Radiation and recovery

The reconstruction agency was brought into life to speed the recovery from the Great East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami (GEJET) of March 11, 2011.

The Japanese government has made great efforts in establishing strict safety standards. These have become stricter over time. For instance, in April 2012 the standards for radioactive cesium were adapted (See http://www.mhlw.go.jp/english/topics/2011eq/dl/new_standard.pdf) and now the safety standards for drinking water have become the same as that of the World Health Organization, being 10 Bq/kg. (Note that from this text it is unclear which radioactive cesium is meant, but it may be cesium-137 with a half-life of just over 30 years, and not cesium-134 with a half-life of just over 2 years, as cesium-137 is often described as radioactive cesium.) These new standards have at the very least restored the faith of foreign governments in accepting Japanese food as commercial trade products. Recent research in Nature shows that radioactive freshwater fish however are spreading across Japan.

Regarding the decontamination process, two things are striking. First of all, there are many areas in the provinces surrounding Fukushima that are designated as Intensive Contamination Survey Areas, including Tsukuba. A closer look at the safety limits for additional radiation shows that it is 0.23 micro Sieverts/hour, or over 1 milli Sievert/year. This is well below standards in European capitals and less than the average X-ray scan or airplane trip. One of the available radiation maps shows Tsukuba is well within the limits of 2 milli Sievert/year, or 228.3 nano Sievert/hour. Fukushima obviously is not, with levels of  1410 milli Sievert/year or 161000 nano Sievert/hour at the nuclear power plant, and 254 milli Sievert/year or 28962 nano Sievert/hour at neighboring town Okuma. Even at a measuring point 1 km from Fukushima town station, on of the Tohoku Shinkansen (bullet train) stops, 350 nano Sievert/hour is measured today, corresponding to a level of  just over 3 milli Sievert/year. More information can be found here.

Second of all is the optimistic presentation of the Interim Storage Facility, which places radioactively contaminated soil and other materials in plastic bags and covers it in soil in available spaces. What this website does not show is how this policy turns out in practice, as can be seen in an NHK documentary. Due to objections from local citizens based on fear and uncertainty, and lack of government decisions on future storage locations, some people are now sacrificing their own back yard for temporary storage. The National Institute for Environmental Studies in Tsukuba is one of the organizations tasked with recovery and cleanup of the contaminated materials. At last year's open day, I asked one of the experts of NIES what fail mechanisms were in place to ensure such storage facilities were not disrupted by earthquakes and consequent leaking to ground water, but this was not met with enthusiasm at that time. It remains unclear and unlikely given the small amount of available space that fault lines are taken into consideration when selecting areas for temporary waste storage.

Issues yet to be addressed by the government are made more clear in the NHK documentary as well. Discrimination and bullying due to misinformation and fears, as well as lack of social networks and support when relocating parts of families are severely disrupting people's lives every day. Providing more information aimed at children as well as adults, and securing livelihoods in safe areas for entire families are crucial for rebuilding people's lives.