13 February 2014 (12:35 UTC-07 Tango)/12 Rabi ‘ath-Thani 1435/24 Bahman 1392/14 Bing-Yin (1st month) 4712
The UN International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) wants TEPCo to conduct “controlled discharges” of radiation (including tritium) into the Pacific Ocean: “The IAEA team believes it is necessary to find a sustainable solution to the problem of managing contaminated water….”-IAEA International Peer Review Mission On Mid-And-Long-Term Roadmap Towards The Decommissioning Of TEPCO’s Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station Units 1-4 (Second Mission)
Tokyo Electric Power Company has revealed that a new groundwater test well is full of record levels of cesium 137 and 134. The new well was dug near Fukushima Daiichi’s reactor Unit 2.
TEPCo detected 54-thousand becquerels per liter of cesium 137 and 22-thousand Bq per liter of cesium 134 in the groundwater. They still don’t know where it’s coming from. This week’s water c-137 samples are 30-thousand times higher than samples taken last week, at a different well.
The announcement came just a couple of days after Japan’s Nuclear Regulation Authority criticized TEPCo for hiding data on massive amounts of strontium 90 contamination. The NRA officials said TEPCo detected the record levels of strontium 90 last September, but waited until five days ago to publicize it. TEPCo had originally claimed they delayed publicizing the record levels of contamination because they believed their detection equipment was faulty. (and if you’ve read all my Fukushima articles you’ll know they’ve used that excuse before)
A hospital in Fukushima Prefecture is asking for help, as many nurses refused to return to work after the March 2011 nuclear explosions. Hirono Town Hospital officials held a recruiting event in Tokyo to try an convince nurses there to work in the nuclear disaster area. Officials said that before the nuke disasters they had 33 nurses. For awhile after they had only five nurses, but that number is now up to 20 nurses. They say it’s still not enough for them to take on new patients. The recruiting efforts include letting prospective nurses serve on ‘tours of duty’ in Hirono Town. So far 20 nurses have served on the tours of duty, but only six have decided to stay on permanently.
The Fukushima International Association released the results of their study on foreign nationals living in the prefecture. Most evacuated after the nuclear disasters began, but many have since returned. However, only 53 out of 100 foreign nationals knew there was a nuclear power plant in the area prior to the explosions! Prior to the March 2011 disasters 11190 foreign residents were living in the prefecture, as of June 2013 there were 9489 foreigners. The number one complaint from foreigners was the lack of trustworthy information from the main stream news media, and government.
Fukushima Governor Sato Yuhei is once again pointing out the incompetence of neo-imperialist national government officials. It turns out that the national government wants to use three towns, which are currently not adversely affected by the nuke disaster, as nuke waste storage sites. Sato told the national government that the mayors are complaining that by turning them into nuke waste sites it will destroy their efforts to rebuild their towns. If you think about it, why not store the nuke waste in the areas that are already highly contaminated?
A new $1-billion USD lawsuit has been filed against TEPCo. It involves at least 79 USN personnel who took part in Operation Tomodachi, as well as a infant born with genetic problems, a U.S. teenager who was living near the disaster reactors when they blew up, and up to 70-thousand additional U.S. citizens!
‘Elected’ officials in the U.S. state of Hawaii say they are getting swamped with phone calls from people demanding proof that the food in Hawaii is not contaminated with radiation from Fukushima Daiichi!