Well, that name always gets everyone's attention these days. In Japanese it means "Fortunate Island" ...we should be so lucky already. It's a
prefecture dear to our hearts and of course much in the news. It is also
very large and has at it's mountainous center the marvellous city of
Aizu-Awakamatsu which I'll talk about in a separate post.
Then a few meters away, where the wave stopped, the rest of the town looks completely normal.
Although there is a lot of very small and very
cramped looking temporary housing built in parking lots etc.One family to a room.
We then drove back over the hills and mountains away from the trouble towards the center of the prefecture... but, totally unplanned and about 60km from the plant we suddenly came across a "hot spot" there were no warning signs but I started to notice that the rice fields were untended and unplanted and the greenhouses empty and falling apart, from uncleared snow I suppose. Then three towns, the biggest Iitate, completely empty except for a few guards. Like one of the worst scenes from "The Day of the Triffids" or some other cheery film. Obviously a spot where the luck of the draw and the prevailing winds or a rain shower dumped a concentration of radioactive material on these poor citizens and their farms and livestock.

And then there's this: The scientists amongst you will well recognise this one. Unhappy with the data you're getting? Doesn't fit the hypothesis? Simply change the method of recording and/or remove a few annoying variables...easy.
On July 17, 2012, the Japanese TV morning news show “Tokudane”
reported that 31 out of 38 monitoring posts in 6 cities in Fukushima
showed far lower radiation levels than the general actual levels for the
areas where the monitoring posts are in. They measured the radiation
levels with Professor Kato of Tokyo Metropolitan University. When they
use a survey meter and walk a few steps away from the monitoring posts,
the radiation levels shoot sharply up. One post measured 0.24uSv while a
measurement showed 0.41uSv only one meter away. A monitoring post in
South Iitate indicated 4.51uSv, but a survey meter read 9.5uSv.
Professor Kato says that such monitoring posts have been set up on
decontaminated spots. Citizens have been skeptical of their measurements
for a long time.TEPCO made a document for public release on April 20, 2012 explaining that they have “improved” the area surrounding monitoring posts by cutting trees within 20 to 30m, replacing soil and placing shielding walls, so that readings remain below 10uSv/h. It details the case of 8 monitoring posts, and they cite an example where the radiation dose went down from 83.6uSv to 9.7uSv.
P.S. How do you decontaminate a forest or a mountain?
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