20 December 2013 (12:53 UTC-07 Tango)/16 Safar 1435/29 Azar 1392/18 Jia-Zi (11th month) 4711

“I get so angry. They said as long as the plume was avoided we would be fine!”-Jamie Plym, USN

U.S. sailors who served aboard the USS Ronald Reagan and USS Essex, during efforts to help the Japanese at the beginning of the Fukushima Daiichi disaster, are reporting illness linked to radiation contamination.  At least 51 sailors are attempting to sue Tokyo Electric Power Company (they should also sue GE, Hitachi and Toshiba).  The U.S. military personnel are suffering from strange growths on their bodies, thyroid and testicular cancers, leukemia, bronchitis and even unexplained and uncontrollable bleeding.  They claim medical testing confirm the symptoms are radiation poisoning.

For the first time, TEPCo is reporting that cesium and strontium is contaminating the aquifer under Fukushima Daiichi, 25 meters (82 feet) underground!  The contamination is coming from the GE designed, Hitachi built Reactor 4.  6.7 becquerels per liter of cesium 137, and 89 becquerels per liter of strontium were detected.

The Japanese government announced it will sell its shares of TEPCo stocks to raise cash to pay for decontamination efforts.  Lack of capitalist funding is the main reason for why the decontamination is being held up.   However, who wants to buy into a company that’s proven to be incompetent?

But wait, there’s more! The Japanese government is also increasing interest free loans to TEPCo.  About $87-billion USD worth!

TEPCo has agreed to decommission reactors 5 and 6 at Fukushima Daiichi.  Supposedly they suffered only cooling problems, and were shut down, but the Japanese government insisted they needed to be decommissioned before tackling the decommissioning of reactors 1 through 4.

The Japanese government says it will increase its paltry financial help for residents forced to leave the radiation contamination area.   The money is not coming from taxpayers, but supposedly from TEPCo.  Money will be used to rebuild homes.  People suffering mental stress have one year after evac orders are lifted to apply for a lump sum payment.  (lump?)

Remember, this disaster has been ongoing for three years!

And three years later, 60% of Japanese cities located within 30km (18.6 miles) of a nuclear power plant still have no evacuation plans in case of nuke disaster!  Local government officials within 30km of nuke plants are blaming local governments outside the 30km zone.  Officials within the 30km zones say they need places to evacuate to, outside of the evac zones, and that cities outside the zones are not set up to handle mass evacuees or casualties pouring in from other areas.  Yet another reason to dump nuke power!

Here’s another reason:  Researchers have been studying the forests around Fukushima Daiichi.  They’ve found high levels radiation at the root level of trees, about 1.8 microsieverts per hour.  Also, 50-thousand becquerels of radiation per kilogram is being found in the leaf fall and soil!  When it rains the radiation is washed downhill into streams and water supply for people. Currently there are no official efforts to clean up radiation contamination in the forests.