I receive a lot of comments, advice and information everyday. Some people even offer me helps for my activity, but honestly I don’t have time to read and think about them all carefully. I’m trying but I’m being too occupied. I spend 8 or 10 hours on researching and making articles everyday. and I [...]

C.Busby talked on The Alex Jones Channel. (Politically, I’m Anarcho-capitalist.)   Iori Mochizuki

Following up this article ..Black substance emits 45.699μSv/h of alpha ray A Fukushima citizen reported to HCR that the black substance was found beside a school. It was right in front of the kitchen of a junior high school.   Source Iori Mochizuki

Following up this article ..Tepco secretly increased the water amount to reactor2 Tepco started decreasing the water amount to inject to reactor2 from the night of 2/19, but the heating gauge attached at RPV bellows seal, which is on the top of the container vessel is showing the temperature rapidly increasing. Until the night of [...]

Following up this article..23,300 Bq/Kg of cesium from 4km of filter plant The contamination level of Mizumoto Park turned out to be the same level of “off-limits zone” in Chernobyl. The contamination level of the park was 23,300 Bq/Kg. According to Nuclear Safety Commission, it is converted to be 1.4 ~1.5 million Bq/m2. In Chernobyl, [...]

  I left Paris and now I’m in Tunisia to try to open a press conference and something. I think the next 311 will be a turning point. People may start forgetting, or people may become more concerned about Fukushima. I don’t know which way they take. I was given a chance to talk to [...]

Gundersen to Speak in Japan

A person from evacuating area tweeted about the censorship of Fukushima. 谷瀬未紀 @pikaluck @akemizk06512 今日、福島の○○町（避難区域）から来た方が、この町ではＴＶ出演は町を通してと言われてて、「帰りたいです」「復興」って言って出たら町から１万円もらえるという噂を。「避難したいです」は出演不可と。Source <Translate> Today I heard this story from someone in ○○ town (Evacuation area). In that town, they need a permission of the town government to show up on TV, and they are paid 10,000JPY every time they say, I want [...]

  Members of Japanese communism party measured 23,300 Bq/Kg of cesium from the soil of Mizumoto park in Katsushika ku Tokyo. The measurement was done at 4 points in February. They measured 7,770 ~ 23,300 Bq/Kg from soil and 1,180 ~ 8,290 Bq/Kg from dead leaves. Tokyo local government decided not to even decontaminate the [...]

Japanese journalists were allowed to enter Fukushima plants. A Japanese independent journalist group IWJ entered the plants as well. This is the video. Their geiger counter does not stop alarming. They measured 130 microSv/h in the bus. When they passed beside reactor3, it marked 1,500 microSv/h inside of the bus.         Iori [...]

                    Volunteer group in Fukushima, HCR (Cf. this article Life in 20km) found the black substance in Minami soma. They found it at more than 12 locations, including school road. It looks like a wet part of the asphalt, is very difficult to recognize. Prof. Yamauchi [...]

Unlike the Japanese MSM who posted perfunctory reports on their press tour of Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant on February 20, 2012, David McNeill writing for UK's The Independent filed a more detailed, personal report on his return to Fukushima I Nuke Plant, as follows:

The Independent (2/21/2012)

Fukushima: Return to the disaster zone

By David McNeill

The journey to Fukushima Daiichi begins at the border of the 12-mile exclusion zone that surrounds the ruined nuclear complex, beyond which life has frozen in time. Weeds reclaim the gardens of empty homes along a route that emptied on a bitterly cold night almost a year ago. Shop signs hang unrepaired from the huge quake that rattled this area on 11 March, triggering the meltdown of three reactors and a series of explosions that showered the area with contamination. Cars wait outside supermarkets where their owners left them in Tomioka, Okuma and Futaba – once neat, bustling towns. Even birds have deserted this area, if recent research is to be believed.

The reason is signalled by a symphony of beeping noises from dosimeters on our bus. As we drive through a police checkpoint and into the town of Tomioka, about 15km from the plant, the radioactivity climbs steadily, hitting 15 microsieverts per hour at the main gate to the nuclear complex. At the other end of the plant, where the gaping buildings of its three most damaged reactors face the Pacific Ocean, the radiation level is 100 times this high, making it still too dangerous to work there.

Inside the plant's emergency co-ordination building, the air is filled with the sound of humming filters labouring to keep the contamination out. Hundreds of people work here, many sleeping in makeshift beds. Workers in radiation suits and full-face masks wander in and out. A large digital clock showing the current radiation reading inside the building dominates the wall of the central control room, where officials from operator Tokyo Electric Power (Tepco) huddle around computers.

