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This isn’t decontamination — it’s sweeping up dirt and leaves and is absolutely irresponsible.

11 Comments

Tomoya Yamauchi, an expert in radiation measurement at Kobe University. He says vast amounts of contaminated soil and foliage are left in bags on roadsides, in abandoned fields and on the coastline because there is nowhere the store the waste. (New York Times)

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If this is general knowledge within the populace, whyare the government still sitting on their hands with their thumbs up there collective 'arris' ?

0 ( +1 / -1 )

No one can possibly be surprised at this. The "Environment" Ministry has no clue how to actually protect the environment -- just work with power companies to screw it up. And money that should have gone to this was instead spent on whaling and Tokyo Sky Tree. Japan is clueless and its reowned reputation for planning/attention to detail and protecting the environment is rightfully in tatters.

2 ( +2 / -0 )

Yamauchi is a known anti nuclear fear mongerer who became irrelevant after his unfounded comment about Fukushima city Mayor commuting from Yamagata because he feared radiation. I guess he still has English only gullible "low information" audience he could still sell. (buyer, NYT)

-3 ( +3 / -5 )

nigelboy -- guess you missed the story just yesterday that several of the contractors have admitted just dumping radioactive material in rivers? Who exactly is the "low information" audience?

3 ( +3 / -1 )

Me think this decontamination thing is just a huge PR gimmick aimed at hood-winking unsuspecting citizens that something is being done, and after clean-up, the place will be safe to return, which is not correct. After 2 years of dilly-darling, these nuclear particles are now far into the ecosystem: soil, animals, human beings, water bodies and food chain that it is impossible to talk of decontamination. A few questions: how are they decontaminating animals that already fed on contaminated food and now free-ranging? How do they separate unseen nuclear particles with differing half-lives to be given separate storage? The stricken nuke plants up to now continue to spew dangerous radiations into atmosphere, land and sea, isn't this a waste of time decontaminating while at the same time more is being added daily?

2 ( +2 / -0 )

They'll set a long term decontamination goal and pat their shoulders when they can say that cesium contamination went down by a factor 4 or 5 in 30 years. Realistic decontamination takes at least a decade, needs lots of storage and will be only partly successful. Animals will more or less decontaminate themselves as far as possible through the biological half-life of most of the stuff. The problem decreases by itself - serious decontamination efforts can only speed up the process somewhat. Maybe a factor of ten is a best-case scenario. So back to normal life in Fukushima in thirty years is an optimistic, but realistic estimate.

1 ( +1 / -0 )

nigelboy -- guess you missed the story just yesterday that several of the contractors have admitted just dumping radioactive material in rivers? Who exactly is the "low information" audience?

Herefornow. You, perhaps??

Dumping collected waste into rivers and gathering waste into bags and placing them on the roadside are quite different me thinks.

If you don't know Yamauchi, he was against bringing Tsunami debris into Kansai area for incarceration and he is against relocating civilians in the contamination area no matter whether or not decontamination work has been done. In essence, he's basically shouting that people shouldn't go there because their are no homes for the collected waste at the same time shouting that collected waste should not go anywhere.

0 ( +1 / -1 )

he was against bringing Tsunami debris into Kansai area for incarceration

Change that to "incineration"

Yamauchi's view

http://blog.goo.ne.jp/flyhigh_2012/e/a635c383ac1734391445f4d61f2a1d0a

1 ( +2 / -1 )

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