福島第一原発作業員が内部被曝…マスクの一部が変形、放射性物質吸ったかvia 読売新聞

Posted on 2020/04/17 by nfield

東京電力は１６日、福島第一原子力発電所の廃炉作業で、協力企業の２０歳代の男性作業員が今月１３日に微量の内部被曝ひばくをしたと発表した。今後５０年間の被曝量は０・３８ミリ・シーベルトで、男性の健康に異常はないという。

発表によると、男性は１３日午前、「プロセス主建屋」と呼ばれる施設の１階で、床にまかれた薬剤を除去する作業をしていた。男性が装着していた全面マスクの一部が変形しており、そこから入り込んだ放射性物質を吸った可能性がある。

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原発ＡＤＲ、申し立て増「被害長期化数字が示す」　via 河北新報

Posted on 2020/04/17 by nfield

東京電力福島第１原発事故の被害者を対象とした裁判外紛争解決手続き（ＡＤＲ）の申し立てが２０１９年は１２０９件あり、前年から８８件（７．９％）増えた。１４年以降は件数が毎年減少していたが増加に転じた。

　内訳は個人１０３４件（８５．５％）、法人１７５件（１４．５％）。原発事故から８年を経てもなお３６．２％に当たる４３８件が初回申し立てだった。２回目以上の申し立ては７７１件（６３．８％）と前年を１０６件上回った。
　原子力損害賠償紛争解決センターは、１００人以上がまとまって申し立てた集団ＡＤＲが不調に終わった後、改めて個別に申し立てた被害者が増えたことなどを理由に挙げる。
　集団ＡＤＲでは、仲介委員による和解案を東電が拒み、協議が打ち切られるケースが近年急増。１７年までゼロだったが、１８～１９年は計２１件、約２万人に上る。
　福島原発訴訟弁護団の鈴木雅貴弁護士は、申立件数の増加について「被害の長期化が数値に表れた」と指摘。賠償請求権が２１年３月を境に順次時効を迎えることにも触れ「東電は時効を主張しない姿勢を繰り返し明示すべきだ」と語った。

[…]

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見えない恐怖…子どもへの影響「原発事故後の避難生活と共通点」　via Yahoo! Japan News

Posted on 2020/04/17 by nfield

目に見えないウイルスへの不安、長期化する学校の臨時休校。異例の事態に子どもたちや保護者はどう向き合えばいいのか。専門家に聞きました。
福島県の子どもの生活と健康に関する調査を続けている中京大学の成元哲教授。新型コロナウイルスが子どもたちにもたらす影響は原発事故後の避難生活による影響と共通点があると指摘します。
成元哲教授「放射能もコロナウイルスも目に見えないものなので、それをどう受け止めるという問題で、大人が不安になっていたり、不安をめぐって、危険なものをめぐって、例えばお父さんお母さんが認識のずれがあって言い争いをしたりとかを見ると、子どもも当然ながら不安になる」。
原発事故では外で遊べないなどの制約が子どもの運動不足やストレスの原因となりましたが、今回は屋内での活動も制限され、よりストレスを抱えやすい状況にあります。
成元哲教授「片っ方はすごく厳しく注意して、片っ方はいいよいいよみたいな形になったりすると、やっぱりどうしたらいいんだろうなという感じにはなるんだろうと思う。それぞれ様々な対応、様々な認知の仕方があっていいんだということを認め合うことかなというのが前回の教訓としていま考えられることかなという風に思う」。
先行きが見通せない点も共通していて子育てに不安を覚える保護者へのケアが必要だと話します。
成元哲教授「福島でもそういったときは皆さん保養に出かけたりして、保養の場所で自分たちの思いの丈を共有して自分だけじゃないんだということをお互いに共有して励ましたり励まされたりということがあったが、空間をともにしながら思いの丈を語り合うというのはなかなか難しくなるかもしれないので遠隔でオンラインでバーチャルで関係性を持ってお互いの経験を共有できる場があれば、少しは先が見えて来るのではないか。

[…]

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キエフは世界で最も大気汚染がひどい都市に　チェルノブイリの森林火災 via Sputnik

Posted on 2020/04/17 by nfield

ウクライナの首都キエフは、同国のチェルノブイリ原発立入禁止区域で今月発生した森林火災が原因で、世界で最も大気汚染がひどい都市となった。この事実は、大気の状態データをリアルタイムで公開している「エア・ビジュアル」のサイトで示されている。

