Testing food after kids eat it??? I

Radiation testing on school lunches differs
The Yomiuri Shimbun

FUKUSHIMA–Municipalities are carrying out tests for radioactive substances on ingredients used in school lunches, but parents are worried whether their children are adequately protected as the tests are conducted in various ways.

According to data compiled by the Fukushima prefectural board of education, 33 of the 59 municipalities in the prefecture test school lunches for radiation.

Using two radiation measuring instruments, the Koriyama municipal government checks school lunches only once a week, although ingredients left over from lunches on the other four school days also are tested. This means that some tests are carried out after the schoolchildren have eaten their lunch.

On Monday, the Sukagawa municipal government will use five measuring instruments to test ingredients two days before lunches are served to children.

The city has set an original limit of up to 10 becquerels per kilogram for lunch ingredients, much stricter than the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry’s new limit for general food items of 100 becquerels per kilogram, which is scheduled to be introduced in April.

Parents are puzzled why some local governments conduct tests after the children have already eaten lunch, while others do so before lunch.

“It’s strange why municipalities use different testing methods,” a 37-year-old woman living in Koriyama said. “They should test the ingredients before children have lunch.”

The woman, who has a 7-year-old daughter, said that in the wake of the disaster at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant she stopped her daughter from drinking milk with her school lunch.

The Koriyama official said it could not conduct tests before children ate lunch because of the shortage of measuring instruments. But it will start conducting prelunch tests in late February after it purchases two more instruments.

The frequency of tests and imposing becquerel limits on school food also differ depending on the municipality.

The city of Fukushima, which conducts tests just before food is cooked, carries out tests in turn among four school lunch centers and 26 facilities, including primary and middle schools.

The Fukushima municipal government conducts tests about once a week, and has set a limit of 350 becquerels per kilogram.

In Minami-Soma, where part of the city is designated as a no-entry zone, the municipal government started carrying out tests on five school days after lunch from Jan. 16.

The Tomioka municipal government in neighboring Gunma Prefecture is conducting tests only twice a month for cooked school lunch dishes as its agricultural products are checked beforehand to ensure they are safe.

Shinobu Iida, 45, a representative of the group Fukushima Mothers Meeting, said: “Tests should be conducted before schoolchildren eat their lunches. If a strict limit of less than 5 becquerels is introduced, which is the standard for other nations, Fukushima-made agricultural products could be used without fear.”

Ryugo Hayano, an expert in nuclear physics at the University of Tokyo, said: “Tests on ingredients before meals engender a sense of safety, but tests after a meal can help prevent long-term internal exposure. With continuous tests on the actual quantity of food served in school dishes, it’s possible to gather data about how much children should eat.”

(Jan. 29, 2012)

Japan kept silent on worst nuclear crisis scenario

TOKYO (AP) — The Japanese government’s worst-case scenario at the height of the nuclear crisis last year warned that tens of millions of people, including Tokyo residents, might need to leave their homes, according to a report obtained by The Associated Press. But fearing widespread panic, officials kept the report secret.

The recent emergence of the 15-page internal document may add to complaints in Japan that the government withheld too much information about the world’s worst nuclear accident since Chernobyl.

It also casts doubt about whether the government was sufficiently prepared to cope with what could have been an evacuation of unprecedented scale.

The report was submitted to then-Prime Minister Naoto Kan and his top advisers on March 25, two weeks after the earthquake and tsunami devastated the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant, causing three reactors to melt down and generating hydrogen explosions that blew away protective structures.

Workers ultimately were able to bring the reactors under control, but at the time, it was unclear whether emergency measures would succeed. Kan commissioned the report, compiled by the Japan Atomic Energy Commission, to examine what options the government had if those efforts failed.

Authorities evacuated 59,000 residents within 20 kilometers (12 miles) of the Fukushima plant, with thousands more were evacuated from other towns later. The report said there was a chance far larger evacuations could be needed.

The report looked at several ways the crisis could escalate — explosions inside the reactors, complete meltdowns, and the structural failure of cooling pools used for spent nuclear fuel.

It said that each contingency was possible at the time it was written, and could force all workers to flee the vicinity, meaning the situation at the plant would unfold on its own, unmitigated.

Using matter-of-fact language, diagrams and charts, the report said that if meltdowns spiral out of control, radiation levels could soar.

