Gov't lifts evacuation order in parts of Fukushima nuclear plant hometown

No thanks.

The Guardian had an article about this yesterday:

> Part of Okuma is also being used as an interim storage site for millions of cubic metres of toxic soil gathered during an unprecedented decontamination drive to reduce radiation to levels that would enable tens of thousands of evacuees to return home.

The government has vowed to move the soil out of Fukushima prefecture by 2045, but has yet to find a permanent storage site.

So in lieu of storing such waste on site, containing the effects of the disaster in a small area that will never be fully repopulated, the government remains determined to distribute it across the archipelago. I remain convinced they prefer this absurd policy b/c it's the best way to ignore that the disaster ever happened. As long as they can build a few Potemkin Villages near the plant, with tiny settlements of mostly elderly people, everything can be forgotten.

The national mania caused by the hosting of this sporting event in 2020 now extends to ensuring people are moved back into a nuclear wasteland before the opening ceremony starts. More haste on the cleanup, less speed in putting peoples lives at risk please.....

The radioactive fuel has not been removed from the reactors. It is a ticking time bomb waiting to go off. The problem has not been contained.

Yet again, as frequently occurs, sound logic and empathy is thrust out of the window. If you don't see the problem, there's no problem. Zeus help us all!!

The action allows people to return to about 40 percent of Okuma

Correction: The action releases TEPCO and the J-Gov from paying these people any further compensation.

As stated in the article, the vast majority of these people are extremely apprehensive about moving back and for good reason. Of course the radiation levels are their first concern. However, the infrastructure of these towns were also destroyed. There will be very few shops and amenities, nor will there be any work. Most of these evacuees have already found alternative work and reestablished their lives in their host town. The saddest thing is, those who own homes and decide to stay away and sell their properties will be lucky if they can give their home or land away. This is something TEPCO and the J-Gov should be compensating people for as well.

Going there in a few weeks to do research on radiation levels. Will let all know what I find...

Goodlucktoyou - Going there in a few weeks to do research on radiation levels. Will let all know what I find

Would be interesting to know your findings. However, you probably don’t need to go that far.

The fall out from this man made disaster was totally misreported, sanctioned and covered up. One of my friends lived in Tonegawa, which is on the boarder of Ibaraki and Northern Chiba (about 120k from Dai-Ichi). He found alarming levels of radiation in the roof gutters of his house shortly after the meltdowns. There have also been radiation hot spots found in Kashiwa, Chiba and in central Tokyo. Perhaps this means, the areas closest to the meltdowns that have been cleaned up are actually the safest areas to return to.

is it coincidence that the clock shows the same time as the current Doomsday Clock?

Apart from anything else, with Japan's climate, the houses will all be uninhabitable by this time.

No thanks.

Plastics degrade, tanks corrode. The plan by officials is the same as the default plan by nature: Over the long run, contaminants will erode/drain into the Pacific.

@Lindsay. You can’t “cleanup” so close. Every time it rains, snows, it’s windy, it spreads again. After about 8 years there is still no solution. Plutonium was found on beaches in ibaraki due to groundwater rivers. Like the people of Okinawa during WW2, many Tohoku people are being sacrificed for Tokyo.

From Wiki concerning plutonium contamination from various sources in the Fukushima area. C-137 seems to be a greater problem.

"On 30 September 2011, the Japanese Ministry of Education and Science published the results of a plutonium fallout survey, for which in June and July 50 soil samples were collected from a radius of slightly more than 80 km around the Fukushima Daiichi plant. Plutonium was found in all samples, which is to be expected since plutonium from the nuclear weapon tests of the 1950s and '60s is found everywhere on the planet. The highest levels found (of Pu-239 and Pu-240 combined) were 15 becquerels per square meters in Fukushima prefecture and 9.4 Bq in Ibaraki prefecture, compared to a global average of 0.4 to 3.7 Bq/kg from atomic bomb tests. Earlier in June, university researchers detected smaller amounts of plutonium in soil outside the plant after they collected samples during filming by NHK. A recent study published in Nature found up to 35 bq/kg plutonium 241 in leaf litter in 3 out of 19 sites in the most contaminated zone in Fukushima. They estimated the Pu-241 dose for a person living for 50 years in the vicinity of the most contaminated site to be 0.44 mSv. However, the Cs-137 activity at the sites where Pu-241 was found was very high (up to 4.7 MBq/kg or about 135,000 times greater than the plutonium 241 activity), which suggests that it will be the Cs-137 which prevents habitation rather than the relatively small amounts of plutonium of any isotope in these areas."

Breaking news.

Japan lost its case of Korea's Fukushima fish ban at WTO. Korea can continue to ban Fukushima fish imports indefinitely, and this is expected to halt Japan's attempts to lift Fukushima fish import ban in other countries.

Japanese government's claims of Fukushima radiation level being safe is not being accepted outside of Japan.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-japan-southkorea-wto/south-korea-wto-appeal-succeeds-in-japanese-fukushima-food-dispute-idUSKCN1RN24X

South Korea WTO appeal succeeds in Japanese Fukushima food dispute

GENEVA (Reuters) - South Korea won the bulk of its appeal on Thursday in a dispute at the World Trade Organization over import bans and testing requirements it had imposed on Japanese seafood in the wake of the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster.

Okuma still looking hot https://jciv.iidj.net/map/

It was the storage site they can't just move soil and make another site a storage site, that's oyaji crazy. There would be no active infrastructure and all grown over in 8 years as well, mould, mice etc. Cordon off the area for a few hundred years and face reality

Its an eyesore with bags of dirty earth piled high, hotspots occurred where contaminated water ran to, over all background radiation we are told here in Australia is only 6 or 7 and we should know we mine the dam stuff.

Just put the top soil back, remove the plastic and move on, maybe not agriculture, but forestry, some product that's not eaten.

Give me a free house and I will move there