Gov't sets new compensation guidelines for Fukushima evacuees

So they can't get that money for another 3-6 years? And what is the criteria for it to be "uninhabitable?" Who decides that.....TEPCO???

It's like Minamata all over again, keep delaying until all the plaintiffs die off, and save a lot of pay outs...

Change is difficult unless corporate money is involved, they can change the rules every 6 months if that results in little monetary output. Failure to compensate those most affected is obviously the result. Frankly I'm baffled?

The way they are handling this compensation thing is criminal. Those poor people who had to evacuate will be in financial dire straits, uncertain of their future, for 3-6 years?! And even that isn't for certain anymore, with how quick the government and TEPCO jump to different compensation guidelines. Wouldn't be surprised if after 2.5 years, they remap the funds that should be used towards compensation into "government works".

The government is really trying to screw everyone over. First they change rules on what's contaminated and what's not, then they change rules on how to get your money, next they will likely make rules on how you can spend that money.

There's a really easy way to solve the issue:

1) Set the maximum radiation exposure to 25mSv/yr for first year (all natural sources are below this in Japan) as per 1Sv lifetime exposure (calculated using just Cs-137 halflife. actual lifetime exposure is much less as half the Cs is 134, with half-life of just 2 years rather than 30) that is the internationally accepted limit. All people within those areas are allowed back.

2) If any area is above the 25mSv/yr first year limit currently, it will be considered excessively contaminated and people living in the area get the maximum. No paperwork other than showing your ownership of the house or rental agreement.

3) People living in areas with greater than 1mSv above background rate (to be determined by digging past topsoil) will get lifetime medical assistance.

That plan would save money, save frustration, and let people move forward.

Wow, I'm suprised anyone who has been in Japan any length of time is suprised by this. Should know by now that the government is just an arm of Japan Inc, and not there to ruly serve the citizens. Asbestos, hepatits, and now radiation victims have all been treated miserably by the goernment, in favor of protecting big business. Will never change.

zichiJul. 21, 2012 - 11:26AM JST

No one knows the radiation level of sq m of the 20 km no-go zone, the special zone and the previous 30 km zone. Digging the top soil of every sq m would take many years to achieve, and the expense of doing it?

No need to check every meter of soil, rather just certain sections of those that are above 25mSv. In fact, you could probably just use a scintillator tube and proper software to filter out nuclear fallout (will likely give you a lower than actual base radiation level, but I doubt people will care if they are told the area used to be safer than it actually was). If safecast can make cheap geiger counters, I'm sure that hitachi/toshiba can come up with a portable scintillator with fallout filter. Only needs to be as small as a backpack too.

Thens there's the problem of hot spots. An area maybe measured to be less than 25 millisieverts per years, but there could be hot spots. I watched a recent video from inside the no-zone go showing more than 100 microsieverts per hour.

There are no doubt areas with abnormal concentrations, but these are usually small patches and radiation can't always be traced back to any nuclear source. Ground radon is certainly one of those. Luckily, the topsoil removal method seems to work incredibly well as long as Cs hasn't gone into salt form, and even 100mSv/yr can be reduced to 5-10mSv within a week. That was already accounted for in disaster funds, so shouldn't be a problem.

The first 10 km from the plant should be declared a permanent no-go zone.

That would include places like Jvillage and Hirono, which are to the south of the plant and almost untouched (absolute highest is about 8mSv/yr, most are 2-3mSv/yr). There should be NO circular zones, as they make no scientific or health-wise sense.

There is another loophole that is not mentioned here. How about people renting properties? They are only entitled to hardship payouts and 'up to' 6.7 million yen for furniture. TEPCO is definitely screwing these people and being very stingy and slow in their payouts. They are also making the process extremely difficult for the applicants. This news comes on the back of an 8% rise in electricity prices. Guess who is gonna be paying this compensation? Us! Thanks TEPCO. This whole nuclear energy thing is do full of corruption and lies it is down right criminal! 60% of Japanese people do not want nuclear power and the j-gov is just ignoring it and doing next to nothing about alternatives. It's a farce!