日本時間の16日6:30時点でキエフの大気汚染指数は196、キエフの一部の地区では343に達している。14時の段階では、キエフの指数は169にまで低下した。通常時では、この街の指数は150を超えないという。

[…]

ウクライナのオンライン紙「ストラナ.ウア」によると、キエフの大気汚染の直接の原因は、チェルノブイリ原発の立入禁止区域の森林火災。火災は一旦鎮火したものの、砂嵐によって16日に再び発生した。スモッグは立ち入り禁止区域から風に乗ってキエフに運ばれた。

キエフ当局は、住民に窓を開けず、外出せず、液体を多めに飲み、室内を加湿するよう呼びかけた。住民らは強い焦げ臭や煙で黒く汚れるなどの苦情を訴えている。

チェルノブイリの森林火災

先に、チェルノブイリ原発禁止区域で森林火災が発生し、約2週間にわたって消火活動が続けられ、作業は難航していたが、14日に降った雨により、森林火災の延焼が食い止められたと報じられた。火の手はプリピャチ川の左岸に燃え広がり、原発と放射性廃棄物の貯蔵施設に迫った。この火災で原発近くの多くの旧村落が燃え、『赤い森』（原発から10キロ以内の汚染された森）が失われた。非公式の見解では、火災の原因は数カ所で放たれた放火。なお、火災は砂嵐によって16日に再び発生した。

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In its coronavirus response, Japan must not repeat the mistakes of its handling of the Fukushima nuclear disaster via South China Morning Post

Posted on 2020/04/17 by nfield

At root, the Japanese government has not approached the current pandemic as an epidemiological crisis. Instead, it has sought to manage it as an economic crisis and as a perilous public relations liability for Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s government. This reactive, obstructionist approach is dangerous at a time when Japan needs real leadership to preserve lives.In recent months, when the Tokyo Olympic and Paralympic Games were expected to go ahead, Japan garnered some international sympathy for attempting to put a brave face on the Covid-19 outbreak in the country, which threatened to upend years of careful planning and investment. Yet three weeks after the Olympics’ postponement, the government continues to operate from the same cynical PR playbook.There is a clear official reluctance to test aggressively for Covid-19, although Japan has the same technological and medical capability to do so as South Korea, Singapore, Taiwan and Hong Kong, which have been so successful at using testing and contact tracing to blunt the spread of the coronavirus.

[…]

Yet intentionally limited testing, possibly to put the nation’s best foot forward for the Olympics, gave Japanese a false sense of security. The Abe government mandated that just a small number of public health facilities could test for the virus, and only five approved companies were allowed to process the samples.As of April 15, South Korea had conducted 534,522 tests, a staggering 10,351 tests per million citizens. By contrast, Japan had done 94,236 tests, or 745 tests per million citizens, about 7 per cent of South Korea’s.

Moreover, the current figure of 178 dead is almost certainly an undercount and misleading. The government hasn’t released the figures on recent pneumonia fatalities, a critical metric both for assessing the pandemic and the state’s handling of the crisis.

[…]

The extent of the radioactive threat to communities was played down to avert panic and deflect blame. Evacuation orders and the very dimensions of the exclusion zone were minimised to avoid affecting large nearby cities, such as Koriyama, with expensive and debilitating measures.

The presence of particular radioactive isotopes in the air told foreign observers that nuclear fuel rods had melted down and breached reactors’ containment just days after the tsunami, even though it took the Japanese government months to admit this to its angry citizenry.

[…]

The current crisis lacks such stark, devastating signalling. Nevertheless, it is clear the Japanese state has reverted to the same reflexes of distorting science to influence the data.

Last week, the government announced a plan to battle overseas “misinformation” with artificial intelligence-driven algorithms, analysing social media traffic on platforms like Twitter and responding with “correct” information. Rather than trying to control the international narrative, it would be far better for Japan to use AI to analyse epidemiological data to improve the nation’s response to the spread of the coronavirus.

During the early months of the outbreak, control has been illusory. While Tokyo struggled to hold onto the Summer Olympics, Covid-19 spread. Now, across the world in America, New York has paid prisoners to dig mass graves for infected corpses, and over 80 refrigerated container trucks are used to store the bodies of deceased patients at overwhelmed hospitals.