"Our main challenge now is to remove the nuclear fuel from the reactors," explains Takeshi Takahashi in his first interview since he took over as plant manager two months ago. "It's a technically very difficult problem, but we cannot hurry." His predecessor Masao Yoshida was forced to quit in December after being diagnosed with cancer – unrelated to his work, insists Tepco.

Mr Takahashi looks exhausted but says he is satisfied with the progress being made in bringing the plant to "a state of cold shutdown", meaning radiation releases are under control and the temperature of its nuclear fuel is consistently below boiling point.

The term is considered controversial. Engineers have only a rough idea of where exactly the melted fuel lies inside the damaged reactors, or of its exact state. The fuel is being kept cool by thousands of gallons of water that Tepco pumps on to it every day and which it is struggling to decontaminate. Engineers are frantically working to build more water tanks – on a ridge about 65ft from the reactors is a field of 1,000-ton water tanks. A crew is levelling land to make way for more.

We are told to wear our full-face masks for the climax of the visit – a tour of the six reactors. Every inch of our bodies is covered and even in the sub-zero temperatures of Fukushima in February, it is unbearably hot. Thousands of men worked through last year's summer heat of over 30C in this protective gear, struggling to clear debris and bring water to the reactors. "They were dropping like files in the heat," said one worker. "But they just had to keep going."

"The worst time was when the radiation was 250 milisieverts [per year – the maximum, temporary government limit] and we couldn't find people to do the work," explains Kazuhiro Sakamoto, an onsite subcontractor. "We could only work in two-minute bursts, when we were extracting caesium from contaminated water."

Some of that work is clear on site. The concrete building housing Reactor One, blown apart in the first explosion on 12 March, is now completely covered with a tarpaulin to contain its radioactivity. As our bus drives past the building, the beeping dosimeters climb to 100 microsieverts an hour. But as the most badly damaged Reactor Three looms into sight, its mess of tangled metal and steel gives off a startling reading of 1,500 microsieverts. Its cargo of lethal fuel includes plutonium and the roof of the building housing the reactor was blown off in the second explosion. "It's still too dangerous for workers to enter Reactor Three," says engineer Yasuki Hibi.

The state of Reactor Two, meanwhile, sparked some panic last week after Tepco reported that the heat of the fuel inside was climbing and apparently resisting efforts to bring it down. The nightmare scenario of another out-of-control reactor was briefly conjured up by the media before Tepco banished it by claiming faulty equipment. "We've identified the problem as a broken thermometer," says Mr Takahashi, adding: "I'm terribly sorry to everyone for causing so much concern."

Tepco officials constantly apologise. The apologies have become perfunctory and ritualised, failing to douse public anger over the scale of the disaster, or some of the company's sharp-elbowed tactics since it began. Compensation has dribbled into the pockets of over 100,000 evacuees who have lost everything and are stuck in legal limbo, without homes or clear futures. In one now infamous incident, the utility argued against a compensation claim by a golf course operator, saying radioactive materials from the nuclear plant belong to individual landowners, and are not the company's responsibility. Lawyers for the Sunfield Nihonmatsu Golf Club, 28 miles west of the plant, said they were "flabbergasted" by the argument.

But here at the Daiichi complex at least, the apologies seem genuine. Work here is hard, unrelenting and, in the long term, possibly fatal. The depth of feeling about this catastrophe is etched on the faces of hollow-eyed managers like Mr Takahashi, who live day and night in one of the world's least hospitable workplaces. He says he is motivated above all by one thing: "We will try to allow people to return to their homes as early as possible."

It is a mammoth task. Japan's government has admitted that dismantling the reactors and its 260-ton payload of nuclear fuel will take up to 40 years. Many people believe the government and Tepco will eventually be forced to recognise that the people who fled from this plant a year ago may not return for decades. In the meantime, the work at Fukushima Daiichi goes on. And on.

I think McNeill may be wrong in stating in square brackets that "250 millisieverts" the onsite subcontractor mentioned was "per year". I think the subcontractor may have meant "per hour"; thus work in 2-minute burst so that the exposure could be limited to less than 10 millisieverts for the workers. In the first 10 days or so of the accident, the radiation levels in some locations in the plant were extremely high, measured in millisievert/hour instead of microsievert/hour.

On March 16, for example, the radiation level was 400 millisieverts/hour on the 4th floor of Reactor 4. TEPCO actually send one of the employees up the reactor building to measure the level. I hope he ran back down as fast as he could.

