As Fukushima Cleanup Begins, Long-term Impacts are Weighed by Winifred Bird: Yale Environment 360

file:///C|/...kushima%20Cleanup%20Begins,%20Long-term%20Impacts%20are%20Weighed%20by%20Winifred%20Bird%20%20Yale%20Environment%20360.htm[1/28/2012 9:00:35 AM]

Officials estimate thatFukushima will have todispose of 15 to 31million cubic meters ofcontaminated soil anddebris.

09 JAN 2012: REPORT

As Fukushima Cleanup Begins,Long-term Impacts are WeighedThe Japanese government is launching a large-scale cleanup of thefields, forests, and villages contaminated by the Fukushima nucleardisaster. But some experts caution that an overly aggressive remediationprogram could create a host of other environmental problems.BY WINIFRED BIRD

Following the nuclear disaster at Chernobyl 25 years ago, the Sovietgovernment chose long-term evacuation over extensive decontamination;as a result, the plants and animals near Chernobyl inhabit an environmentthat is both largely devoid of humans and severely contaminated byradioactive fallout.

The meltdown last March of three nuclear reactors at the FukushimaDaiichi nuclear power plant in Japan also contaminated large areas offarmland and forests, albeit not as severely or extensively as at Chernobyl.But lacking land for resettlement and facing public outrage over theaccident, the Japanese government has chosen a very different path,embarking on a decontamination effort of unprecedented scale.

Beginning this month, at least 1,000 square kilometers of land — much ofit forest and farms — will be cleaned up as workers power-spray buildings,scrape soil off fields, and remove fallen leaves and undergrowth fromwoods near houses. The goal is to make all of Fukushima livable again. Butas scientists, engineers, and ordinary residents begin this massive task,they face the possibility that their efforts will create new environmentalproblems in direct proportion to their success in remediating theradioactive contamination.

“Decontamination can be really effective, [but] what you have is a tradeoffbetween dose reduction and environmental impact,” says Kathryn Higley,a radioecologist at Oregon State University who has studied severaldecontamination sites in theUnited States. That’s because theradioactive particles the Japaneseare trying to get rid of can bequite “sticky.” Removing themwithout removing large amountsof soil, leaves, and living plants isnearly impossible. The Ministryof Environment estimates thatFukushima will have to dispose of15 to 31 million cubic meters of contaminated soil and debris by the timethe decontamination projects end. Costs are predicted to exceed a trillion

ABOUT THE AUTHORWinifred Bird is a freelancejournalist living in Japan. Shewrites about the environment forthe Japan Times, Japan Journal,and other publications. In a

previous article for Yale Environment 360, shereported on the struggle to maintain bear populationsin heavily urbanized Japan.MORE BY THIS AUTHOR

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As Fukushima Cleanup Begins, Long-term Impacts are Weighed by Winifred Bird: Yale Environment 360

file:///C|/...kushima%20Cleanup%20Begins,%20Long-term%20Impacts%20are%20Weighed%20by%20Winifred%20Bird%20%20Yale%20Environment%20360.htm[1/28/2012 9:00:35 AM]

The effectiveness andefficiency of variousdecontaminationtechnologies is beingtested at 19 model sites.

yen.

Given these drawbacks, an International Atomic Energy Agency fact-finding mission advised the Japanese authorities to “avoid over-conservatism” in their decontamination plans — in other words, not toclean up more than necessary to protect human health. Yet the healthimpacts of long-term exposure to low levels of radiation are not entirelyclear. Many scientists believe exposure to even very low levels can slightlyincrease cancer risk, and many Fukushima residents feel they should notbe forced to live with that risk — or the undercurrent of fear it brings.

But while the political debate over how much to clean up rages on, morepractical preparations are already underway. On a frigid afternoon lastmonth, about 160 workers wearing papery white jumpsuits and hot pinkrespirators filed up a winding road into a farming hamlet in KawamataTown, about an hour southeast of Fukushima and just inside theevacuation zone. Were it not for the bright blue plastic sheets, heavy-dutyleaf vacuums, cranes, and trucks scattered everywhere, the village wouldhave been picturesque. Now, the intricacy of the landscape — its tiny ricepaddies, bamboo groves, woodlots, streams, and earth-walled barns — wasadding to the challenges of decontamination.

