Environment ministry opens office in Fukushima to oversee decontamination work
FUKUSHIMA —
The Environment Ministry on Wednesday opened an office in Fukushima City to oversee decontamination work in the 20-kilometer no-go zone around the stricken Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.
Environment Minister Goshi Hosono, who is also the minister in charge of the nuclear crisis, said the office will have an initial staff of 70 but will increase to 200 by April, NTV reported.
The office will coordinate work between the central government, prefectural government and local municipalities to decontaminate buildings, roads and tainted soil.
The government hopes to make the area safe for the approximately 90,000 displaced residents to return to their homes.
A nuclear decontamination law went into effect on Jan 1, launching the start of large-scale decontamination work in the prefecture.
Decontamination work has so far been slow mainly because the government has not been able to find anywhere to store contaminated soil and radioactive waste.
Last week, Hosono outlined a plan to buy up large tracts of abandoned land in the 20-kilometer no-go zone in order to build long-term storage facilities for contaminated soil and radioactive waste.
The facilities, which would have concrete walls, will be used to store containers of contaminated soil and radioactive waste from the no-go zone and other areas in and around Fukushima Prefecture.
The waste will initially be stored for three years in short-term repositories while the government constructs bigger facilities for storage over a 30-year period.
Hosono said he envisioned the biggest facility would cover an area of 5 square kilometers and be able to hold up to 28 million cubic meters of waste.
However, the mayor of Futaba town on Wednesday rejected the plan. He said the land was sacred to the residents and their ancestors, and that if a storage facility is built in the area, residents will never be able to return to their land.
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0
Utrack
Minister Hosono has to meet with the people at Toshiba who can manufacture the soil decontaminator and commission them to build, like 30 of the machines that can clean 100 ton a day. asap.
0
Elvensilvan
Okay, a nice move by the Environment Ministry.
But will the Fukushima ministry office be issuing radiation findings and updates directly to the press or public, or will it be filtered by the government beaurocratic agencies again, and may even be sat on by officials?
1
MaboDofuIsSpicy
Impossible.
0
some14some
(unprotected) part-time workers , i guess.
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Darren Brannan
Environment ministry will be the biggest sucker-up of taxes to be spent on freeloaders who will 'prove' they can decon fukushima with everything from wasing machines to shirinap. Little will get actually done but Hosono will pass on big cash projects to all sorts of crews and their scarfaced backers. I for one am sceptical. 'decon' is now the industry to be in if you wanna make a buck. The usual ppl will shoot me down in flames for daring say it but this is typical ' showing folk that things are being done to cover up the fact that little is really being done'. Public confidence move, like they are giving vouchers to people who stay in Fukushima, that can only be used in Fukushima, for Fukushima produce.
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Fadamor
Following construction of this huge facility, the next earthquake will crack the concrete and allow irradiated material to reach the soil underneath.
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Rick Kisa
by the way how far is are the radiation readings these days? Has the fukushima Daiichi plant stoped emitting the dangerous radiations? if it has not, then it is useless as of now to decontaminate, when tomorrow we shall hear of a spyke in radiation aroiund the plant. I am of the view that the priority should be to put a stop to the radiation emissions from the stricken plants, then do the contamination. Just common sense
2
zichi
Fukushima Radioactive Soil Fight & update for 1/4/12
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3HbUX8NHdg8
0
JohnBecker
Good thing it only took them 10 months to open this office. Because 11 months would have been ridiculous.
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