In that case, it said evacuation orders should be issued for residents within and possibly beyond a 170-kilometer (105 mile) radius of the plant and “voluntary” evacuations should be offered for everyone living within 250 kilometers (155 miles) and even beyond that range.

That’s an area that would have included Tokyo and its suburbs, with a population of 35 million people, and other major cities such as Sendai, with a million people, and Fukushima city with 290,000 people.

The report further warned that contaminated areas might not be safe for “several decades.”

“We cannot rule out further developments that may lead to an unpredictable situation at Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant, where there has been an accident, and this report outlines a summary of that unpredictable situation,” says the document, written by Shunsuke Kondo, head of the commission, which oversees nuclear policy.

After Kan received the report, he and other Japanese officials publicly insisted that there was no need to prepare for wider-scale evacuations.

Rumors of the document grew this month after media reports outlined its findings and an outside panel was created to investigate possible coverups. Kyodo News agency described the contents of the document in detail on Saturday.

The government continues to refuse to make the document public. The AP obtained it Wednesday through a government source, who insisted on anonymity because the document was still categorized as internal.

Goshi Hosono, the Cabinet minister in charge of the nuclear crisis, implicitly acknowledged the document’s existence earlier this month, but said the government had felt no need to make it public.

“It was a scenario based on hypothesis, and even in the event of such a development, we were told that residents would have enough time to evacuate,” Hosono said.

“We were concerned about the possibility of causing excessive and unnecessary worry if we went ahead and made it public,” he said. “That’s why we decided not to disclose it.”

A Japanese government nuclear policy official, Masato Nakamura, said Wednesday that he stood behind Hosono’s decisions on the document.

“It was all his decisions,” he said. “We do not disclose all administrative documents.”

Japanese authorities and regulators have been repeatedly criticized for how they have handled information amid the unfolding nuclear crisis. Officials initially denied that the reactors had melted down, and have been accused of playing down the health risks of exposure to radiation.

In another example, a radiation warning system known as SPEEDI had identified high-risk areas where thousands of people were continuing to live while the reactors were in critical condition. Officials did not use that data to order evacuations; they have since said it was not accurate enough.

The outside panel investigating the government response to the nuclear crisis has been critical, calling for more transparency in relaying information to the public.

“Risk communication during the disaster cannot be said to have been proper at all,” it said in its interim report last month.

No memo no responsibility.

I’m just pasting all these news that I don’t wanna forget.

Organization of Nuclear Emergency Response Headquarters and United response headquarters of Japanese government and Tepco did not record conference note.
NHK requested the access to official files on November of 2011, but they only received tables of contents after 3/12/2011 and nothing turned out to be recorded from 3/11/2011.
Organization of Nuclear Emergency Response Headquarters has Japanese prime minister for its leader and all the ministers are the members. It was started on 3/11/2011 and discussed the evacuating area, guideline of decontamination, restriction of selling contaminated agricultural food etc.
By November when NHK requested for publishing, they have had 21 times of meetings.
The Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency says, they were too busy at the moment, couldn’t afford to make it.
Haruna Mikio, an expert of officials file from graduate school of Nagoya University analyzes probably they did not want to take responsibility for wrong decisions.
Actual Fukushima worker, Happy20790 tweeted like this below,
@Happy20790
ハッピー
バンヮ(^O^)議事録は絶対あるはずですよ。なんで隠すんだろ…。Source

Absolutely they have it. wonder why they hide it..

Again money influence politics.

The electric power industry has contributed funds to major political parties, with management extending donations to the largest opposition Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and labor unions providing funds to the ruling Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ).

Executives of nine utilities that own nuclear power stations and their subsidiaries are believed to have extended approximately 80 million yen to the LDP in 2009 and 2010 as individuals. Twenty-one organizations — labor unions at power suppliers and their affiliated political organizations — provided at least 68.76 million yen to the DPJ’s branches and individual legislators belonging to the party over the same period.

The nine electric power companies have refrained from extending political donations as entities since 1974 on the grounds that companies involved in the public utility business should not act in such a manner.

At the same time, however, they have bought tickets to political fund-raising parties for legislators, mostly those with the LDP. Furthermore, board members at these utilities, other high-ranking officials, retirees and executives at their subsidiaries have contributed funds to Kokumin Seiji Kyokai, the LDP’s fund-raising organization, as individuals.

