In addition to its effects on land, the Fukushima disaster produced the largest discharge of radioactive material into the ocean in history. Areas significantly contaminated with radioactive cesium and other long-lived radionuclides can no longer sell and export agricultural crops. Diversion ditches have failed to stop the process. Efforts to clean up highly contaminated areas are generally failing because melting snow and rainwater run off the contaminated hills and return to recontaminate homes and land. This process occurs much faster in children than in adults, and children are many times more susceptible than adults to the effects of the ionizing radiation their internal organs are then exposed to.ĭecontamination in the exclusion zones is proving futile. Routine ingestion of foods contaminated with so-called “low levels” of radioactive cesium has been shown to lead to its bioaccumulation in the heart and endocrine tissues, as well as in the kidneys, small intestines, pancreas, spleen and liver. Radioactive cesium bioaccumulates, bioconcentrates, and biomagnifies as it moves up the food chain. It has been detected in a large range of Japanese foodstuffs, including spinach, tea leaves, milk, beef, and freshwater fish up to 200 miles from Fukushima. Once a large amount of radioactive cesium enters an ecosystem, it quickly becomes ubiquitous, contaminating water, soil, plants and animals. Cesium-137 has a half-life of 30 years, and since it takes about 10 half-lives for any radionuclide to disappear, it will maintain ownership of the exclusion zone for centuries. Radioactive cesium has taken up residence in the exclusion zone, replacing the human inhabitants. They have not been told that their homes will never again be habitable. Many are forced to make mortgage payments on the homes they left inside the exclusion zones. Most have received only a small compensation to cover their costs of living as evacuees. As for the human costs, in September 2012, Fukushima officials stated that 159,128 people had been evicted from the exclusion zones, losing their homes and virtually all their possessions. Estimates of the total economic loss range from $250 -$500 billion US. The precise value of the abandoned cities, towns, agricultural lands, businesses, homes and property located within the roughly 310 sq miles (800 sq km) of the exclusion zones has not been established. All persons living in these areas were evacuated and the regions were declared to be permanent “exclusion” zones. However, all of the land within 12 miles (20 km) of the destroyed nuclear power plant, encompassing an area of about 230 square miles (600 sq km), and an additional 80 square miles (200 sq km) located northwest of the plant, were declared too radioactive for human habitation. This allowed the Japanese government to downplay the dangers of the fallout and avoid evacuation of many badly contaminated areas. Some 4,500 square miles-an area almost the size of Connecticut-was found to have radiation levels that exceeded Japan’s allowable exposure rate of 1 mSV (millisievert) per year.Ībout a month after the disaster, on April 19, 2011, Japan chose to drastically increase its official “safe” radiation exposure levels from 1 mSv to 20 mSv per year – 20 times higher than the US exposure limit. In November 2011, the Japanese Science Ministry reported that long-lived radioactive cesium had contaminated 11,580 square miles (30,000 sq km) of the land surface of Japan. The destruction of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in March 2011, caused by an earthquake and subsequent tsunami, resulted in massive radioactive contamination of the Japanese mainland. By Steven Starr, MT (ASCP), PSR Senior Scientist
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