新潟県にある東京電力の柏崎刈羽原発6、7号機が再稼働の前提となる審査に近く合格する見通しとなりました。
原子力規制委員会は柏崎刈羽原発6、7号機について、技術的な審査はおおむね終了し、東京電力が原発を再開するのに値するのか、その適格性を審査していました。先週、東京電力の経営トップが原発事故の廃炉や賠償をやり遂げるとした回答書を提出したことなどから、6日に開かれる規制委員会で議論を進め、事実上の合格証にあたる審査書案の取りまとめに入ることが分かりました。ただ、事故を起こした東京電力が原発を再開することには強い反発が予想されます。一方、18日で任期満了となる田中俊一委員長の退任の直前に一定の判断を出すことも議論を呼びそうです。
The government has announced its intention to build a national memorial in the Fukushima Prefecture town of Namie to commemorate victims of the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami, and those who died while being evacuated due to the subsequent nuclear disaster.
The memorial, not planned as a structure but rather a roughly 10-hectare area consisting of a square and a hill, will be the centerpiece of a larger park the Fukushima prefectural government will build in an area straddling Namie and the neighboring town of Futaba.
The central government hopes to partly complete the memorial by March 2021, the 10th anniversary of the disaster in northeastern Japan that killed nearly 16,000 people, with over 2,500 still missing.
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In March the government lifted an evacuation order for the part of Namie where the memorial is slated to be built.
Read more.
Two Tokyo Electric reactors at the massive Kashiwazaki-Kariwa power station in Niigata Prefecture are expected to clear the initial safety hurdle for restarts soon, sources said Friday.
According to the sources, the Nuclear Regulation Authority will start talks on the issue on Wednesday, with a view to compiling a document that will certify the two units passed the new safety requirements introduced after the Fukushima nuclear crisis.
Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings Inc. has been struggling to recover ever since the triple core meltdown in March 2011 because the seven-reactor Niigata plant is a crucial money maker. The utility has spent years trying to restart the plant, which is the only nuclear complex it runs aside from the disaster-hit Fukushima No. 1 plant in Fukushima Prefecture.
It filed for safety assessments for reactor Nos. 6 and 7 in September 2013.
The NRA wants to reach a conclusion on the issue before Chairman Shunichi Tanaka’s five-year term expires on Sept. 18, the sources said. But the move may trigger public criticism because Tepco still has a long way to go to scrap the ruined reactors at Fukushima No. 1, which was engulfed by quake-triggered tsunami and lost all power.
The Kashiwazaki-Kariwa complex is one of the world’s largest nuclear power plants and has an output capacity of 8.2 million kilowatts. Units 6 and 7 are boiling water reactors — the same type as the ones at Fukushima No. 1 — and the newest of the seven sitting along the Sea of Japan coast.
The governments hosting the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa plant are also cautious about restarting the units, with Niigata Gov. Ryuichi Yoneyama saying it will take “around three to four years” for the utility to win local consent on the matter.
Tepco, which is facing massive compensation payments and other costs from dealing with the world’s worst nuclear crises since Chernobyl, has been desperate to restart the idled reactors so it can reduce spending on costly fossil fuel imports needed to run the thermal power plants making up for the nationwide nuclear shutdowns.
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Read more.
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According to lead researcher Shigemura, 29.5 percent of workers at the plant subsequently displayed symptoms of high post-traumatic stress responses (PTSR), including flashbacks and avoidance of reminders of the terrifying events they went through.
Around 1 in 5 Tepco workers at neighboring Fukushima No. 2 plant also showed similarly high levels of PSTR, even though there was no serious damage to the four reactors there.
Continued surveys of the workers by Shigemura, an associate professor at the National Defense Medical University’s Department of Psychiatry, and other experts say that while the overall influence of disaster-related experiences on PTSR of workers had decreased since 2011, it remains high.
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This is consistent with previous findings following the Chernobyl nuclear accident in 1986, he says. While scientists then had assumed that cancers and other malignant disorders would be the biggest health risk, mental health issues turned out to be far more prevalent, he says.
Indeed, studies have shown that mental health problems, including post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), depression and suicide ideation, were still high and remained the most prevalent problem for the Chernobyl cleanup workers even 20 years after the disaster, Shigemura says. “So I think we can say with some confidence that the Fukushima workers also carry a very high risk of developing long-term mental health issues.”
Furthermore, while PTSD is often thought of as the main persisting illness in such disasters, Shigemura says factors such as depression, anxiety and alcohol abuse are also likely to linger for some time.
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“I felt bad for those people, like it was my fault,” he says. “I couldn’t do anything (to prevent the accident) and as a member of Tepco, I thought I was to blame.”