These individuals are believed to have extended about 45 million yen in 2009 and some 35 million yen in 2010. The Mainichi compiled the figures by tracking donations extended by individuals whose names are identical to those carried on utilities’ name lists from Kokumin Seiji Kyokai’s political fund reports.

Even though the lists may include different people with the same names as utility executives, all of them extended their financial contributions to the LDP’s fund-raising body in December, suggesting that the donations were coordinated by the industry.

All nine utilities denied their involvement in the donations as entities with one of them saying, “Executives extended the donations at their own discretion.”

An LDP insider admitted its fund-raising body asked the donors to remit the donations into its bank account. However, the insider added that not all executives at these utilities complied with its request for donations.

In 2010, Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO) Chairman Tsunehisa Katsumata and then President Masataka Shimizu donated 300,000 yen each to Kokumin Seiji Kyokai. Names identical to those of all 21 full-time TEPCO board members, excluding outside board members and outside auditors, were listed in the Kokumin Seiji Kyokai’s political fund report for that year as donors.

Moreover, TEPCO operating officers apparently donated 50,000 yen each to the organization, TEPCO department managers and board members of its subsidiaries contributed 30,000 yen each and some deputy managers at the utility and branch managers also provided 10,000 yen.

More than 300 individuals whose names are identical to those listed as employees of TEPCO and its subsidiaries extended a total of some 10 million yen to Kokumin Seiji Kyokai.

Those with Chubu Electric Power Co. and Shikoku Electric Power Co. are also believed to have provided about 5 million yen and 4 million yen to the LDP’s fund-raising body as political donations, respectively.

Meanwhile, the Federation of Electric Power Related Industry Workers’ Unions of Japan (Denryoku Roren), member unions and their affiliated political organizations have also extended tens of millions of yen in political donations to individual DPJ legislators and the party’s branches.

Tokyo Electric Power Co., (TEPCO) Chairman Tsunehisa Katsumata, right, speaks during a news conference at the company’s head office in Tokyo, Wednesday, March 30, 2011. (AP Photo/Itsuo Inouye)
The labor organizations donated at least 35.91 million yen to DPJ legislators and branches in 2009 and 32.85 million yen the following year. Over the two-year period, at least 30 DPJ lawmakers received funds from these utility labor bodies.

The political wing of Denryoku Soren contributed 26.5 million yen to support the election campaign of Masao Kobayashi, a DPJ member of the House of Councillors and a former high-ranking official of the federation, in 2010. Thirteen Denryoku Soren-affiliated bodies also purchased 1.66 million yen worth of tickets to a political fund-raising party for Internal Affairs and Communications Minister Tatsuo Kawabata, who previously chaired the DPJ’s panel on nuclear power policy, in 2010. Kawabata’s office admitted that it asked the labor bodies for donations because the legislator has maintained close relations with them for many years.

The political wing of the union of workers at Chubu Electric Power Co. bought 260,000 yen worth of tickets each to political fund-raising parties for Deputy Prime Minister Katsuya Okada in 2009 and 2010.

Atsushi Uchida, general secretary of Denryoku Soren, denied that it attempted to curry favor with DPJ politicians by extending donations to them.

“You can’t influence any government policy simply by buying tens of thousands of yen worth of fund-raising party tickets. (After requests from legislators) we extended reasonable amounts of donations,” he said.

They knew all the way

Just three days after the tsunami crushed the Fukushima nuclear plant, Japan’s science ministry handed over computer predictions about the radiation dispersal to the US military.

Itaru Watanabe from the science ministry says the government did this to secure US support in dealing with the nuclear crisis.

The science ministry should have told the nuclear disaster task force to pass on the data to the people. But we didn’t think of that.

Itaru Watanabe from Japan’s science ministry

Hosono Hosono o(h)no!!!

In terms of determining the risks of nuclear power plants, doubts also remain over legislation on the life of power plants. On Jan. 6, Goshi Hosono, state minister in charge of the nuclear disaster, stated that nuclear reactors would in principle be decommissioned after they had been running for over 40 years. But less than two weeks later the government stated that exceptions would allow reactors to operate for 60 years.

I told you!!! We will see more coming.

