• The job of cleaning up the radioactive mess at Fukushima has found its way into the hands not of TEPCO (Tokyo Electric) employees, but rather a collection of large companies.
   
• Those large companies put RFQ’s out on the wire for smaller contract labor companies to bid on.

• Smaller contract labor companies won the bids despite having no experience working with nuclear materials. “A common complaint: the project’s dependence on a sprawling and little scrutinized network of subcontractors – many of them inexperienced with nuclear work and some of them, police say, have ties to organized crime.”
   
• Hundreds of smaller firms have employees working in areas around the mangled nuclear power plant cleaning up radioactive debris, soil and dirt… and TEPCO has gone on record saying it has a hard time monitoring the hiring practices and working conditions brought forth by many of those smaller companies. As stated by one the Fukushima clean up employees, “Even then, his handlers told him, the radiation would be so high it could burn through his annual exposure limit in just under an hour.”
   
• TEPCO has recently admitted that the clean up effort has 25% more jobs available than applicants. Those outside the situation believe this may have resulted in clean up firms stepping “… into the gap, recruiting people whose lives have reached a dead end or who have trouble finding a job outside the disaster zone.”
   
• Apparently, Japan’s nuclear industry has relied on a group called “nuclear gypsies” for construction of several of its nuclear power plants since possibly the 1970’s… and that members of that same migrant labor force have come around to clean up the Fukushima site.
   
• Many of the companies currently involved with the Fukushima clean up effort grandfathered out of legislation requiring screenings and checking of credentials. “… contractors working on decontamination have not been required to disclose information on management or undergo any screening.”
   
• Rumors of Yakuza (Japan’s dominant crime syndicate) involvement with a number of the contract labor companies involved in the clean up project have surfaced.

Not so sure about YOU, but we see a NUCLEAR problem with this mess. Pun intended.

Given the potential ramifications for the Pacific Ocean if the Fukushima site does not get cleaned up quickly and properly, and of the plant not correctly getting shut down to safe levels in a timely and safe manner, one would think that the rest of the world would pressure the Japanese Government into taking action to organize the rat’s nest of contractors at the site.

But, as the article we read said about the use of contract labor in Japan, “There’s been a century of tradition of big Japanese companies using contractors, and that’s just the way it in Japan.”

For more details on the situation, because we certainly could not have included them all in this simple article, we suggest reading the source article on Yahoo.

Moral of the story?

As we stated several times in the past, we suggest bringing a Geiger counter with you the next time you go out for sushi!

Today we read an article on Yahoo that contained seemingly one piece of bad news after another. For your convenience we will attempt to highlight the horrors taking place at the crippled TEPCO controlled nuclear power plant below:

• Earlier this week workers at the Fukushima site reported finding levels of known radioactive (and carcinogenic) materials like strontium in well water samples taken very recently. Health experts say materials like strontium build up in bones where they may eventually cause cancer.
   
• TEPCO stated that it now seems pretty likely that contaminated water leaking from the Fukushima site may have reached underground waterways that take water from land out towards the sea and testing of some ground water samples showed concentrations of up 3,200 becquerels per liter. By comparison, drinking water ought not contain more than 10 becquerels of radioactivity per liter.
   
• In a statement made previously, personnel at the Fukushima site stated that around 300 tons of mildly polluted water runs into the Pacific Ocean each day in underground currents of ground water — and now tests show that unsafe levels of radioactive materials may exist as unwanted component of that continually flowing river of pollution into the Pacific Ocean.
   
• The recent news of ground water contamination greatly complicates the plan of putting in an ‘ice barrier’ around the plant to keep ground water from becoming contaminated.
   
• Samples of ocean water taken from offshore locations have not (yet) turned up positive for contamination.
   
• TEPCO and the Japanese Government have both stated that they would entertain discussions with non-Japanese sources regarding possible solutions for the Fukushima radioactive waste water situation.

The article also mentioned Tokyo, Japan’s successful bid to host the 2020 Olympics… but honestly WE DON’T CARE about the 2020 Olympics when something desperately needs to get done to stop the flow of radioactive water and materials into the Pacific Ocean.