Japan must stop playing games with the data and start displaying bold leadership to avert such carnage in Japan’s capital.

Peter Wynn Kirby is a Japan specialist at the University of Oxford. He is the author of Troubled Natures: Waste, Environment, Japan

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Uranium Industry’s COVID-19 Bailout Request Sparks a Disgusted Pushback via Phoenix New Times

Posted on 2020/04/17 by yukimiyamotodepaul

ELIZABETH WHITMAN 

[…]

One July morning in 1979, a dam containing tailings from United Nuclear Corporation’s uranium mill some 200 miles away broke, letting loose more than 1,000 tons of waste. Ninety-four million gallons of radioactive water gushed into the Puerco River, which feeds the Little Colorado.

More than 40 years later, the Church Rock spill is still the biggest release of radioactive material in American history.

[…]

Uranium mining has left a toxic, indelible imprint on the Navajo Nation. Mining companies would come in over the years to hire Navajo people for the backbreaking work of picking at uranium ore and hauling it in wheelbarrows. 

When the companies were ready to move on, they abandoned more than 500 mines on the Navajo Nation, the water they had contaminated, and the people who worked them, many of whom died of cancer and whose offspring were born with birth defects, Peshlakai said.

[…]

At the end of March, two uranium companies penned a letter to President Donald Trump asking for a $150 million bailout, citing the economic impacts of COVID-19. One of them was Energy Fuels Resources, which hopes to open a uranium mine south of the Grand Canyon and whose exploratory operations already have led to it trucking radioactive water across the Navajo Nation.

The request quickly sparked disgust and fury among those who oppose the industry’s deleterious effects on people and the land. 

Last Friday, a cohort of 75 conservation and grassroots groups penned a missive of their own and sent it to four congressional leaders, asking them to reject any bailout for an industry that has wreaked so much destruction, and calling into question the companies’ claims that a public health crisis like COVID-19 justifies extending a lifeline to a declining industry.

[…]

Jared Touchin, a spokesperson for Navajo Nation President Jonathan Nez and Vice President Myron Lizer, said that the two leaders “would not support this effort if it proposes to use uranium resources that impact the Navajo people.”

Peshlakai also rejected the idea that the industry, which has never been held accountable for its operations in Arizona, receive a bailout.

[…]

In their letter to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, Speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi, and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, the 75 groups declared that the uranium industry was “falsely” suggesting that the COVID-19 pandemic had led to uranium shortages that threatened supply chains.

Rather than helping the industry, they said, Congress should “invest stimulus funds towards the assessment, reclamation, and cleanup of the hundreds of thousands of abandoned hardrock mines on public and tribal lands, which are currently polluting roughly 40 percent of western headwaters.”

[…]

Citing the fact that Arizona Public Service, which operates the country’s largest nuclear power plant, Palo Verde, recently said it was “confident” it could provide reliable service throughout the pandemic, they suggested that the industry’s warning of supply chain disruptions was misleading.

“Industry reports are telling us that they have more than enough uranium,” said Ray Rasker, executive director of the Montana-based Headwaters Economics, a nonprofit land management research firm. The U.S. already has a stockpile of uranium, he explained.

Because of a global oversupply or uranium, prices have also fallen low, Rasker said; right now, prices are below $30 a pound. And if they were to rise again, the most economically viable deposits of uranium in North America are in Saskatchewan, Canada — an ally of the U.S. 

“There’s no national security concern,” Rasker said.

Read more at Uranium Industry’s COVID-19 Bailout Request Sparks a Disgusted Pushback

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Nuclear agency proposes deregulating disposal of some US radioactive waste via Chemistry World

Posted on 2020/04/17 by yukimiyamotodepaul

BY REBECCA TRAGER

The US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) is facing protests after proposing that low-level radioactive waste be disposed of in commercial landfills not explicitly designed to hold it, rather than at licenced radioactive waste sites. The NRC’s proposal, issued in March, declares that the agency’s intent is to limit this deregulation to ‘very low level radioactive wastes’, but Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (Peer) states that the actual proposal allows doses to the public equivalent to more than 900 chest x-rays over a lifetime, with a cancer risk 20 times higher than the upper end of the US Environmental Protection Agency’s acceptable risk range.