Minister of the Environment Goshi Hosono, who was better known for his extramarital affair with a popular actress before Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant blew up, tells the citizens of Japan on an NHK interview: "It's only 33 kilograms of disaster debris from Miyagi and Iwate per person who lives outside Miyagi and Iwate."

As if it's a good thing.

NHK News (2/21/2012):

細野環境大臣は、ＮＨＫのインタビューで、被災地のがれきをほかの自治体で受け入れる広域処理を進めるため、環境省で焼却と最終処分を別々の自治体で行う方法を新たに検討したいという考えを明らかにしました。

In an NHK interview, Minister of the Environment Hosono revealed that his ministry may explore a new way whereby the incineration and the final disposal will be done in different municipalities, in order to expedite the wide-area processing of the disaster debris.

この中で細野環境大臣は「宮城県と岩手県のがれきは、一部をぜひ広域処理していただきたい。２つの県で処理しきれない部分を全国でお願いした場合、ほかの地域で処理する量は、１人当たり３３キロになり、これであれば、全国で処理していただけるのではないか」と述べました。

In the interview, Minister Hosono said, "I want to have portion of the debris from Miyagi and Iwate to be processed in wide areas, at all cost. If everyone in Japan outside Miyagi and Iwate Prefectures take on the debris that cannot be processed inside Miyagi and Iwate, the amount of the debris would be 33 kilograms per person. I believe it is manageable."

そのうえで細野大臣は「いちばんありがたいのは、焼却も最終処分もしていただく方法だが、最終処分場がない自治体もあるので、その場合は、焼却した灰をほかの所で最終処分できないか、仕組みを考えたい」と述べ、環境省で焼却と最終処分を別々の自治体で行う方法を新たに検討したいという考えを明らかにしました。

Hosono further said, "It would be best if a municipality could burn the debris and bury in the final processing site. But there are municipalities without the final processing sites, so in such cases we would like to come up with a system to take the ashes to a final processing site in another municipalities", indicating the Ministry of the Environment may explore a new way whereby the incineration and the final disposal will be done in different municipalities.

また、細野大臣は、被災地のがれきを試験的に焼却した静岡県島田市が焼却灰を一般公開し、市民が直接、放射線量を測れるようにした例を挙げ、「できれば皆さんにみずから測っていただいて、不安を取り除いていただきたい。被災地と本当に復興していこうという気持ちを持っていただけるのであれば、安全に処理できるので、ぜひ手を貸していただきたい」と述べ、広域処理への協力を訴えました。

Minister Hosono also mentioned the case of Shimada City in Shizuoka Prefecture. After the test incineration of the disaster debris, the city let the citizens measure the radiation level of the ashes. Hosono appealed for citizens' cooperation for the wide-area disposal by saying "I would like the citizens to measure [the radiation] themselves to put their minds at ease. If you want to help the disaster-affected areas recover, please help, because [the debris] will be processed safely."

By moving the radioactive ashes from one municipality to another, it will incur additional cost for the taxpayers and a handsome profit for the waste management industry and the municipalities. Nothing to do with "recovery".

They are both graduates from Tokyo University Law School. After their career in the national government bureaucracy, they "descended from heaven" and landed on political careers.

Mayor Takao Abe of Kawasaki City, Kanagawa Prefecture was actually the first to declare war against citizens who do not want to have disaster debris that has been contaminated with the fallout from Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant to be burned in their midst (literally) and buried. On April 6, 2011 he declared his city would accept disaster debris from FUKUSHIMA (not Miyagi or Iwate) and burn it in the city's incineration plant.

Mayor Abe says he will simply ignore the opposition when it comes to disaster debris processing in his city, and he will be willing to go it alone without the prefecture-wide consensus in Kanagawa (because there won't be any).

From Sponichi Annex (2/20/2012):

川崎市の阿部孝夫市長は２０日の定例記者会見で、東日本大震災で発生したがれきを受け入れると表明した神奈川県に反対意見が相次いでいることについて「（川崎市は）筋の通らない反対意見は無視する」と述べ、市単独でも受け入れる考えを示した。

During the regular press conference on February 20, Mayor of Kawasaki City Takao Abe indicated that his city would consider accepting the disaster debris over the opposition [from the residents] against the Kanagawa prefectural government that declared it would accept the disaster debris. He said, "(Kawasaki City) will ignore any opposition that is unreasonable."