Such self-criticism and guilt have been major contributors to enduring mental illnesses among plant workers, according to Takeshi Tanigawa, a professor of public health at Jutendo University’s graduate school of medicine, who has also been involved in the mental health surveys of Fukushima plant workers.
Another factor was the continuing bashing at the hands of residents, Tanigawa says, adding that the tension reflected a tendency in Japan to associate people, both CEOs and their foot soldiers alike, with the company they work for, making them collectively the perpetrators of the accident in the public’s eyes.
“We found that those who have experienced such criticism and discrimination have a high degree of psychological distress or PTSR, more than two times higher than control subjects,” he says, adding that with 80 percent of workers being local hires, the bashing, sometimes at the hands of friends and relatives, was even more difficult to take.
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Indeed, Takayama fell sick during the operations and while they left an indelible impression, the 48-hour encounter with the radiation-spewing plant was unlikely to leave any long-term mental scars, he says. “It was stressful, but there were others who were up there for much, much longer,” he says.
A former subcontractor employee, who was working at the Fukushima No. 1 plant at the time of the 2011 disasters, says he had not heard of any mental health issues among subcontractor workers. However, as they made up almost 90 percent of the total plant workforce, he couldn’t discount the possibility.
“One thing that was different for us was that we were never forced, or obliged, to return to the plant,” the worker says in an interview, speaking on condition of anonymity. “Like many others, I evacuated from the plant and never went back, but if I had, I suppose it’s perfectly possible I may have succumbed to mental illness.”
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“Unlike the nuclear plant workers, these sailors had no protective clothing. In fact, some of them literally had no shirts on their backs because they had given all their clothing away to people they saved from the tsunami waves,” says Charles Bonner, a lawyer representing some 400 sailors who have filed a lawsuit against Tepco and U.S. nuclear reactor manufacturer General Electric. “And because they had given away all their bottled water to tsunami survivors, they were drinking desalinated water that had also been contaminated. I do not doubt the psychological impact of the disasters on the plant workers, but at least they had masks and other protective clothing, as required by law. The sailors, however, knew nothing of their exposure and were literally marinated in the radiation.”
Idogawa’s exposure levels were also in excess of acceptable levels by the time he quit Tepco in January 2012 to protest the utility’s poor treatment of workers — who were, in most cases, also victims — and the government’s announcement the previous month that the plant had been brought “under control,” which was completely at odds with what he saw.
Read more at Battling nuclear demons: Mental health issues haunt those who were the first line of defense after 3/11
東日本大震災から６年半が経過するのを前に、鹿児島市中央町の市勤労者交流センターで４日、「『生業（なりわい）を返せ、地域を返せ！』福島原発訴訟」（生業訴訟）原告団の服部浩幸・事務局長の講演会がある。
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生業訴訟は、東京電力福島第１原発事故の被災者が東電と国を相手取った集団訴訟で、「被ばくによる健康影響への不安にさらされることなく平穏な生活をする権利が侵害された」と、原告の居住地の空間放射線量を事故前の状態に戻すことなどを求めている。
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午後６時半から。申し込み不要で、資料代５００円。問い合わせは、九州川内訴訟原告団の井上さん（０８０・６４４５・２３５８）。【杣谷健太】
津波対策を怠り福島第１原発事故を防げなかったとして、業務上過失致死傷罪で強制起訴された東京電力の勝俣恒久元会長（７７）ら旧経営陣３人の裁判に関し、福島原発告訴団と支援団は２日、東京都内で集会を開き、「公判によって今まで隠されていた事実が明らかになる」と元会長らの刑事責任を訴えた。
海渡雄一弁護士らが６月に東京地裁で開かれた初公判の内容や争点を説明し「原発敷地東側の全面に防潮堤を造る計画書があったことなど、被告らは事故前に大津波を想定していた」と話した。
SAN DIEGO (CN) – Representing cancer-ridden Navy service members who say they were exposed to radiation on a humanitarian mission in Fukushima, former Sen. John Edwards urged a federal judge Thursday to set a date for trial.
Over a decade after serving as John Kerry’s running mate in the 2004 presidential election, Edwards now represents hundreds of Navy sailors who were aboard the USS Ronald Reagan as part of a humanitarian mission trip to Fukushima, Japan — bringing food and supplies to the city in March 2011 after it was devastated by an earthquake and ensuing tsunami.
“We have all these sailors whose case is now five years old, who have died or are in the process of dying right now,” said Edwards, whose firm Edwards Kirby is based in North Carolina.
Edwards noted that some of his other clients have seen their children born with birth defects. He said he made the trip from Raleigh to San Diego to “try to get this thing moving.”
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Thursday’s hearing before U.S. District Judge Janis Sammartino came after the Ninth Circuit ruled in June that the lawsuit could proceed in federal court, rejecting an effort to have the case sent to Japan.
