7/5/2011 Japan groups alarmed by radioactive soil

Source: AFP
Date: 7/5/2011

TOKYO — Soil radiation in a city 60 kilometres (40 miles) from Japan's stricken nuclear plant is above levels that prompted resettlement after the Chernobyl disaster, citizens' groups said Tuesday.

The survey of four locations in Fukushima city, outside the nuclear evacuation zone, showed that all soil samples contained caesium exceeding Japan's legal limit of 10,000 becquerels per kilogram (4,500 per pound), they said.

The highest level was 46,540 becquerels per kilogram, and the three other readings were between 16,290 and 19,220 becquerels per kilogram, they said.

The citizens' groups -- the Fukushima Network for Saving Children from Radiation and five other non-governmental organisations -- have called for the evacuation of pregnant women and children from the town.

The highest reading in the city of 290,000 people far exceeded the level that triggered compulsory resettlement ordered by Soviet authorities following the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster in Ukraine, they said.

Kobe University radiation expert professor Tomoya Yamauchi conducted the survey on June 26 following a request from the groups.

"Soil contamination is spreading in the city," Yamauchi said in a statement. "Children are playing with the soil, meaning they are playing with high levels of radioactive substances. Evacuation must be conducted as soon as possible."

The coastal Fukushima Daiichi plant has been spewing radiation since the March 11 earthquake and tsunami knocked out its cooling systems.

7/5/2011 Tonight's Comedy Hour Punchline: Japan To Stress Test Nuclear Plants

Source: ZeroHedge
Date: 07/05/2011 20:51 -0400
by: Tyler Durden

Just when one thinks news can't get any more... what's the right word here... here it comes. Per Reuters, Japan has decided to justify the credibility of its nukes, by, get this, performing stress tests. "Japan's trade minister Banri Kaieda said the government would conduct stress tests on all nuclear power reactors in Japan, Jiji news agency reported on Wednesday. The minister also said he would ensure there were no problems with power supplies, Jiji reported." Where does one start here: that the ECB is not the one conducting the tests - after all who has more expertise with stress tests... Or that the tests come after the biggest nuclear catastrophe since Chernobyl: after all what's the downside - one more Fukushima and Japan would convert into the Prypiat level from Call of Duty... Or that the tests will just accidentally forget to test for such 60 sigma events as earthquakes or tsunamis... Or that the announcement comes a day after the Japanese reconstruction minister quit after a week on the job... Or that the ECB will announce it will accept Japan's nukes as collateral until at least 10 major networks show footage of a mushroom cloud.... Or that ISDA will shortly determine that another nuclear explosion is not really a nuclear explosion and that all CDS against nuclear explosions will be null and void as soon as there is an actual explosion... Or that Tim Geithner is currently in Tokyo explaining there is nothing more credible than a stress tested nuke... Or that Basel VIIIXLC will find a NPP safe if its ratio of gamma to alpha radiation is more than 1 megaroentgen, promptly followed by Jamie Dimon bitching to BOJ president Shirakawa that 1 megaroentgen is too much to demand from Fukushima Street.... And it continues. Etc. Etc. Etc.

7/3/2011 As Missouri floods, anger spills over at Army Corps

Source: McClatchy Newspapers
Date: Sunday, July 3, 2011
by: Dave Helling and Scott Canon

Rising waters flood a farm in the spillway of Missouri farmland after the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers breeched the levee near Cairo, Illinois | E. Jason Wambsgans/Chicago Tribune/MCT

YANKTON, S.D. — Gary Schaeffer's grandkids ran to an overlook of Gavins Point Dam.
"Ooh, man. Ooh."
Schaeffer followed and looked down in disbelief. A riot of water roiled where he'd spent a lifetime of lazy fishing.
"I've never seen anything like it," he said. "Nothing even close."
Eight years out of a decade, 1,440-foot-wide floodgates spill not so much as a bucket of the brown water into the Missouri River.
Now, with the Missouri flooding at record levels over the past two months, enough is barreling out of Lewis and Clark Lake to cover a football field three-and-a-half feet deep every second. Water will race through the dam at that record rate, ultimately swamping farms and towns for hundreds of miles downstream, through August.

...

Read full article here

7/4/2011 Fukushima May Worsen Global Nuclear Skills Shortage, U.K. Watchdog Says

Source: Bloomberg
Date: Jul 4, 2011 6:01 PM CT

Japan’s nuclear disaster may worsen a skills shortage in the nuclear industry as regulators look for people able to carry out detailed assessments of power plants, the U.K.’s chief inspector of atomic installations said.

“There is a question about the market hardening in terms of the people with the right skills,” said Mike Weightman, who led the International Atomic Energy Agency’s fact-finding team to the Fukushima plant in Japan. Regulators “have to have the resources to keep pace with that market.”
...
Read full article here

7/5/2011 Los Alamos to Resume Operations Following Fire

Source: Global Security Newswire
Date: Tuesday, July 5, 2011

The Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico is due to open on Wednesday, more than one week after a record-setting blaze in the state forced the nuclear weapons site to suspend operations, facility Director Charles McMillan said on Sunday (see GSN, July 1).

“Los Alamos National Laboratory appears to have escaped serious damage from the Las Conchas fire,” McMillan wrote in a memo to personnel. “We are grateful for the tremendous efforts of emergency responders that helped spare the lab and the town of Los Alamos. I wish to extend my deepest thanks to everyone who has helped so far, including all lab employees who have patiently persevered during this emergency.
...
Read full article here

Residents are also returning home to the town of Los Alamos as well according to KOBTV4:

7/5/2011 45% of Kids in Fukushima Survey Had Thyroid Exposure to Radiation

Source: Qatar News Agency (QNA)
Date: 08:23 2011/07/05

Tokyo, July 05 (QNA) - Around 45% of children in Fukushima Prefecture surveyed by the local and central governments in late March experienced thyroid exposure to radiation, although in all cases in trace amounts that did not warrant further examination, officials of the Nuclear Safety Commission said Tuesday. The survey was conducted on 1,080 children aged 0 to 15 in Iwaki, Kawamata and Iitate on March 26-30 in light of radiation leakages from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant crippled after the March 11 earthquake and tsunami disaster, Japan''s News Agency "Kyodo" reported. Separately, a survey of soil at four locations in the city of Fukushima on June 26 found that all samples were contaminated with radioactive cesium, measuring 16,000 to 46,000 becquerels per kilogram and exceeding the legal limit of 10,000 becquerels per kg, citizens groups involved said Tuesday. (QNA) ST/LY

Here is the corresponding story from Democracy Now:


Click here to see the full Democracy Now news report

7/5/2011 Fukushima residents dump radiated soil in absence of plan

Source: Reuters
Date: Tue Jul 5, 2011 1:33am GMT
by: Antoni Slodkowski

FUKUSHIMA, Japan (Reuters) - They scoop up soil from their gardens and dump it in holes dug out in parks and nearby forests, scrub their roofs with soap and refuse to let their children play outside. More than three months after a massive earthquake and tsunami triggered a nuclear meltdown at a nearby power plant, Fukushima residents are scrambling to cope with contamination on their own in the absence of a long-term plan from the government. ... Read full article here