Let us not forget how Godzilla ‘supposedly’ got mutated: Radioactivity. At this point no one seems to know WHAT’s on the full list of radioactive materials that has already made its way into subterranean waterways headed into the ocean OR exactly WHERE all those contaminants have gone — except out into the sea… someplace… they think.

Coming to a beach near you…

Anyone who believes waste products from the Fukushima reactor site cannot reach their country needs to spend a few minutes researching past and present news stories about debris from the 2011 tsunami in Asia washing up on shorelines all around the world.

Moral of the story?

Stay tuned for more bad news, folks… More. Bad. News.

Again, not totally unexpected given the manner in which TEPCO surreptitiously (and many say incompetently) attempted to contain the radiation leaving the Fukushima site.

An article we ran across this morning published on Monday had this to say:

• Ten workers at Japan’s crippled Fukushima nuclear plant conducting cleanup activities at the site tested positive for exposure to small amounts of radiation.
   
• As of the time that article’s publishing, officials did not know how or when the workers became contaminated, though the term ‘radioactive dust’ did get mentioned as a possibility.
• Power and cooling systems at the nuclear facility became damaged and/or destroyed as a result of the March 2011 earthquake and resultant tsunami that wreaked havoc on the region.
   
• Large amounts of radiation escaped containment as a result of the earthquake and tsunami and TEPCO engineers on-site still have not gotten the plant’s leaks fully contained.
   
• Experts have installed temporary equipment to help keep the reactor(s) cool but power issues and water leaks have hampered containment efforts.

Personally, we wonder exactly HOW MUCH radiation has escaped this facility and in what form. Mostly as runoff water from the facility or did a fair amount escape in an airborne manner (i.e. as dust carried away by winds)?

No matter what, we don’t suspect that no one will want to swim in the ocean anywhere near that facility for many years to come, if ever again. Plus, given the fact that TEPCO seems to have attempted to keep some (disturbing) facts about site cleanup efforts out of the spotlight for so long, we suspect a lot more (disturbing) information will come to light in the coming months.

And in conclusion?

We intend to keep personal radiation monitors in the Emergency Preparedness/Readiness Kits we have in our homes.

Officials quickly stated that the accidental discharge of the radioactive material (trace amounts of tritium, cesium and cobalt) into Lake Michigan posed no risk to human health since the water did not contain a whole lot of radioactivity to begin with and got massively diluted before entering the lake.

Although workers did successfully stop the leak and prevent any further contamination of the lake by radioactive water from the plant, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission did shut the plant down once they discovered the leak.

You can read more about this story here.

Water Testing Blog’s take on all this…

After a little research we learned that this power plant had several other mandatory shutdowns prior to this one and that caused us to think the following thoughts:

• Why has this facility had so many problems?
• The NRC had its eye on this plant for past violations/concerns so it caught wind of the leak and addressed the matter relatively quickly. How many leaks of “slightly radioactive water” from power plants not on the NRC’s immediate watch list go undetected for long periods of time before anyone catches on?
• Despite the reported small quantities of cobalt, cesium and tritium, diluting contaminants does not change the fact that contaminants have entered the environment.

• Here in the United States we (supposedly) have inspectors actively checking up on nuclear power plants to make sure they follow the rules and have equipment that functions properly… but what about overseas? What sort of inspection schedules and government oversight exist in other countries with smaller budgets?

Needless to say we scared ourselves to the point of getting chills down our spine.

Testing for radiation

In movies you will see people walking around with complicated looking devices that also appear to cost a small fortune… but in real life the average person can pick up a reliable, easy-to-use radiation detector for under $300.

As an example, in the Water Test Kit Store you will find both the DX-1 Radiation Detector and the DX-2 Radiation Detector manufactured by Industrial Test Systems, a US based company.

The DX-1 meter detects radiation levels between 0 mR/hr and 10 mR/hr while the DX-2 meter detects radiation levels between 0 mR/hr and 100 mR/hr.

Both meters work equally well as front line radiation monitoring tools and both come with a 1 year warranty on the detector tube and a 5 year warranty on the electronics. Warranty serviced directly by the manufacturer, not some off-the-wall random electronics shop.