DisillusionedJul. 21, 2012 - 12:35PM JST

This news comes on the back of an 8% rise in electricity prices. Guess who is gonna be paying this compensation?

That actually has nothing to do with nuclear accident payouts. 100% of that is attributed to NOT using nuclear, since every single form of energy is more expensive (older hydro is about the same as nuclear and sometimes less). They are making no profit from it, rather not losing as much money.

zichiJul. 21, 2012 - 01:10PM JST

I seriously doubt that will happen since the estimated total of compensation claims is ¥4-5 trillion?

I think we've gone over the fact those numbers are inflated to the point of being ridiculous. It would come out to 56 million per person, including children who have lost maybe a few toys. Assuming all claim the max 6.75 million and then rest is land, you would be having each person sell about 2200sq m of land (average land price in Fukushima prefecture is 23200 yen/sq m).

Home ownership is 68.77%, and the average house is nowhere near 2200 sq m, so we will never see a tenth of the 4-5 trillion even over 30 years.

basroil

100% of that is attributed to NOT using nuclear, since every single form of energy is more expensive (older hydro is about the same as nuclear and sometimes less).

Or so says the electric utilities, which surely doesn't include the cost of subsidies, nuclear waste management, nuclear plants decommissioning, etc.

Thomas AndersonJul. 21, 2012 - 01:31PM JST

, nuclear waste management, nuclear plants decommissioning, etc.

You paid for that before and never complained. Nuclear paid for itself several times over including those costs, since the price per kWh was much smaller than anything else since the oil crisis.

It would come out to 56 million per person, including children who have lost maybe a few toys

Those children have also had their lives pulled out from under them.

56 million isn't much if you figure in the value of their house & land, the costs of relocating, finding new employment..... Not to mention the cost to farmers who lost their means of livelihood plus infrastructure and assets (think all the livestock that was left to starve)...

I hope the media is all over this. Why is it the job of the government to make sure people suffer for years on end? Pay them now out of TEPCO's bank balance.

It's obvious to everyone no one is going to be paid. The politicos get their payouts from their nuclear friends. They'll never pay you. They'll change the rules in a few years so you get even less than now.

Keep marching Japan, you need a new political system (don't we all).

It's now or never

Or at least pay them an allowance based on current market assessment now so that they are not homeless and unable to start a new life

I don't know, this just looks like a complete scam. 600 page form? Ridiculous and patronizing.

sf2kJul. 21, 2012 - 02:23PM JST

I don't know, this just looks like a complete scam. 600 page form? Ridiculous and patronizing.

About 6mo too late with that comment. The original form was 600 pages, the new one is 4 pages. Considering my cellphone contract is a few times longer, 4 pages is more than acceptable.

zichiJul. 21, 2012 - 02:03PM JST

You are not accounting anything for all the lost business, factories, golf clubs.......

I actually can't find a list of businesses or factories in the radiation affected areas. From the fallout path though, most areas are empty, some residential, and most of the remaining areas are standard agricultural. If you include those, perhaps you'll get up to 4 if they have good lawyers, probably half that considering most are probably tiny offices.

Even with that, Oi alone can pay it off over 30 years and still be cheaper than oil. 15% nuclear would be able to pay it off and be cheaper than even coal.

basroil

You paid for that before and never complained. Nuclear paid for itself several times over including those costs, since the price per kWh was much smaller than anything else since the oil crisis.

lol are you seriously saying that even by including the cost of Fukushima and nuclear re-processing, Monju, etc, nuclear would still be the cheaper option?

All this nuclear underplaying is getting ridiculous.

