By William Boardman
“Don’t panic” may be the best advice for thinking about the relentless accident at Fukushima, as readers of and listeners to the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy already know. After all, even if there is plenty to panic about, how does panic improve the situation?
Panic is not usually helpful to clear thinking, and all sorts of people already seem to have a hard time thinking rationally about the continuing accident at Fukushima, whether the reason is panic or something less honorable.
“Let me assure you the situation is under control,” said Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on September 7 to the International Olympic Committee, even though anyone in the room knew, if they wanted to know, that the Fukushima accident was not under control, and had not been under control since the earthquake and tsunami of March 11, 2011, tore the place apart.
Later the same day, Abe expanded his false representations, telling reporters that “I explained about the water contamination in Fukushima and explained that the contaminated water was blocked” within the power plant’s harbor. Again, anyone who wanted to know could easily know that radioactive contamination was reaching the Pacific Ocean in a more or less continuing and unmeasured flow.
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IAEA is more directly involved in mitigating the radioactive contamination in the area evacuated by 300,000 people, according to the Red Cross count. IAEA and Fukushima Prefecture (Japan has 47 prefectures, or states, of which Fukushima is the third largest) have entered into a three-year formal arrangement dealing primarily with remediation, decontamination, and low level waste management, designed to reduce or prevent human exposure from contaminants in the food chain, air, and water.In July, residents of southern Fukushima prefecture started protesting against the government’s covert plan to burn radioactive waste in their neighborhood – where families still live midst pasture and forest land, where radioactive contamination is comparatively low. Their statement read in part:
Fukushima Disaster is not over, but the Ministry of Environment (MOE) is trying to bring another contamination plan all over the world.
Last fall, MOE secretly ordered Hitachi Zosen [a Swiss corporation] to construct a controversial radioactive waste incinerator in small village of Samegawa with only 4000 population. Construction has been completed late June, but there had been no prior information about the project, no such public consultation. Furthermore, last week, some landowners spoke out they never admitted nor signed the contract, but the government mysteriously announced they had all landowners’ consent to run the project.
It is the world-first demonstration incinerator, with unproven technology, and even MOE admitted the technology is still its experimental stage, but MOE and Hitachi Zosen would not stop the experimental incineration. Rather they have been rushing, because until now no other municipalities accept such dangerous facility. They say radioactive cesium could be caught by baghouse filtration…. There is no way to stop radioactive cesium emitted from smokestack, it simply get into the atmosphere and travel the globe….
How can we tolerate the second contamination by our own government? How can we believe the project of IAEA and nuclear power plant manufacturer? We are so angry. We have right to protect ourselves, our children, our lives and our district. There is no legitimacy for polluting project….
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