　阿部市長は昨年４月、岩手、宮城、福島各県に災害廃棄物の受け入れ支援を申し出たが、量が多いため国が主導するよう求めたまま計画は進んでいない。がれき受け入れの具体的な計画を問われると「まだめどは立っていない」と述べ、明言を避けた。

Mayor Abe had offered to accept the disaster debris from Iwate, Miyagi and Fukushima last April. However, since the amount of the debris is too large, the plan to process the debris have stalled due to the lack of leadership from the national government. When asked if there's a concrete schedule for accepting the debris, Mayor Abe avoided being specific by just saying "It is not established yet."

　反対意見については「（安全だと）客観的なデータを示してもただ反対したい人はいる」と批判し「誰かが最終判断して責任を持って実行しないといけない」と述べた。

He criticized the opposition by saying, "There are people who oppose no matter what, even with the objective data that vouches safety. In the end, someone has to make the final decision and carry it out in a responsible manner."

　神奈川県は川崎市などでがれきを焼却し、同県横須賀市の県最終処分場に埋め立てる計画を示したが、住民の反対を受けて調整は難航している。

The Kanagawa prefectural government has come up the plan to burn the debris in Kawasaki City and other locations and bury it [the ashes, non-flammable debris] in the final disposal site in Yokosuka City. But the plan has stalled at the opposition from the residents.

Kanagawa Governor and former TV personality Kuroiwa cried on camera the other day to appeal to the Kanagawa residents. He wants Kawasaki, Yokohama, and Sagamihara to burn the debris and dump it in the final disposal site in Yokosuka, where the local residents have suffered enough from the poor management of the site.

I would love to hear how Mayor Abe is going to take responsibility if a negative consequence from the debris burning ever occurs.

The mayor's declaration last April (April 6, 2011 to be exact) that he was going to bring Fukushima debris to Kawasaki and burn it alarmed the residents so much that they immediately organized themselves into opposing the mayor's unilateral move.

Mayor Abe was born in today's Fukushima City in Fukushima Prefecture, is a graduate of the prestegious Tokyo University Law School and a former career bureaucrat at the Ministry of Home Affairs (which was re-integrated into the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications in 2001) with a stint in the Environment Agency (which has become the Ministry of the Environment) before he successfully ran for mayorship in Kawasaki City in 2001.

Now, on to Oita Prefecture on the island of Kyushu, which has been largely spared from the contamination from Fukushima I Nuke Plant. Governor Hirose, a former super-elite bureaucrat, wants to help out Tohoku so much that he's willing to subject the prefecture to potential contamination from radioactive materials that deposited on the disaster debris, not to mention arsenic and the host of other toxic substances.

From Oita Godo Shinbun (2/20/2012):

大分県の広瀬勝貞知事は２０日の定例記者会見で、東日本大震災で発生したがれきの受け入れについて「（福島第１原発から離れている）放射性物質の心配のないところについては、全国的な視点で考えてみる必要がある」と述べ、前向きな姿勢を示した。

Governor of Oita Prefecture Katsusada Hirose held a regular press conference on February 20 and said he wanted to move forward on accepting the disaster debris. "We need to consider from a nation-wide perspective [when it comes to disaster debris] from locations that are far away from Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant and there's no need to worry about radioactive materials", he said.

　広瀬知事は、がれき受け入れをめぐり市町村と協議を始めていることを明らかにした上で「時間をかけて住民の皆さんにご理解をいただきたい」と訴えた。

Governor Hirose disclosed that he had been in negotiation with the municipalities over the disaster debris, and appealed to the residents by saying "Over time, I would like the residents to understand."

　受け入れの際の放射性物質の検査は「出口で確認する、入ってくるときに確認するなどの態勢を十分にとることが前提になる」と強調した。

As to the inspection of radioactive materials on accepting the debris, he said emphatically, "It is a matter of course that we will thoroughly check at the exit [after the debris is burned], and check at the entrance [before the debris is burned]."

The elite governor and former top bureaucrat at the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry thinks the radiation contamination lessens by the distance. I guess he believes in contamination in concentric circles just like the Kan administration officials. I guess he's never seen the radiation contour map by Professor Hayakawa. Or even the map by the Ministry of Education.

Mayor Abe pales in comparison with Governor Hirose in terms of achievement as a career bureaucrat. Mr. Hirose was the highest-ranking bureaucrat as the Administrative Vice Minister at the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, the most powerful ministry of the Japanese government. The position is as the highest as a career bureaucrat can rise to, in the Japanese government system. Then he descended from heaven to succeed the governorship from his predescessor who had become the governor after successful career at the Ministry.