Edwards urged Sammartino to bypass the procedural hurdles, “so we know there’s a deadline over there.”
“Instead of just staying still and going with the pleadings and the motions to dismiss, is there a way to get us a trial date and a structure,” Edwards asked.
“I hate to see these sailors and say we filed motions, went to the Ninth Circuit, went to Washington, and I hate to say I don’t know when [we’ll get our day in court],” Edwards said.
He asked for a May 2019 trial date.
TEPCo attorney Gregory Stone said the Japanese utility accepts responsibility for the radiation released but maintains the amount Navy service members were exposed to was negligible.
He thanked the service members present at the hearing for their efforts, but said that radiation exposure is not necessarily the cause of 300 to 400 sailors out of 70,000 on the humanitarian trip getting sick.
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More sailors are coming forward every week, Edwards added, saying they expect the numbers to continue to go up as the word gets out about the lawsuits.
He said they want to make sure “the truth comes out” and that the “word gets out about the dangers and risks that exist not just in Japan, but in other parts of the world.”
Read more at Dying Navy Sailors Push for Trial on Fukushima Meltdown
町と規制委、事実認め「範囲外」
関西電力大飯原発３、４号機（おおい町）の再稼働に関連し、おおい町がホームページに公開した町民からの質問と回答について、全ての質問を掲載していないことが３１日、分かった。一部の質問が掲載されなかった女性から町に抗議があった。町総合政策課は事実を認めた上で「新規制基準適合審査の結果に対するもの以外の質問だと判断したため」と説明した。【高橋一隆】
同原発の再稼働を巡っては、町の依頼を受けた原子力規制委員会が、新規制基準適合審査についての町民向け説明ビデオを作成。町は７月４～１７日にケーブルテレビで放送し、内容に関する質問を受け付けた。８月１７日、「１８人から質問があった」として、計３４件の質問について規制委からの回答と合わせてホームページで公表した。
しかし、抗議した女性によると、１０個の質問に対して４個しか掲載されなかった。掲載されなかったのは、東京電力福島第１原発事故の収束作業に従事した作業員が白血病を発症し労災認定されたことを挙げ、避難時などの被ばくの可能性と健康への影響を尋ねた質問など、ほとんどが被ばくによる健康被害に関する質問という。ビデオでは同原発事故での被ばくの影響も取り上げていた。女性は取材に対し「被ばくによる健康被害はほとんどないとの内容だったので、疑問に思い質問した」と話す。
町と規制委によると、町民からの質問は全て町から規制委に送られた。
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一方、町は実際にあった質問の総数を明らかにしていない。
全国共済農業協同組合連合会（全共連）と早稲田大が共同で開講している寄付講座「東北復興のまちづくり」で学ぶ同大の学生１２人は３０、３１の両日、本県を訪れ、被災地の現状や東日本大震災と東京電力福島第一原発事故からの復興に向けた取り組みに理解を深めた。
講座では同大での座学に加え、福島、宮城、岩手の被災３県の６ＪＡ管内で現地実習を行い、「農」と「食」を視点とした東北の復興やまちづくりを考えている。
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３１日は南相馬市の市消防・防災センターや市役所などを訪問。案内役を務めた市職員から震災と原発事故発生当時や、現在の復興状況について説明を受けた。
（略）
学生らは今後も現地実習などを行う。１０月７、８の両日に同大周辺で行われる食のイベントで被災地の特産品を食材にした料理を提供するほか、１１月下旬に都内のＪＡ共済ビルで「東北マルシェ」を開き、被災地の農産物を販売する。
On March 11, 2011, a powerful earthquake and tsunami in northeast Japan triggered the world’s worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl, in 1986. Just like in the Soviet Union, thousands of people were evacuated around the disaster zone. But unlike the Soviet authorities, the Japanese government has worked hard to make the stricken area once again fit for human habitation. Authorities are now trying to convince the 80,000 former residents of the exclusion zone to return home.
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But reopening these cities is not sufficient to convince former residents, who were evacuated overnight back in 2011, to come back. On average, only 10 percent of the “nuclear refugees” have so far returned to live in the evacuated zone. On the other hand, a new population has arrived: decontamination professionals, construction workers and nuclear engineers. They settle in new buildings or in the former homes of nuclear refugees, who have been only too happy to sell their old houses. As mind-boggling as it may seem, one local real estate agent told us that property prices were soaring in the former exclusion zone.
From the video:
“People of my age think only of the past. We would like to come back and be able to live alongside the former neighbors. But in truth, we may never be able to go back to the days when we used to go fishing or pick fruit in the mountains. As it is, we don’t even know if they are safe.”
Read more and watch the video at Video: Returning to Fukushima
A nuclear power plant in Byron, Illinois. Taken by photographer Joseph Pobereskin (http://pobereskin.com).
