Japan's Radiation Cleanup Is
Trial And Error
Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant
EMF Computer Protection
Magnetic Field Detector
By MARI YAMAGUCHI
03/04/2012
FUKUSHIMA, Japan—Workers in rubber boots chip at the frozen
ground, scraping until they've removed the top 2 inches (5
centimeters) of radioactive soil from the yard of a single
home. Total amount of waste gathered: roughly 60 tons.
One down, tens of thousands to go. And since wind and rain
spread radiation easily, even this yard may need to be dug
up again.
The work is part of a monumental task: a costly and
uncertain effort by Japan to try to make
radiation-contaminated communities inhabitable again. Some
contractors are experimenting with chemicals; others stick
with shovels and high-pressure water. One government expert
says it's mostly trial and error.
The radiation leak has slowed considerably at the Fukushima
Dai-ichi nuclear plant, nearly one year after the March 11
earthquake and tsunami sent three of its reactors into
meltdown. Work continues toward a permanent shutdown, but
the Japanese government declared the plant stable in
December, setting the stage for the next phase:
decontaminating the area so that at least some of the
100,000 evacuated residents can return.
Experts leading the government-funded project cannot
guarantee success. They say there's no prior model for what
they're trying to do. Even if they succeed, they're creating
another problem they don't yet know how to solve: where to
dump all the radioactive soil and debris they haul away.
The government has budgeted $14 billion (1.15 trillion yen)
through March 2014
for the cleanup, which could take decades.
The uncertainty plays out at many levels. One of the workers at the
house with the frozen ground said they weren't sure how to
measure 2 inches (5 centimeters) from the uneven ground or
what to do with the snow on top of it.
"We often encounter situations that are not in the manual and
wonder if we are doing the right thing," Takahiro Watanabe
said as they wrapped up on a chilly February day. "Just to
be safe, we packed the snow into the bags."
The 60 tons of
radioactive waste sat in 60 waterproof bags, waiting to
be carted away from the house in Fukushima city's Onami
district. Some 40 miles (60 kilometers) from the nuclear
plant, the neighborhood is a "hot spot"—an area with high
radiation readings that is outside the 20-kilometer
(12-mile) ring that has remained closed since the early days
of the crisis. Residents of hot spots were encouraged, but
not ordered, to leave, and some, including the residents of
the house that was decontaminated, have not moved out.
In the fading late afternoon light, Watanabe took a dosimeter in
his bare hand and placed it on the ground, now covered with
a fresh layer of replacement soil. It read 0.24
microsieverts per hour—close to the target level of 0.2 and
about one-fifth of what it had been before. "Looks like it
has come down a bit," he said.
But for how long? With so much radiation in the area, workers
probably will have to return to redo this neighborhood. And
areas where children gather, such as parks, schools and
playgrounds, will be held to an even stricter standard than
homes and offices.
"You have to keep cleaning up," said Toshiaki Kusano, Fukushima
city's top crisis management official. The city has a
five-year decontamination plan, which he said could be
extended.
For evacuees, a major step forward may come in the next few weeks,
when officials hope to redefine the evacuation zone,
possibly opening up some areas, based on radiation data.
Radiation accumulates in soil, plants and exterior building walls.
Workers start cleaning a property by washing or chopping off
tree branches and raking up fallen leaves. Then they clean
out building gutters and hose down the roof with
high-pressure water. Next come the walls and windows.
Finally, they replace the topsoil with fresh earth.
Historically, the only parallel situation is Chernobyl, where the
contaminated area—once home to 110,000 people—remains
off-limits nearly 26 years after the nuclear power plant
exploded.
"They abandoned the land," Environment Minister Goshi Hosono told a
meeting of local officials and residents last month. "We
won't give up. The land belongs to each village, to each
resident. As long as there are people who want to return
home, we'll do everything we can to help."
In an interview with a group of reporters, though, he conceded that
such a massive cleanup is "untested."
In Hirono, a quiet seaside town just outside the 20-kilometer ring,
70-year-old Shuzo Okada hired workers to decontaminate his
house but is not willing to live there yet.
Most of the 5,500 residents have left because of radiation fears.
The town office reopened recently, but Okada says the
dosimeter readings he takes at his house are too high for
comfort.
"I've had the whole house cleaned already, but it's not enough," he
said. "We have to do it again and again. I hope we can come
back some time. I'm an old man, so I'm not afraid of
radiation. But I doubt younger people would want to come
back."
Experts say it may be possible to clean up less-contaminated areas,
but nothing is promising in the most contaminated places,
where any improvement is quickly wiped out by radiation
falling from trees, mountains and other untreated areas.
Most of the cleaning is taking place in less contaminated areas,
but the government also launched pilot projects in 12
districts around the plant, most of them highly
contaminated, in December. Major construction companies and
others won government contracts to experiment with various
methods to remove and compact the overwhelming volume of
waste. Those found effective will be chosen for further
cleanup starting in April.
The dozens of methods range from the relatively basic—soil removal
and washing and scrubbing surfaces—to the more experimental,
such as using chemicals to remove radioactive cesium from
farmland, and dry ice to get it out of roads and other hard
surfaces. Konoike Construction Co. has tested equipment that
compresses soil into round waffle-like discs after absorbing
moisture.
"It's largely trial and error," said Kazuaki Iijima, a radiation
expert at the Japan Atomic Energy Agency, which is
supervising the pilot projects. "Decontamination means we
are only moving contaminant from one place to another. We
can at least keep it away from the people and their living
space, but we can never get rid of it completely."
Then there's the question of finding places willing to accept an
ever-growing pile of radioactive waste.
The Environment Ministry expects the cleanup to generate at least
100 million cubic meters (130 million cubic yards) of soil,
enough to fill 80 domed baseball stadiums.
For now the waste is being bagged and buried in lined pits.
Officials hope to build safer storage facilities somewhere
inside the 20-kilometer (12-mile) zone within three years.
The government launched the cleanup without definitive plans
for the storage facilities; it plans to start discussing
their location with local leaders later this month.
The waste would remain in the longer-term storage for 30 years,
until half the radioactive cesium breaks down. Then it would
still have to be treated and compacted—using technology that
hasn't been fully developed yet—before being buried deep
underground in enclosed containers.
With all the uncertainties swirling around the cleanup, many
evacuees are torn between a desire to go back and worries
about their health.
Masato Yamazaki, a 68-year-old retired electrician, misses the
vegetable garden at his house in Namie, a highly
contaminated town just northwest of the plant.
"I want to go home even tomorrow if radiation levels come down and
electricity and water are restored," he said in his
temporary home, a two-bedroom, subsidized apartment in
Nihonmatsu that he shares with his wife, their daughter and
two grandchildren.
His wife, Hiroko, 64, doesn't think that day will come. She became
particularly skeptical after watching the cleanup of a park
across from their apartment—she described it as a "cat and
mouse chase" in which radiation seemed to be moved from one
place to another.
It didn't help to learn that the foundation of their temporary
housing had been built with gravel contaminated by the
Fukushima nuclear plant. City inspectors say the level of
radiation is safe, though everyone on the ground floor has
moved out.
"I don't think decontamination works, and I don't feel safe about
it," Yamazaki said. "I've given up hope of returning to our
home."
http://www.emfnews.org/store |