and sixth grade next week. "I still have my concerns, but it's important that our city is out there showing that it is doing something."

For the time being, a large swath of Minami-Soma remains completely off limits.

That is because it is within a 12-mile (20-kilometer) no-go zone set up by Tokyo days after the March 11 tsunami touched off meltdowns, explosions and fires at the Fukushima plant. All told, nearly 21,000 people were killed or remain missing after the tsunami, which devastated Japan's northeast coast.

But outside the no-go zone, contamination levels vary dramatically, depending on the local terrain. Most of Minami-Soma is registering below government safety limits, meaning residents who evacuated earlier in the crisis may now return home if they so choose.

Still, most have stayed away because they fear for their health.

"We want to show them that it is safe, and that we are doing everything we can to make it even safer," Yokota said. "Part of what we are doing is symbolic. It is intended to reassure our residents. It's also just to show that we will not sit idly by."

Some experts have reservations about the decontamination campaign.

Hiroaki Koide, a radiation specialist and associate professor at Kyoto University's Research Reactor Institute, said simply removing the top three inches (5 centimeters) of soil has been shown to reduce radiation levels by about 90 percent.

But he noted that the trees, roads and farmland near the decontaminated schools cannot be easily cleansed — and radiation from them can spread in the larger environment. Further, babies, children and pregnant women are the most vulnerable to radiation-related illnesses, and are generally advised to avoid exposure whenever possible.

"Any exposure would pose a health risk, no matter how small," Koide said. "There is no dose that we should call safe."

Another problem that has slowed the central government from acting to help is what to do with the irradiated soil, washoff and debris in the long-term.

"We have been trying to find storage and waste-processing plants, but so far we haven't been very successful," acknowledged Goshi Hosono, the minister in charge of the nuclear crisis response. "We are trying to persuade waste-processing plants, but there are local residents who oppose that."

He stressed that Tokyo is not blind to the dilemma of communities like Minami-Soma, however.

"We must try to remove contamination from the residents' daily lives as quickly as possible," he said earlier this week.

Associated Press writer Mari Yamaguchi contributed to this story from Tokyo.

Copyright © 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

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