Clarification please basroil? The incident at Fuchishima is no big thing? We all have Nothing to worry about? The Government response is adequate and reasonable? Those who manifested this disaster are competent to manage the future planning of this industry? Collateral Damage is acceptable as it's the consequence of cheep power and hey we all have to suffer... Right? 100,000 thousand people + are wrong about N-power because you deem it. Those people who lost houses, businesses and their lives are agitators unwilling to realize the benefits of N- energy. Because according to you there is no alternative, despite numerous examples and the total ignorance of alternatives. We all get you are pro..

zichiJul. 21, 2012 - 02:29PM JST

The 6.75 million probably does not include the loss of cars, trucks, buses. The loss of stock held by business. The loss of income from business.

Of course not, those are business expenses. And stock losses are never covered as it's like saying that anyone who bought a lottery ticket should be paid for the top prize; stocks have no value other than dividends if any. Personal cars are likely counted towards the 6 million personal items, but the rest are not personal items and the article doesn't say anything about it.

zichiJul. 21, 2012 - 04:50PM JST

TEPCO's press release for compensation, Jun.29

http://www.tepco.co.jp/en/press/corp-com/release/2012/1206039_1870.html

Part 1-2 is interesting, seems that they are finally making a cutoff between depreciation of assets and a loss of assets. Part 1-3 seems to indicate that most goods in the area are perishables though, or have already been replaced by businesses

Overall, they seem to have plans to help the small businesses that can't easily absorb losses, and individuals who have bigger things to concern themselves with. Now people just need to start wanting closure while still keeping pressure on the company to make sure their claims are properly reviewed.

Thomas AndersonJul. 21, 2012 - 03:13PM JST

lol are you seriously saying that even by including the cost of Fukushima and nuclear re-processing, Monju, etc, nuclear would still be the cheaper option?

At 25% like it was in 2010, it can absorb a fukushima (the 5 trillion compensation + 5 trillion cleanup and others) twice a decade and still be cheaper than coal. It can even absorb fukushima every year and be cheaper than solar.

zichiJul. 21, 2012 - 10:43PM JST

"loss of stock" not company shares but whatever the company sold, like sake, wine, paper, pipes whatever.......

Say inventory , merchandise, something of that nature, stock when talking about businesses is kind of hard to guess at.

There are also hundreds if not thousands who live or have business outside of the evacuation areas, like farmers with contaminated land who will also need compensation payments.

If Japan followed international recommended limits instead of their ridiculous levels, those payments would be close to zero (a few spots perhaps, but hardly major areas)

Basroll: (The government is really trying to screw everyone over), yes I agree with you on that point, but you alway's Fail to point out any fault's with power companies! TEPCO has admitted one of it's executives told workers to put Lead shields on radiation detection devices, otherwise, they would rapidly exceed the legal limit for exposure. They will do, or say anything to avoid having to compensate evacuees

At 25% like it was in 2010, it can absorb a fukushima (the 5 trillion compensation + 5 trillion cleanup and others) twice a decade and still be cheaper than coal. It can even absorb fukushima every year and be cheaper than solar.

I doubt that, since many calculations including the nuclear waste, nuclear reprocessing, etc will end up costing something around 10-12yen/kWh.

10 trillion yen seem like an underestimation, but ok.

And yes solar is expensive right now, but every trend shows that solar is getting cheaper and cheaper. Can't say the same for nuclear.

zichiJul. 22, 2012 - 07:23AM JST

People from other prefectures have suffered losses because of radiation, like mushroom growers.

Indoor cultivation of mushrooms takes about 3 months and can be done year round, so any losses would have been at most 3 months sometime after fukushima. As soon as they noticed radiation they can scrap that production line (usually you'll have a few a different stages to have a steady stream) and the lines planted before fukushima would be able to provide a reduced amount but enough they don't have anything to worry about.

This week Russia said it's sending back 300 imported second hand cars from Fukushima because the radiation on them is too high?

Considering how polluted parts of russia still are after two massive mistakes on their part (not to mention the rest of europe), I wouldn't be surprised if that was a political move that had nothing to do with radiation and everything to do with Kuril.