In addition, Peer – which is comprised of government scientists, land managers, environmental law enforcement agents and others – says that this NRC ‘interpretive rule’ would allow unlicenced radioactive waste dumps to expose the public to levels of radiation two-and-a-half times higher than that permitted for licensed low-level radioactive waste sites under current NRC regulations.

[…]

For its part, the NRC anticipates that its proposal would provide ‘an efficient means’ for it to issue specific exemptions for disposal, or for licensees to transfer appropriate material to these exempt facilities. Comments on the NRC’s proposal are due by 20 April.

Read more at Nuclear agency proposes deregulating disposal of some US radioactive waste

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男性作業員が内部被ばく　福島第１原発 via 河北新報

Posted on 2020/04/17 by yukimiyamotodepaul

東京電力は１９日、福島第１原発の建屋で作業していた協力会社の４０代の男性作業員が、体内に放射性物質を取り込んだと発表した。内部被ばく線量は５０年間で０．６１ミリシーベルト。被ばく歴に記録する必要がある２ミリシーベルトを下回り、東電は「軽微で問題はない」とみている。

東電によると、作業員は１８日昼すぎから高濃度の汚染水をためているプロセス主建屋で、全面マスクなどを着用して作業。同日夕の検査で鼻腔（びくう）内などに汚染が確認された。作業員の内部被ばくは６日にもあり。

続きは男性作業員が内部被ばく　福島第１原発

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Worker infection halts anti-terror project at Genkai nuclear plant via The Asahi Shimbun

Posted on 2020/04/16 by nfield

[…]

Kyushu Electric Power Co. suspended work to build an anti-terrorism facility at its Genkai nuclear power plant in Saga Prefecture after a worker there tested positive for the novel coronavirus on April 14.

The infected construction worker was involved in the project, which is required under stricter safety standards for nuclear power plant operations, the company said April 15.

All civil engineering work at the nuclear plant was halted on the night of April 14, and the company said it does not know when it can restart the project.

[…]

After the utility was informed about the infection from the construction company, it ordered about 300 other workers who may have come in contact with their infected colleague to stay home. They include Kyushu Electric employee and those commissioned to work on the anti-terrorism project.

The company said the infection would have no effects on the operations of the nuclear power plant.

Under the tougher safety standards imposed after the 2011 disaster at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant, utilities are obliged to construct anti-terrorism facilities for reactors at their nuclear plants.

For the Genkai nuclear plant, the completion deadlines for the No. 3 and No. 4 reactors are August and September 2022, respectively.

The company said it has no idea if the suspension of work will affect the project schedule.

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Virus another setback for typhoon-hit areas　via Honolulu Star-Advertiser

Posted on 2020/04/16 by nfield

TOKYO >> The ongoing outbreak of COVID-19 has dealt an additional blow to areas in eastern Japan that were devastated by Typhoon Hagibis in October.

Six months have passed since the typhoon struck, but local economies are unable to recover as the spread of the coronavirus causes new harm in places that were flooded during the disaster.

Facilities of 258 companies at the Koriyama Central Industrial Park in Koriyama, Fuku­shima Prefecture, for instance, were hit by Hagibis. That’s 92% of tenants, with with almost all of them damaged due to flooding of area rivers. That damage exceeded $373.3 million.

Today, about 30% remain unable to fully resume operations.

“The future is still not in sight,” one manager lamented.

[…]

Since March this year, however, many events have been canceled due to the spread of the coronavirus.

“Because the Tokyo Olympics were postponed, all our work related to the torch relay, which was scheduled to start in Fukushima Prefecture, was canceled,” said a senior executive of the company.

[…]

According to the Koriyama city government, about 70% of companies in the industrial complex are fully operational. The other 30% are either partially open or completely dormant.

Some companies have left.

In December, Tokyo-based Hitachi Ltd. decided to relocate its Koriyama branch to another prefecture.

“The decision was made for the safety of our employees and the stable supply of our products,” a Hitachi spokesperson said.

In January, the city surveyed the park’s companies about their needs and set up an office on site. Among the services it provides is information about government assistance.

The city is also mediating the relocation of businesses to other Koriyama sites, to keep them in the city.

But there is still concern that some businesses will decide to halt operations because of the coronavirus.

“This situation is beyond what we imagined,” said a city government official.

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