The workers fanned out over the otherwise abandoned rolling hills andbrown fields. One group climbed a hill to rake fallen leaves into large blackbags, while another spread magnesium over fields to solidify the soil forlater removal. Nearby, another ofthe indistinguishable whitefigures chopped down overgrownweeds.

The workers had been hired byTaisei Corporation, one of threelarge construction firms that woncontracts from the Japan AtomicEnergy Agency to test the effectiveness and efficiency of variousdecontamination technologies at 19 model sites throughout FukushimaPrefecture. The results of these experiments will guide the large-scaledecontamination effort set to begin later this month.

Human exposure can be lowered without cleansing the entire landscape, ofcourse. Japan’s bans on hunting bears and wild pigs, selling wildmushrooms, and growing rice in certain areas fall into this category; sodoes the recommendation from Fukushima’s agriculture department thatfarmers add potassium fertilizer to moderately contaminated fields inorder to minimize cesium uptake by crops. As for forests, the focus for thetime being is on decontaminating only patches close to homes becausemost people spend little time in remote woods.

But because the most heavily contaminated parts of Fukushima are, likethe village in Kawamata, a hilly mosaic of houses, woods, and fields, thegovernment can’t leave nature entirely untouched. Houses backed bywooded hills are very common, as are fields in small valleys; in both cases,runoff from uphill can recontaminate lowlands. Intense public concernover contaminated food, meanwhile, means many farmers want to cleanup their land as quickly and thoroughly as possible.

Japan’s decontamination efforts are

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As Fukushima Cleanup Begins, Long-term Impacts are Weighed by Winifred Bird: Yale Environment 360

file:///C|/...kushima%20Cleanup%20Begins,%20Long-term%20Impacts%20are%20Weighed%20by%20Winifred%20Bird%20%20Yale%20Environment%20360.htm[1/28/2012 9:00:35 AM]

Click to enlarge

STR/AFP/Getty Images

Japanese soldiers collect contaminatedleaves in Fukushima Prefecture.

‘You take away all thesoil and the ecosystem isdestroyed,’ says onescientist.

focused mostly on the radionuclidescaesium-134 and caesium-137, whichare currently present in approximatelyequal amounts and have half-lives oftwo and 30 years respectively. Althoughother radionuclides have been found inJapan, these two pose the greatest long-term threat to human health throughingestion and external exposure.Radiocaesium has been found in all ofJapan’s prefectures but is most highlyconcentrated within an oblong swaththat extends about 50 kilometers

northwest of the plant, and to a lesser extent throughout eastern andcentral Fukushima Prefecture.

Radiological risk assessment expert John Till, president of the U.S.-basedRisk Assessment Corporation, says the fallout will probably be gone fromthe surface of plants within a few years, but attach strongly, through ionexchange, to soil — in particular to the clay soils common throughoutFukushima. From there the radiocaesium will move slowly into plants, at arate — and level of risk — that is still unclear.

Remediation methods that work, Higley says, “seem kind of absurd butactually make sense”: cutting, scraping, raking, and plowing, to varyingdegrees of depth and severity. Government agencies, private companies,and academics are all experimenting to find the most efficient and effectivemethods for Fukushima. The prefectural government has recommendedremoving leaf litter from woods within 20 meters of houses and deeplyplowing or turning over fields to dilute contamination. In the heavilycontaminated fields that cover at least 8,000 hectares around Fukushima,several centimeters of topsoil will likely be removed. Some farmers arepower-washing their orchards or shaving bark off trees.

Officials involved with the cleanup are well aware of the drawbacks tothese approaches: huge amounts of radioactive waste that no one wants tostore long term; immense investments of money, labor, and time; damageto wildlife habitat and soil fertility; increased erosion on scraped-barehillsides; and intrusion by peopleand machinery into every areascheduled for remediation.

