6/11/2011 | Former adviser says government worsened radiation exposure

Source: m&c (Monsters and Critics)
Date: Jun 11, 2011, 7:43 GMT

Tokyo - A former adviser to Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan accused the government of having aggravated the problem of radiation exposure during the nuclear crisis, news reports said Saturday.
...
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6/12/2011 JST | Water treatment system testing at Fukushima plant hits snag again

Source: Kyodo News via Japan Today
Date: Sunday 12th June, 04:30 PM JST

TOKYO — Tokyo Electric Power Co’s preparations to begin testing a newly installed radioactive water treatment system at its troubled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant hit a snag again as the piping may be clogged, company officials said Sunday.
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6/12/2011 | Tepco vents No. 2 reactor while U.S. surveys ocean

Source: The Japan Times
Date: Sunday, June 12, 2011

Kyodo

Tokyo Electric Power Co. said Saturday it began filtered venting of the No. 2 reactor building at the crippled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant to reduce radiation levels to the point where workers can go inside.

If the airborne radioactivity inside drops enough after three days, Tepco plans to open up the doors and send workers in to make repairs.

The No. 2 unit's high radioactivity and humidity have prevented workers from checking gauges and pipes, hampering the beleaguered utility's efforts to guide the reactor into a cold shutdown.

Meanwhile, a U.S. private research institute is conducting a survey of waters off Fukushima to assess the radiation's impact on the ecosystem.

An international team of experts led by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution began the 15-day survey June 4. It is being carried out on a research ship from the University of Hawaii, with permission from the Japanese government, government officials said.

6/11/2011 | Japan: No Evacuation For 4 New Areas With Radiation 4 Times Higher Than Chernobyl Limits Over 50 KM From Fukushima

Source: Alexander Higgins Blog
Date: June 11, 2011 at 12:33 pm

Japan has added 4 news areas over 50 kilometers from the Fukushima nuclear plant, with radiation levels of over 20 millisieverts a year or 4 times higher the the Chernobyl evacuation threshold, to the list of radiation affected areas, but will not be evacuating those areas.

...

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6/10/2011 | Physician and Epidemiologist Say 35% Spike in Infant Mortality in Northwest Cities Since Meltdown Might Be the Result of Fallout from Fukushima

Source: Washington's Blog
Date: 6/10/2011

As I've previously noted, infants are much more vulnerable to radiation than adults. And see this.
However, radiation safety standards are set based on the assumption that everyone exposed is a healthy man in his 20s.
Now, a physician (Janette D. Sherman, M. D.) and epidemiologist (Joseph Mangano) have penned a short but horrifying essay asking whether a spike in infant deaths in the Northwest are due to Fukushima:

The recent CDC Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report indicates that eight cities in the northwest U.S. (Boise ID, Seattle WA, Portland OR, plus the northern California cities of Santa Cruz, Sacramento, San Francisco, San Jose, and Berkeley) reported the following data on deaths among those younger than one year of age:

4 weeks ending March 19, 2011 - 37 deaths (avg. 9.25 per week)
10 weeks ending May 28, 2011 - 125 deaths (avg.12.50 per week)

This amounts to an increase of 35% (the total for the entire U.S. rose about 2.3%), and is statistically significant. Of further significance is that those dates include the four weeks before and the ten weeks after the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant disaster. In 2001 the infant mortality was 6.834 per 1000 live births, increasing to 6.845 in 2007. All years from 2002 to 2007 were higher than the 2001 rate.

***

Data from Chernobyl, which exploded 25 years ago, clearly shows increased numbers of sick and weak newborns and increased numbers of deaths in the unborn and newborns, especially soon after the meltdown. These occurred in Europe as well as the former Soviet Union. Similar findings are also seen in wildlife living in areas with increased radioactive fallout levels.
(Chernobyl – Consequences of the Catastrophe for People and the Environment, Alexeiy V. Yablokov, Vasily B. Nesterenko, and Alexey V. Nesterenko. Consulting Editor: Janette D. Sherman-Nevinger. New York Academy of Sciences, 2009.)

Levels of radioisotopes were measured in children who had died in the Minsk area that had received Chernobyl fallout. The cardiac findings were the same as those seen in test animals that had been administered Cs-137. Bandashevsky, Y. I, Pathology of Incorporated Ionizing Radiation, Belarus Technical University, Minsk. 136 pp., 1999. For his pioneering work, Prof. Bandashevsky was arrested in 2001 and imprisoned for five years of an eight year sentence.

***

Why should we care if there may be is a link between Fukushima and the death of children? Because we need to measure the actual levels of isotopes in the environment and in the bodies of people exposed to determine if the fallout is killing our most vulnerable. The research is not technically difficult – the political and economic barriers may be greater. Bandshevsky and others did it and confirmed the connection. The information is available in the Chernobyl book. (Previously cited.)

The biological findings of Chernobyl cannot be ignored: isotope incorporation will determine the future of all life on earth – animal, fish, bird, plant and human. It is crucial to know this information if we are to avoid further catastrophic damage.

6/9/2011 | America’s Nuclear Spent-Fuel Time Bombs

Source: Eastern Group Publications
Date: 6/9/2011
by: Robert Alvarez

Now that many Americans have stopped paying attention to Japan’s nuclear catastrophe, shocking new details about its severity are finally coming to light.
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6/10/2011 | (VIDEO) Japanese watchdog demands radiation inquiry

Source: Al Jazeera
Date: 6/10/2011 upload date

Japan's nuclear safety officials have reprimanded the operator of the country's crippled Fukushima nuclear and demanded an investigation into how two workers were exposed to radiation more than twice the legally
permitted level of radiation.

Al Jazeera's Marga Ortigas reports from Minamsanriku, Japan

6/10/2011 | Earless Fukushima Bunny Rabbit Makes Prime Time Appearance on CNN

Source: CNN via MoxNews.com
Date: 6/10/2011 upload date


Dr. Michio Kaku makes a return appearance on the Elliot Spitzer show, where the lead in is the famous ear-less bunny rabbit discovered in Fukushima Prefecture. Dr. Kaku feels the ear-less rabbit is most likely just a normal mutation, but that it will become a symbol of the Japan Fukushima nuclear disaster. According to Dr. Kaku, there are real concerns for cancer, as increased rates of leukemia should manifest in 5 years based on studying the aftermath of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster. Dr. Kaku slams TEPCO (and the cowardly leader of the utility who checked himself in to a hospital apparently to avoid responsibility, and has since stepped down) for disseminating scant information to the public as well as even covering up the seriousness of the accident at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, forcing physicists to engage in forensic reconstruction based on detected radiation. Japanese kindergarteners have been issued dosimeters to measure their radiation exposure and additional areas have been identified as radiation hot spots beyond the initial evacuation zones. It is refreshing to hear so many truths told on national television.

6/12/2011 JST | 90,000 in shelters; most debris still uncleared 3 months on

Source: Daily Yomiuri Online
Date: June 12, 2011 JST

More than 90,000 people are still living in shelters three months after the Great East Japan Earthquake, and only a fraction of the debris dumped by the ensuing tsunami has been removed, according to official figures.
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6/11/2011 | Burglars hit evacuees' homes in Fukushima Pref.

Source: Daily Yomiuri Online
Date: Jun. 11, 2011
by: The Yomiuri Shimbun

Burglars are apparently targeting houses left vacant because they are within 30 kilometers of the crippled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant.
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6/7/2011 | Fire at Fort Calhoun Nuclear Power Plant in Nebraska Temporarily Disables Spent Fuel Pool Cooling

Date: Published 6/11/2011
by: Jason Chan


View Live Ustream Radiation Detectors in a larger map

The Fort Calhoun nuclear power plant, which is near the Missouri river has been shut down since April 9th, for refueling and due to Missouri river flooding concerns.  There has been flooding reported at the Fort Calhoun nuclear power plant parking lots but not within the facility itself.  Quoting the Omaha World Herald:

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Nuke plant: No floodwater has breached the nuclear power plant at Fort Calhoun, say officials from both the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the Omaha Public Power District. NRC spokeswoman Lara Uselding and OPPD spokesman Mike Jones said Thursday that some floodwater is pooling in some of the plant's parking lots, but there had been no confirmed reports of floodwater entering the currently idle plant, they said.
... [1]

At nuclear power plants, spent fuel is often stored on site in large pools of water which have pumps which circulate the water in order to keep the temperature down so that the spent fuel rods do not heat up and catch on fire or melt down. The spent fuel rod pool cooling was temporarily lost resulting from a fire affecting some of the safety systems. On June 7, 2011 9:30 AM a fire alarm sounded and non-essential workers were evacuated. At 9:40 AM an alert was raised with the NRC (Nuclear Regulatory Commission) regarding a fire starting in a room containing electrical equipment. Per the NRC's own Preliminary Notification of Event or Unusual Occurence report PNO-IV-004:

...
DESCRIPTION: At approximately 9:40 a.m., Tuesday, June 7, 2011, the Fort Calhoun Station
(FCS) declared an ALERT due to a fire in an electrical switchgear room. Automatic fire
suppression systems operated as expected. Licensee fire brigade personnel, the Blair Fire
Department, and the Fort Calhoun Fire Department responded to the fire. The fire was
confirmed extinguished at 10:20 a.m. The plant was already in a cold shutdown condition following completion of a planned refueling outage and was maintained safely in cold shutdown. [2]
...

At 1:15 PM the alert was terminated and the evacuated workers returned. [3]  No alerts of this seriousness have been issued by the Fort Calhoun nuclear power plant since 1992 when electrical problems and a faulty valve resulted in 20,000 gallons of reactor coolant being dumped in to the basement of the containment building. [3]

According to Pro Publica the nuclear power plant did have a backup spent fuel pool pump which was not needed in this case:

...
Mike Jones, a spokesman for the plant's owner, the Omaha Public Power District, said Fort Calhoun has a backup pump to provide water to the spent fuel in case the main system is lost. That pump, which runs on a separate power supply from the rest of the plant, was inspected and standing by on Tuesday, but plant operators restored main power to the pool before the emergency pump was needed, he said. [4]
...

Although the fire was quickly extinguished within an hour of the initial fire alarm, two fire departments were called in which indicates external help was needed to get the fire under control.  Nuclear engineer and industry expert Arnie Gundersen in a recent interview with Robert Knight of the a-Infos Radio Project said that he felt it was fortunate that a full scale disaster was averted, but that this was mostly due to luck rather than good planning.  The situation could have gotten much worse according to Mr. Gundersen, who stated that had all cooling systems failed it would have taken about 80 hours for the water to evaporate and put the spent fuel rods in jeopardy. [5]

Sources:
[1] Omaha World Herald: The latest on flooding
[2] NRC (Nuclear Regulatory Commission) PN (Preliminary Notification)  Report:

PNO-IV-11-004

06/07/2011

Fort Calhoun Station: Fort Calhoun Station Declaration of an ALERT Due to Fire Affecting Plant Safety Systems

[3] Omaha World Herald: Rare alert triggered at nuclear plant
[4] Pro Publica: Electrical Fire Knocks Out Spent Fuel Cooling at Nebraska Nuke Plant
[5] Radio4all.net: NEBRASKA NUKE DISASTER - Flood, Fire and Heat

Note: I am including a link to the NRC Preliminary Notification Reports in the left sidebar which should ideally be scanned on a daily basis considering the flooding going on does place many nuclear power plants in harm's way.

6/10/2011 | Nuclear Ash Cloud Of Radiation Raining On Tokyo From Burning Of Radioactive Fukushima Sewage Sludge

Source: Alexander Higgins Blog
Date: June 10, 2011 at 5:46 pm
by: Alexander Higgins

Independent scientists and local Japanese Government officials reveal that the burning of radioactive sewage sludge is contaminating the city of Tokyo with an ash cloud of nuclear radiation.
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