Anger spreads as radioactive gravel traced to schools, public road

Parents of students at Asahi Elementary School in Nihonmatsu, Fukushima Prefecture, attend a meeting at the school on the evening of Jan. 17. (Mainichi)

NIHONMATSU, Fukushima — Anger and anxiety are spreading here after highly radioactive gravel from inside the Fukushima nuclear disaster evacuation zone was traced on Jan. 17 to several construction projects in the city, including at local schools.

The contaminated gravel, quarried in the town of Namie, was first discovered in the concrete at a new apartment block. Since then the material has been traced to repairs to a new school route road, a public pool in a neighboring town and a golf course in the prefecture, among other locations. According to the Nihonmatsu Municipal Board of Education, the stone was used in earthquake-proofing projects at the city’s elementary and junior high schools.

Staff at Asahi Elementary School taking radiation readings along the school route detected emissions of 0.36-0.60 microsieverts per hour — or about the same level as the surrounding area — and the school held a meeting for parents and guardians on the evening of Jan. 17 to explain how the contaminated gravel had wound up in the new road.

Parents apparently asked that the road be torn up and the contaminated stone taken away, among other demands. Asahi’s principal responded that it will “report the situation to the city, and the school is also considering its options.”

The president of the golf course, meanwhile, was furious after it was found the gravel the course had been using to repair earthquake damage to its golf cart paths was emitting radiation of 1.6-1.8 microsieverts per hour.

“This is very big trouble,” the president said. “I don’t know if the course can reopen now.”

Radiation levels at the public pool in a town next to Nihonmatsu, however, were apparently lower than the surrounding area.

“We were very surprised, but we are dealing with the situation in a cool manner,” the town hall said in a statement.

The quarry in Namie, Fukushima Prefecture, that shipped highly radioactive crushed stone used in construction projects in the prefecture is seen on Jan. 6. (Mainichi)
Meanwhile, Nihonmatsu Mayor Keiichi Miho visited the prefectural and national on-site disaster response headquarters to present seven demands, including safety guarantees and compensation to cover moving costs for tenants of the contaminated apartment block, and creation of standards regulating the shipment of construction materials. The prefectural government accepted the demands and plans to pressure the central government, as well as form its own strategy to make sure contaminated materials like the gravel are not overlooked.

The national and prefectural governments have also decided to check an additional 10 stone companies around the evacuation recommendation zones in the cities of Date and Minamisoma for radioactive contamination.

The Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry has furthermore begun considering creating radiation standards for building materials.

“We will proceed with emergency discussions on whether a standard is needed with the relevant government offices,” economy minister Yukio Edano told reporters at a news conference. Moving on Edano’s comments, the government’s nuclear disaster countermeasures headquarters is set to cooperate on the issue.

(Mainichi Japan) January 18, 2012

I told you!!! We will see more coming.

Anger spreads as radioactive gravel traced to schools, public road

Parents of students at Asahi Elementary School in Nihonmatsu, Fukushima Prefecture, attend a meeting at the school on the evening of Jan. 17. (Mainichi)

NIHONMATSU, Fukushima — Anger and anxiety are spreading here after highly radioactive gravel from inside the Fukushima nuclear disaster evacuation zone was traced on Jan. 17 to several construction projects in the city, including at local schools.

The contaminated gravel, quarried in the town of Namie, was first discovered in the concrete at a new apartment block. Since then the material has been traced to repairs to a new school route road, a public pool in a neighboring town and a golf course in the prefecture, among other locations. According to the Nihonmatsu Municipal Board of Education, the stone was used in earthquake-proofing projects at the city’s elementary and junior high schools.

Staff at Asahi Elementary School taking radiation readings along the school route detected emissions of 0.36-0.60 microsieverts per hour — or about the same level as the surrounding area — and the school held a meeting for parents and guardians on the evening of Jan. 17 to explain how the contaminated gravel had wound up in the new road.

Parents apparently asked that the road be torn up and the contaminated stone taken away, among other demands. Asahi’s principal responded that it will “report the situation to the city, and the school is also considering its options.”

The president of the golf course, meanwhile, was furious after it was found the gravel the course had been using to repair earthquake damage to its golf cart paths was emitting radiation of 1.6-1.8 microsieverts per hour.

“This is very big trouble,” the president said. “I don’t know if the course can reopen now.”

