Fukushima water crisis new blow to fishermen's hopes

His son has already moved on, looking for work in construction.

Unfortunately, that is what they will all have to do, realistically. The seas around Fukushima, and the land itself will not produce safe food again in any of our lifetimes.

I certainly wouldn't knowingly eat anything from anywhere near Fukushima. I do wonder what was used in the school meals I had after the tsunami, but was assured it was all OK and tested. I doubt that very much!

I think it's harder for Japanese people to refuse to eat Fukushima goods because it seems like a kind of betrayal not to support people where so much emphasis is placed on the whole, and the 'wa'. Remember that Circle K campaign pushing Fukushima food not long after the disasters? What were they thinking!

The old, traditional mentality won't help solve this modern catastrophe. This is something new, out of control and very, very dangerous.

Fukushima is a huge prefecture and over the mountains is Aizu. An area close to Niigata with lush countryside and superb rice and vegetables. They get branded the same as areas near the plant but only because of the name Fukushima is part of the actual name of the stricken plant. It would have been a lot different if it was called Naraha or some other town nearby, but to call it Fukushima the whole prefecture has to suffer.

These same fisherman were happy enough to accept the free or nearly free electricity up to 3/11. Their kids and grandkids had the best public facilities and they were silent about the potential dangers, in fact fishermen were the staunchest opponents of groups like Greenpeace. They made their bed and now they can lie in it! There is no free lunch in this world.

The fisherman were lured into a very false sense of security by the nuclear village. People like Haruki Madarame, former head of the NISA, made a 15 year career out of promoting the social acceptance of nuclear power, with all the weight on industry and academia behind him. If any of the individual fishermen had any doubts or fears, they would be squashed by these people, and the same fishing unions that regulate life there.

The infamous Pu-chan and U-chan cute anime were designed to appeal to everyone, ignoring the very real dangers of Plutonium and Uranium. The media buried its head in the sand over the various incidents at NPPs, not wishing to compromise the billions of yen that they received in advertising revenue from TEPCO and other utilities, while the merry-go-round of executives and staff from utilities and government joining power companies and their regulating authorities is well known.

In short, they were betrayed and manipulated...

Wanderlust brilliant. The layers of corruption are a sponge cake of filth.

The defence budget shoud be used to clean up the problem for the fisheries industry which is a great part of Japanese heritage.

I feel really sorry for these guys, but why give up? Move to another place and start again. I know it's not their fault, they had absolutely zero to do with the problem, but just simply giving up? I find that really defeatist. I bet if they looked really hard they would that many people in the world have it even worse than they do. Look at all the single mothers in Japan doing it tough. So much for the, "Samurai spirt" ...

Shouldn't TEPCO be paying the salaries and hardship compensation to the fishermen? They apathetic J-Gov should be making TEPCO pay them monthly. The incompetence of TEPCO to sufficiently protect the environment is criminal and they should be charged. If a company dumps pollution into a river they are charged. These mullets have been dumping radioactive water into the pacific for over two years and seem to be above the law. I am not sure who is the bigger criminal, TEPCO for doing it or the J-Gov for letting them get away with it.

the livelihoods of thousands destroyed due to the greed of a few Tepco executives and some politicians. The fishermen should still keep fishing the radioactive fish,and feed them to te nuclear supporters and right wing patriots.Guess I will have to stay away from Japanese sushi for a while..

Guess I will have to stay away from Japanese sushi for a while

Yeah, about the next 1,000 years or so should be sufficient.

Sherman: They get branded the same as areas near the plant but only because of the name Fukushima is part of the actual name of the stricken plant.

That's a good point. By the same token, areas such as Chiba , Shizuoka and Yokohama, which have possibly been more adversely effected by radiation than parts of Fukushima, get less attention than they should because they are not Fukushima.

These same fisherman were happy enough to accept the free or nearly free electricity up to 3/11. Their kids and grandkids had the best public facilities and they were silent about the potential dangers, in fact fishermen were the staunchest opponents of groups like Greenpeace. They made their bed and now they can lie in it! There is no free lunch in this world.

Aw c'mon, that's a bit harsh. What you're saying is that just because they accepted the building of the plant then part of that bargain was also accepting criminal cover-ups, non-compliance and the outright incompetence of TEPCO. They wouldn't have known THAT at the time. These things are what led to the current situation. And before the plant was built there was such a lack of work that many people had to leave their prefecture in winter to seek other work. The plant, in part, was an opportunity for families to stay together for a change through stable work, just like other normal families in other parts of the country. Whatever their reasons for accepting the plant, they still had a right to expect compliance and honest oversight. They were let down as much as everyone else.

@spudman That's a bit harsh, wouldn't you say?

Harsh but true. They chose the easy option with scant regard to their legacies, typical of fishermen all over the world, fish today and don't worry about the future: Same attitude has seen the depletion of fish stocks all over the world. Again, they enjoyed the cream and now they can put up with the curds.