If Governor Hirose gets his way, there goes the very thriving business by the farmers in Oita who have had brisk sales of their radiation-free produce to the consumers in eastern Japan. Oita is famous for shiitake mushrooms. Bye bye to them also. Call it "baseless rumors", but it is a defense mechanism left for consumers as the governments at all levels side with the producers of Tohoku (and to a lesser degree, of northern Kanto).

Governor of Tokyo Ishihara told the Tokyo residents to "shut up", and will burn the radioactive debris from Miyagi Prefecture in the incineration plants in the populous 23 Special Wards. Mayor of Shimada City Sakurai proudly declared he is subjecting the residents of Shimada to an "experiment".

It continues to be a rude shock to many in Japan that their elected officials do not listen to them, as they are supposed to. People still think the public officials should put the welfare of the residents first and foremost, as they are supposed to.

It is hard for them to accept that these elected officials and unelected bureaucrats behave the way they've behaved since March 11, 2011.

Asahi Shinbun online has 4 lines and one small picture.

Yomiuri online has a decent length article but hardly any new insight or information other than "1,500 microsieverts/hour" radiation near the reactors and that the reporter's cumulative radiation exposure from 4 hour-plus spent on the plant was 79 microsieverts.

Well, they saw the plant last November and the situation has hardly changed, "cold shutdown state" or not.

But many people in Japan saw the plant and the surrounding areas like Tomioka-machi, Ookuma-machi for the first time in the video at Nico Nico News. Nearly 100,000 people checked in to view the unedited video yesterday, while many registered users couldn't check in because the priority was given to the paying "premium" members when the place got crowded.

It was good that the independent journalists demanded access, and TEPCO relented.

For the links to the video, see my previous post.

The video is over 5 hours. I think I watched yesterday up to 4 hours. (You may need to register to view.)

http://live.nicovideo.jp/watch/lv81820555?ref=nicotop

Edited version (still over 3 hours) is here:

http://live.nicovideo.jp/watch/lv81845964

The net media (Yasumi Iwakami's IWJ and Nico Nico News) was in the Group B, along with the reporters and cameramen from the local Fukushima newspapers and TV stations.

Iwakami, and Nico Nico's Nanao (he's a cameraman) asked most questions to TEPCO people on the plant. The rest were pretty much content to just listen.

The moment I thought "Oh this is so stereotypically TEPCO" was when they were on the bus passing Reactor 3 turbine building. Someone was reading out the number off his geiger counter, "200 microsieverts/hour!" Then, TEPCO's PR person on board the bus as the guide said, "Oh, back there, it must have been 1,500 microsieverts/hour", or 1.5 millisievert/hour. So TEPCO tells the reporters after the fact, past the spot, to tell them the radiation level that high.

130 Microsieverts/Hr Near the Pump for Reactor Water Injection

Someone's survey meter keeps beeping as soon as they step outside to tour the plant on the bus.

Near turbine buildings. Near Reactor 3 turbine building, the radiation is 200 microsieverts/hour. TEPCO's PR person says there are locations nearby that measure 1500 microsieverts/hour. I think he means inside the bus.

Workers on the Reactor 4 building upper floor.

Can be viewed at Nico Nico's site right now:

http://live.nicovideo.jp/watch/lv81820555?ref=nicotop

You would need to register (free) to view.

They are boarding the bus from J-Village to the plant.

Iwakami is saying it was 30 microsieverts/hour momentarily in the parking lot. TEPCO's Terasawa explains to Iwakami once inside the building that part of the parking lot's asphalt is too contaminated, so TEPCO has put metal sheets to shield the radiation somewhat, and that's where they guided the journalists. They were telling the journalists to stay on the metal plates.

I just saw a female journalist. 1:35:00 or so into the video.

Iwakami says his Inspector measures lower than the "official" TEPCO's measurement.

This building feels unreal. Strange hum in the hallway.

NISA's safety inspection meeting. As if no accident happened.



Emergency Response Room:　500 to 700 people are in this room. Nico Nico's cameraman asks, "Were the teleconferences recorded in any way? Audiovisual, or audio?" TEPCO's PR person answers, "No."



Plant Manager Takahashi. He doesn't look too good, looks sleepy. He says he's fine.

Questions to Takahashi are no different from what these reporters ask TEPCO's Matsumoto in the daily press conference in Tokyo. What a disappointment. What's the point of asking these mundane, work-related trivial questions after having come all the way to the plant??!!

There are many young TEPCO employees in blue uniform.

The strange hum was not my imagination. There are air filtering systems inside the building like this: