Japan: Thyroid Radiation Exposure Found in Children Near Tepco Plant

Japan: Thyroid Radiation Exposure Found in Children Near Tepco Plant

Chisaki Watanabe
Bloomberg
Fri, 19 Aug 2011 12:33 CDT

Medical tests on children living in three towns near the crippled Fukushima Dai-Ichi nuclear plant found 45 percent of those surveyed suffered low-level thyroid radiation exposure, Japan's government said in a statement.

While the statement didn't comment on the source of the contamination, the announcement follows reports of radioactive material found in food after radiation leaks from the meltdown of three reactors at the Tokyo Electric Power Co. plant.

The tests covered 1,080 children aged up to 15 in three towns, Iwaki, Kawamata and Iitate, between 38 to 47 kilometers from the reactors. The tests between March 24 and 30 showed none of the children's thyroid glands exceeded the safety threshold of 0.2 microsievert per hour set by the Nuclear Safety Commission of Japan, according to the Aug. 17 statement.

At least one child had 0.1 microsievert per hour, the highest level observed, while more than half of those exposed absorbed 0.01 microsievert per hour, the statement said. Children are susceptible to poisoning from radioactive iodine, which can accumulate in the thyroid and cause cancer, according to the World Health Organization.

On June 6, Japan's Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency said the reactor meltdowns at the plant released about 770,000 tera becquerels of radioactive material into the air between March 11 and March 16, doubling an earlier estimate.

Chernobyl

That's about 14 percent of the radiation emitted in the Chernobyl disaster in modern-day Ukraine. About 2 million people in Ukraine are under permanent medical monitoring 25 years after the accident, according to the nation's embassy in Tokyo.

A becquerel represents one radioactive decay per second, which involves the release of atomic energy that can damage human cells and DNA, with prolonged exposure causing leukemia and other forms of cancer, according to the World Nuclear Association.

While 203 people were hospitalized and 31 died after the explosion at Chernobyl, about 400,000 children are considered to have received significant doses of radiation to their thyroid that merit monitoring, the embassy said.

Cases of thyroid cancer in Belarus, which neighbors Ukraine, increased for at least 10 years after 1986 in children younger than 14 and for almost 20 years among 20-24 year olds, according to research by Shunichi Yamashita of Nagasaki University, who was appointed as an adviser to Fukushima prefecture on radiation exposure.

Food Tests

Japan has no centralized system to check for radiation contamination of food, leaving local authorities and farmers conducting voluntary tests.

Products such as spinach, tea, milk, and fish have been found contaminated with cesium and iodine as far as 360 kilometers (224 miles) from the plant.

Adding to the concern, officials confirmed today rice from Hokota City, about 150 kilometers from Dai-Ichi, was found to contain low levels or cesium. It was the first confirmation of rice contamination since the March 11 accident.

To contact the reporters on this story: Chisaki Watanabe in Tokyo at cwatanabe5@bloomberg.net; 

 

Is Fukushima now ten Chernobyls into the sea?

By Harvey Wasserman

 
 (Chernobyl)

Is Fukushima now ten Chernobyls into the sea?

May 26, 2011

New readings show levels of radioisotopes found up to 30 kilometers offshore from the on-going crisis at Fukushima are ten times higher than those measured in the Baltic and Black Seas during Chernobyl.

"When it comes to the oceans, says Ken Buesseler, a chemical oceonographer at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, "the impact of Fukushima exceeds Chernobyl."

The news comes amidst a tsunami of devastating revelations about the Fukushima disaster and the crumbling future of atomic power, along with a critical Senate funding vote today:

Fukushima's owner, the Tokyo Electric Power Company, has confirmed that fuel at Unit One melted BEFORE the arrival of the March 11 tsunami.

This critical revelation confirms that the early stages of that melt-down were set in motion by the earthquake that sent tremors into Japan from a relatively far distance out to sea.

Virtually all of Japan's 55 reactors sit on or near earthquake faults.  A 2007 earthquake forced seven reactors to shut at Kashiwazaki.  Japan has ordered shut at least two more at Hamaoka because of their seismic vulnerability.

Numerous reactors in the United States sit on or near major earthquake faults.  Two each at Diablo Canyon and San Onofre, California, are within three miles of major fault lines.  So is Indian Point, less than 40 miles from Manhattan.  Millions of people live within 50 miles of both San Onofre and Indian Point. 

On January 31, 1986, the Perry reactor, 35 miles east of Cleveland on Lake Erie, was damaged by an earthquake rated between 5.0 and 5.5 on the Richter Scale---orders of magnitude weaker than the one that struck Fukushima, and that could hit the sites in California, New York and elsewhere around the globe. 

TEPCO has confirmed that at least three of the Fukushima reactors---Units One, Two and Three---have suffered at least partial fuel melts. In at least one case, the fuel has melted through part of the inner containment system, with molten radioactive metal melting through to the reactor floor. A wide range of sources confirm the likelihood that fission may still be proceeding in at least one Fukushima core.  The danger level is disputed.  But it clearly requires still more commitment to some kind of cooling regime that will send vast quantities of water into ocean.

At least one spent fuel pool---in Unit Four---may have been entirely exposed to air and caught fire.  Reactor fuel cladding is made with a zirconium alloy that ignites when uncovered, emitting very large quantities of radiation.  The high level radioactive waste pool in Unit Four may no longer be burning, though it may still be general.  Some Fukushima fuel pools (like many in the United States) are perched high in the air, making their vulnerability remains a serious concern.  But a new report by Robert Alvarez indicates the problem in the US may be more serious that generally believed.   

Unit Four is tilting and may be sinking, with potentially devastating consequences.  At least three explosions at the site have weakened critical structures there.  Massive leakages may have softened the earth and undermined some of the buildings' foundations.  Further explosions or aftershocks---or a fresh earthquake---could bring on  structural collapses with catastrophic fallout.

TEPCO has now confirmed that there are numerous holes in the containment covering Unit Two, and at least one at Unit One.  The global nuclear industry has long argued that containments are virtually impenetrable.  The domes at Fukushima are of very similar design and strength as many in the US. 

The health impacts on workers at Fukushima are certain to be devastating.

After Chernobyl, the Soviet government sent more than 800,000 draftees through the seething wreckage.  Many stayed a matter of 90 seconds or less, running in to perform a menial task and then running out as quickly as possible.

Despite their brief exposure, these "liquidators" have suffered an epidemic of health effects, with an escalating death toll.  Angry and embittered, they played a significant role in bringing down the Soviet Union that doomed them. 

At Fukushima, a core of several hundred workers essentially sacrificed themselves in the early stages of the disaster.  They courageously entered highly contaminated areas to perform tasks that almost certainly prevented an even worse catastrophe.

David Brenner, the director of the Center for Radiological Research at Columbia University Medical Center, said of the workers:  "Those are pretty brave people. There are going to be some martyrs among them'."

"I don't know of any other way to say it, but this is like suicide fighters in a war," said University of Tokyo radiology professor Keiichi Nakaga.

Unfortunately, the toll among Fukushima's workers is certain to escalate.  As few as two in five being sent into the Fukushima complex are being monitored for radiation exposure.  According the Mainichi Shimbun, just 1,400 workers at Fukushima had been given thorough checkups, with just 40 getting their results confirmed.

Even at that, Japanese officials have raised the allowable dosages for nuclear workers from 100 millisieverts to 250, five times what's allowed for US workers, and 125 times what reactor workers typically receive in a year. 

Some 88% of Japan's reactor work force are part-timers, sparsely trained and often paid extra money to race into highly radioactive areas and then run out.

But Nobuaki Terasaka, head of the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency, May 16 confirmed some 4,956 cases of internal exposure to radiation among workers at reactors around the country.  Of those, 4,766 were originally from Fukushima and had moved to other sites, but had re-visited the prefecture after the 3/11 disaster.

Some of the stricken workers believe they were contaminated when they returned home for their families, even though they may have stayed only briefly. 

Workers at Fukushima itself report spotty testing and dangerous facilities, including a leaky earthquake-resistant building where they took their breaks.  "We had our meals there, so I think radioactive substances came into our bodies," says one male worker.  "We just drink beer and wash them down."

A "dead zone" around Fukushima similar to the one surrounding Chernobyl is likely in the making.  According to a report published in the Japan Times, levels of contamination in areas around Fukushima are at least comparable to some around Chernobyl. 

But people outside the official evacuation zone are also vulnerable.  Radiation detected in Tokyo, nearly 200 miles away, at one point prompted the Japanese government to recommend mothers not use tap water to mix formula for their infants.

Nonetheless children have been observed attending schools while bulldozers were removing the radioactive soil from their playgrounds outside.  Amidst global protests, the Japanese government has weakened the limits of allowable radiation exposures to children. 

In the midst of the disaster, the owners of the Indian Point reactors have announced their refusal to upgrade fire protection systems which New York Attorney-General Eric Schneiderman says are "."

More than 70% of the plant remains unprotected, he says, a "reckless" practice.  Schneiderman accuses federal regulators as being too cozy with the plant's owners.  Schneiderman and New York Governor Andrew Cuomo want the two IP reactors shut.

Over the weekend only four of Germany's seventeen reactors were operating, but the country suffered no apparent energy shortages.  Prime Minister Angela Merkel has ordered seven older reactors shut, and the rest to be closed by 2011.  But six of the newer ten closed for various technical reasons.

More than 20,000 Swiss citizens rallied to demand an end to plans to build new reactors there.  The Swiss government has now confirmed it will not build new reactors, another major blow to the industry, this time resulting in the cancellation of plans for at least three projects.  

Japan is standing by its decision to build no more reactors, while China has put some 28 proposed projects on hold.  China's reaction to Fukushima will be crucial to the future of nuclear power, as it is by far the largest potential market for new reactors.  Though prevailing winds head the other way, Fukushima is relatively close to China, and some fallout has been detected there. 

The Obama Administration has still produced no comprehensive monitoring of radioactive fallout coming to the United States and has provided no guidance as to how American citizens can protect themselves, except to say not to worry.   Polls now show more Americans opposing new reactors than favoring them, and grassroots opposition is fierce.

But the industry is pushing ahead with demands for $36 billion in loan guarantees for new reactors, with a preliminary vote expected soon in a House Appropriations Subcommittee.  Nuclear opponents are asked to call the White House and Congress steadily through the 2012 budget process.

Also, today (May 26) may see a vote in a Senate committee on a CEDA plan that would provide still more money for new nukes.  Safe energy advocates are urged to call their Senators asap.   

The International Atomic Energy Agency of the United Nations, has announced it sees no health effects at Fukushima.  The pronouncement  comes as no surprise from an agency whose mandate is focused on promoting atomic energy.

The IAEA has consistently low-balled death toll estimates at Chernobyl and regularly ignores industry critics.  The pronouncement comes as the agency begins a long-term study of Fukushima's health effects.  Meanwhile, a French watchdog agency has urged that 70,000 more people be evacuated from the Fukushima area. Coming from France, among the world's pro-nuclear nations, the warning is a grim reminded of how deadly the contamination surrounding Fukushima must be.

But for all the focus on land-based contamination, the continuing flood of radioactive materials into the ocean at Fukushima could have the most problematic long-term impacts.  Long-term studies of radiological impacts on the seas are few and far between.  Though some heavy isotopes may drop to the sea bottom, others could travel long distances through their lengthy half-lives.  Some also worry that those contaminants that do fall to the bottom could be washed back on land by future tsunamis.

Tokyo Electric has now admitted that on May 10-11, at least 250 tons of radioactive liquid leaked into the sea from a pit near the intake at Unit 3, whose fuel was spiked with plutonium.  According to the Japanese government, the leak contained about 100 times the annual allowable contamination. 

About 500 tons leaked from Unit 2 from April 1 to April 6.  Other leaks have been steady and virtually impossible to trace.  "After Chernobyl, fallout was measured," says Buesseler, "from as far afield as the north Pacific Ocean."

A quarter-century later the international community is still trying to install a massive, hugely expensive containment structure to suppress further radiation releases in the wake of Chernobyl's explosion. 

Such a containment would be extremely difficult to  sustain at seaside Fukushima, which is still vulnerable to earthquakes and tsunamis.  To be of any real use, all six reactors and all seven spent fuel pools would have to be covered.

But avenues to the sea would also have to be contained.  Fukushima is much closer to the ocean than Chernobyl, so more intense contamination might be expected.  But the high radiation levels being measured indicate Fukushima's most important impacts may be on marine life.

The US has ceased measuring contamination in Pacific seafood.  But for centuries to come, at least some radioactive materials dumped into the sea at Fukushima will find their way into the creatures of the sea and the humans that depend on them. 

HARVEY WASSERMAN'S HISTORY OF THE US is available at http://www.harveywasserman.com/, as is A GLIMPSE OF THE BIG LIGHT and clues to the whereabouts of the Holy Grail.

Japan Sets Radiation Standards for Fish

Tomohiro Ohsumi/Bloomberg News

Buyers inspected fresh fish before an auction in Tokyo last Wednesday.

By ANDREW POLLACK, KEN BELSON and KEVIN DREW

Published: April 5, 2011

TOKYO — The company that runs Japan’s crippled nuclear power plant announced Wednesday that it had stopped the leak of tons of highly radioactive water into the ocean discovered over the weekend. The news came a day after the company said the levels of radioactive material in the seawater near the plant were measured at several million times the legal limit.

Multimedia

Japan Releases Radioactive Water

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Problems With Radioactive Water at the Plant

Interactive Graphic

Status of the Nuclear Reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi Power Plant

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Assessing the Radiation Danger, Near and Far

Interactive Feature

Japan Earthquake and Tsunami Multimedia

Related

• Screening the Day’s Catch for Radiation (April 6, 2011)

• U.S. Sees Array of New Threats at Japan’s Nuclear Plant (April 6, 2011)

• Crisis Saddles Village With Unwanted Notoriety (April 6, 2011)

• Radiation Errors Erode Confidence in Power Company(April 6, 2011)

Enlarge This Image

Shiho Fukada for The New York Times

On Monday, people in Otsuchi, Japan, in Iwate Prefecture, searched for belongings in homes damaged by the March 11 tsunami.

But even the rare bit of good news from the plant was unlikely to calm worries about the growing contamination in nearby coastal waters. On Tuesday, the government said that a fish caught about 43 miles away was found to have high levels of radioactive iodine 131, prompting it to announce radiation safety levels for fish.

And the company has been flushing thousands of tons of relatively low-level radioactive water into the Pacific to make room in storage containers for increasing amounts of far more contaminated runoff. The runoff resulted from workers’ pouring massive amounts of water on reactors and spent fuel-rod pools to keep them from overheating after their normal cooling systems failed.

The water being intentionally released contains about 100 times the legal limit of radiation, said the Tokyo Electric Power Company, the plant’s operator. The more contaminated water that it hopes to contain has about 10,000 times the legal limit.

The small fish caught Friday — before the intentional dumping began — had 4,080 becquerels of iodine 131 per kilogram. The new standards allow up to 2,000 becquerels of iodine 131 per kilogram, the standard used for vegetables in Japan, but it was unclear how the government would enforce the new rules.

The fish also contained cesium 137, which decays much more slowly than iodine 131, at a level of 526 becquerels per kilogram.

“Clearly the fish are consuming highly radioactive food,” said Paul G. Falkowski, a professor of marine, earth and planetary sciences at Rutgers University. But Professor Falkowski emphasized that even those levels were not likely to present health hazards in Japan or elsewhere, since fishing is restricted in Japan and these levels of radiation are not likely to travel far.

Still, experts on radiation in seafood said it was nearly impossible to get a full sense of the scope of the environmental and health risks until the Japanese released information on radiation levels in more species of fish and seaweed and in a greater number of locations. Measurements in the seawater are often not a good indication of how much radiation may be entering the food chain, scientists say.

Fish and seaweed can concentrate radioactive elements as they grow, leading to levels that are higher, sometimes far higher, than in the surrounding water. Seaweed can concentrate iodine 131 10,000-fold over the surrounding water; fish concentrate cesium 137 modestly.

The announced standards for fish came hours after Tokyo Electric said it had found iodine 131 in seawater samples at 200,000 becquerels per cubic centimeter, or five million times the legal limit. The samples were collected Monday near the water intake of the No. 2 reactor of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station.

The samples also showed levels of cesium 137 to be 1.1 million times the legal limit, according to the Japanese public broadcaster NHK. Cesium remains in the environment for centuries, losing half its strength every 30 years.

The Monday sampling of seawater showed a drop in radioactive iodine levels since Saturday when, the company said, the level of iodine 131 was 300,000 becquerels per cubic centimeter.

Meanwhile, the death toll from the March 11 9.0-magnitude earthquake and tsunami rose to 12,341 on Tuesday, the country’s National Police Agency said. More than 15,000 people are missing, and more than 160,000 are in temporary shelters across the country, the agency said.

The crisis at the power station, now in its fourth week, has shaken public confidence in Tokyo Electric. Its share prices plunged to an all-time low on Tuesday over concern by investors about the financial burden of the work being carried out at Daiichi.

The company has lurched from crisis to crisis since the plant’s cooling systems stopped working after the quake and tsunami. Even the news about stopping the leak came after days of false starts, including attempts to plug a large crack in a maintenance pit with more than 120 pounds of sawdust, three garbage bags of shredded newspaper and about nine pounds of a polymeric powder that absorbs water.

In the end, the company said it had succeeded in stopping the leak using sodium silicate, which acts as a cement.

The country’s trade and industry minister, Banri Kaieda, said Tuesday that 60,000 tons of radioactive water was thought to be flooding the basements of the plant’s reactor buildings and underground tunnels, according to the Kyodo news agency.

A government panel suspended work on Tuesday on revising the country’s policy platform on nuclear power, according to local news media reports, saying the crisis needed to be resolved before Japan could publicly assess its nuclear power policies.

The Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry directed Tokyo Electric to start paying “condolence money” to 10 communities near the company’s Fukushima Daiichi plant. In a news conference, Tokyo Electric said all but one community had accepted the money, which is meant to help evacuees but does not recognize responsibility in the disaster.

Andrew Pollack and Ken Belson reported from Tokyo, and Kevin Drew from Hong Kong. Reporting was contributed by Hiroko Tabuchi, Norimitsu Onishi, Ken Ijichi, Yasuko Kamiizumi and Moshe Komata from Tokyo, and by Elisabeth Rosenthal from New York.

A version of this article appeared in print on April 6, 2011, on page A13 of the New York edition.