“You remove leaf litter from theforest floor and radiation levelsfall,” said Shinichi Nakayama, anuclear engineer at the Japan Atomic Energy Agency who is overseeing the19 decontamination pilot projects planned or underway. “You take awaythe deeper layers and they fall more. But you take it all away and theecosystem is destroyed. Water retention goes down and flooding canoccur.”

Although no significant conservation areas lie within the mostcontaminated parts of Fukushima, some species on the prefecture’s RedList of endangered or threatened species — including the grasslandbutterfly and the Japanese peregrine falcon, both listed as “vulnerable” —are found there and could be impacted if projects like these areimplemented on a large scale.

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As Fukushima Cleanup Begins, Long-term Impacts are Weighed by Winifred Bird: Yale Environment 360

file:///C|/...kushima%20Cleanup%20Begins,%20Long-term%20Impacts%20are%20Weighed%20by%20Winifred%20Bird%20%20Yale%20Environment%20360.htm[1/28/2012 9:00:35 AM]

MORE FROM YALE e360

Radioactivity in the Ocean:Diluted, But Far from Harmless

The release ofcontaminated water fromthe crippled Fukushimanuclear complex last yearstoked concerns abouthow that radioactivitymight affect marine life inthe Pacific. While the

ocean’s capacity to dilute radiation ishuge, Elizabeth Grossman reported lastyear that nuclear isotopes were alreadymoving up the local food chain.READ MORE

But Kiyomi Yokota, a naturalist and secretary of the Fukushima NatureConservation Association, said that standing up for wildlife in the currentsituation would be difficult. “If people want to go home, I don’t think Icould tell them, ‘No, stop the decontamination, save the fish,’” he said.Human health, in other words, trumps habitat.

But just how much fallout does the government need to remove in order toprotect human health? On that key question the science is frustratinglyinconclusive.

Past studies have shown that cancer rates rise in populations exposed to adose of 100 millisieverts (mSv) of radiation. They reveal much less aboutthe situation in Fukushima, where lower doses will continue for manyyears. (Measurements taken in Fukushima City in late December, forinstance, ranged from .33 to 1.04 microsieverts per hour; sustained for ayear, that adds up to doses of 2.9 to 9.1 millisieverts.) The InternationalCommission on Radiological Protection recommends that the generalpublic be exposed to a yearly dose of no more than 1 to 20 mSv following anuclear accident; those two numbers represent the difference between adecontamination effort confined to about 500 square kilometers and oneencompassing much of Fukushima Prefecture and beyond.

So far, Japan’s central government has taken direct responsibility fordecontaminating areas within 20 kilometers of the plant and those whereyearly exposure could exceed 20 mSv. (Together these areas make up theevacuation zone.) The Environment Ministry predicts natural radioactivedecay and weathering alone will reduce levels 40 percent within two years;Large-scale versions of the decontamination pilot projects will supposedlydo the rest.

Some residents and activistgroups like Greenpeace havecalled for a faster and moreaggressive decontaminationeffort, while others believe mostof Fukushima is already safeenough to live in. Still othersdoubt decontamination willsucceed and are pushing thegovernment to spend money onrelocation instead.

“Safe? What is safe?” SumikoToyoguchi, an elderly evacuee

who used to live six kilometers from the nuclear plant and now lives intemporary housing in Fukushima City, asked last month. She said shedoesn’t want to return to her former home even after decontaminationtakes place, in part because she worries the work won’t be doneadequately.

Ten months after the nuclear disaster, trust in the authorities is nearlynonexistent. Without it, Japan’s government risks the biggest cleanupfiasco of all: a decontamination effort that carries huge financial andenvironmental costs but still fails to convince Fukushima residents thattheir homes, farms, and forests are safe once again.

POSTED ON 09 JAN 2012 IN BIODIVERSITY ENERGY FORESTS POLICY &

POLITICS POLICY & POLITICS POLLUTION & HEALTH ASIA

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