Radiation levels at the public pool in a town next to Nihonmatsu, however, were apparently lower than the surrounding area.

“We were very surprised, but we are dealing with the situation in a cool manner,” the town hall said in a statement.

The quarry in Namie, Fukushima Prefecture, that shipped highly radioactive crushed stone used in construction projects in the prefecture is seen on Jan. 6. (Mainichi)
Meanwhile, Nihonmatsu Mayor Keiichi Miho visited the prefectural and national on-site disaster response headquarters to present seven demands, including safety guarantees and compensation to cover moving costs for tenants of the contaminated apartment block, and creation of standards regulating the shipment of construction materials. The prefectural government accepted the demands and plans to pressure the central government, as well as form its own strategy to make sure contaminated materials like the gravel are not overlooked.

The national and prefectural governments have also decided to check an additional 10 stone companies around the evacuation recommendation zones in the cities of Date and Minamisoma for radioactive contamination.

The Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry has furthermore begun considering creating radiation standards for building materials.

“We will proceed with emergency discussions on whether a standard is needed with the relevant government offices,” economy minister Yukio Edano told reporters at a news conference. Moving on Edano’s comments, the government’s nuclear disaster countermeasures headquarters is set to cooperate on the issue.

(Mainichi Japan) January 18, 2012

Whoops!!! Nmcc is corrupted?

Nearly half of the board members of the Nuclear Material Control Center (NMCC), the government-designated body to inspect nuclear materials to prevent sensitive materials from being used for military purposes, come from utility and other companies that are subject to its scrutiny and it has received cash contributions worth tens of millions of yen annually from the companies, it has been learned.

The Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, which overseas the NMCC, said, “Problems with something like conducting inspections tolerantly have not occurred.” But the NMCC is likely to come under fire for having people from companies in the nuclear industry as its executive officers.

NMCC officials accompany inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) on their inspections of about 260 facilities such as utility firms and nuclear fuel manufacturers in Japan. They also conduct inspections on consignment from the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology.

Of all the 17 board members at the NMCC, eight are from the nuclear industry. Of the 15 executive board members including the chairman, six are current or former senior officials of utility firms or the Japan Atomic Energy Agency (JAEA). One auditor is a board member of a utility firm while another is a former employee of a manufacturer of nuclear reactors. Most of the NMCC’s annual budget of about 2.98 billion yen (fiscal 2010) came from government subsidies. It also receives membership fees (100,000 yen per lot per annum) of about 96 million yen from supporting members. Most of the supporting members are utility firms and nuclear fuel processing firms that are subject to NMCC inspections, but the NMCC does not release the details.

Masahiro Kikuchi, an executive board member of the NMCC, said, “Executive board members (from organizations that are subject to NMCC inspections) are knowledgeable people who give advice on management. They don’t have the authority to make pass-or-fail decisions over inspections. Fees from supporting members are not used for inspections.”

The NMCC was jointly established with money from the private sector including utility companies in 1972, with the aim of promoting the peaceful use of nuclear energy. In line with administrative reform, the NMCC was designated as an inspection body under the Nuclear Reactors Regulation Law in 1999. Before the NMCC applied for a designated inspection body, seven of its 12 executive board members were those from nuclear-related companies.

Therefore, it did not meet the requirement stipulated in the 1996 Cabinet decision which said the number of executive board members from the same industry must be less than half of the total executive board members. Hence, the NMCC added two seats to the number of its executive board members and picked two university-related persons as new executive board members before applying for the designated inspection body.

Jp gvnment and Tepco will squize you!!!

TEPCO announces 17% rise in electricity charges for companies
TOKYO, Jan. 17, Kyodo

Tokyo Electric Power Co. said Tuesday it will seek an average 17 percent increase in electricity charges for corporate users to finance part of the fuel costs stemming from boosting thermal power generation in the wake of the crisis at its Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.

The electricity rate hikes, which take effect April 1, will affect around 240,000 contracts for 50 kilowatts or more, and boost revenue for the company known as TEPCO by 400 billion yen annually.

With all of TEPCO’s nuclear reactors expected to be shut down by March for regular checks or other reasons, TEPCO President Toshio Nishizawa said, ”If the current situation continues, we think our business conditions would deteriorate further, and at a not too distant date, fuel procurement and stable supply of electricity may be affected.”