SF Rally At SF Japanese Consulate To Stop The NUKES & Defend The People Of Fukushima

10/11 SF Rally At SF Japanese Consulate To Stop The NUKES & Defend The People Of Fukushima
Speak Out To Stop The Release Of Radioactive Water In The Pacific
Monday October 11, 2021 3:00 PM
San Francisco Japanese Consulate
275 Battery St/California St.
San Francisco
Sponsored by No Nukes Action

The continuing dangers of the Fukushima nuclear meltdowns are a dangerous threat to the people of Fukushima, Japan and the world. The Japanese government regardless of Prime Minister plans to release over a million tons of tritium contaminated water in tanks around the broken nuclear plants. It is opposed by the fisherman of Fukshima, environmentalists and the people of neighboring countries.

The government which runs TEPCO also contines to endanger the people who surround the plants and more than ten years after the explosions the radioactive dangers continue to threaten the people.
Nuclear clean-up workers including workers from overseas and other workers are getting contaminated with no proper health and safety education and tens of thousands of bags of radioactive waste continue to remain scattered throughout the prefecture with no place to go. The government is also seeking to spread the contaminated waste throughout Japan in road construction and other projects.

The continued support for restarting nuclear plants also takes place in the midst of a covid pandemiic where many people have died in their homes form covid because their hospitals have filled with patients. It also takes place after the
government spent over $25 billion on the Olympics which further contributed the lack of spending on healthcare & human services.

The denialism of the dangers of of more nuclear plants by the Japanese government is also connected to the call for more militarization of Japan and measures to change the constitution to eliminate Article 9 which prohibits wars abroad.
The government also supports denialism about the role Comfort Women. This effort to deny the present reality is connected historically to the rulers of Japan and it has led to the cost of millions of lives.

No Nukes Action asks you to join us and speak out to demand the shutdown of all nuclear plants and the compensation of the families of Fukushima. We also oppose building of the new Haneko base in Okinawa which the people are massively opposed to. The people of Okinawa have right to a peaceful life without being terrorized by US military jets and helicopters and continued rapes and attacks on the women of Okinawa.

We will also speak out against the US support for this US base and support the removal of all US military bases out of Japan. The defeat of the United States in Afghanistan should not lead to the expansion of US military operations in Asia and this is exactly the policy of both the US government and their ally the Japanese governmment.

Physical distancing and masks for all participants at action
Speak-out In Stop The Restarting Of The Nuke Plants
Defense of the Residents of Fukushima
Don’t Dump The Radioactive Water In The Pacific Ocean
Sunday July 11, 2021 3PM
San Francisco Japanese Consulate
275 Battery St/California St.
San Francisco
No Nukes Action
http://nonukesaction.wordpress.com/


Lethal radiation levels detected in Fukushima nuke plant reactor lid
https://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/14440765
By TSUYOSHI KAWAMURA/ Staff Writer
September 15, 2021 at 14:57 JST

Play VideoNuclear Regulation Authority workers use two remotely controlled robots to measure radiation doses near the shield plug of the No. 2 reactor’s containment vessel at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant. (Provided by the Nuclear Regulation Authority.)
A remotely controlled robot inserts a dosimeter into a hole created to measure radiation levels beneath the uppermost lid of the No. 2 reactor’s containment vessel in a study on Sept. 9. (Provided by the Nuclear Regulation Authority)

The operator of the crippled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant could be forced to reconsider the plant's decommissioning process after lethal radiation levels equivalent to those of melted nuclear fuel were detected near one of the lids covering a reactor.
The Nuclear Regulation Authority said Sept. 14 that a radiation reading near the surface of the lid of the No. 2 reactor’s containment vessel was 1.2 sieverts per hour, higher than the level previously assumed.
The discovery came on Sept. 9 during a study by the NRA and Tokyo Electric Power Co., the operator of the plant.
TEPCO plans to insert a robotic arm into the No. 2 reactor’s containment vessel from its side in a trial planned for the second half of 2022 to retrieve pieces of melted nuclear fuel.
“We will consider what we can do during the trial on the basis of the detection of the concentration of contamination” in the upper area of the containment vessel, a TEPCO official said.
The round concrete lid, called the shield plug, is 12 meters in diameter and about 60 centimeters thick.
The shield plug consists of three lids placed on top of each other to block extremely high radiation emanating from the reactor core.
Each lid weighs 150 tons.
When operators work on the decommissioning, the shield plug will be removed to allow for the entry into the containment vessel.
The NRA said a huge amount of radioactive cesium that was released during the meltdown of the No. 2 reactor in March 2011 remained between the uppermost lid and middle lid.
In the Sept. 9 study, workers bored two holes measuring 7 cm deep each on the surface of the uppermost lid to measure radiation doses there by deploying remotely controlled robots.
One radiation reading was 1.2 sieverts per hour at a location 4 cm down from the surface in a hole near the center of the lid.

The Asahi Shimbun

Fukushima plant failed to probe cause of faulty filters
https://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/14440728
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
September 15, 2021 at 12:10 JST


In this Feb. 27, 2021, file photo, tanks (in gray, beige and blue) store water that was treated but is still radioactive after it was used to cool down spent fuel at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant in Okuma, Fukushima Prefecture. (AP Photo)
Officials at Japan’s wrecked Fukushima nuclear power plant have acknowledged they neglected to investigate the cause of faulty exhaust filters that are key to preventing radioactive pollution, after being forced to replace them twice.
Representatives of the operator, Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings, made the revelation Monday during a regular review of the Fukushima No. 1 plant at a meeting with Japanese regulatory authorities. Three reactors at the plant melted following a massive earthquake and tsunami in 2011.
The filters are designed to prevent particles from escaping into the air from a contaminated water treatment system--called Advanced Liquid Processing System--that removes selected radioactive isotopes in the water to below legal limits.
“At the core of this problem is TEPCO’s attitude,” a Nuclear Regulation Authority commissioner, Nobuhiko Ban, said at the meeting.
TEPCO has been repeatedly criticized for coverups and delayed disclosures of problems at the plant. In February, it said two seismometers at one reactor had remained broken since last year and failed to collect data during a powerful earthquake.
Company officials said that 24 out of 25 filters attached to the water treatment equipment had been found damaged last month, after an alarm went off as workers were moving sludge from the unit to a container, temporarily suspending the water treatment. The operation partially resumed last week after the filters were replaced.
TEPCO said it had detected similar damage in all of the filters two years ago, but never investigated the cause of the problem and did not take any preventive steps after replacing the filters.
Another regulatory commissioner, Satoru Tanaka, said at the meeting that the utility company should have responded to the problem more quickly to minimize the risk of possible radiation leakage into the environment.
TEPCO officials said dust monitors indicated no radiation leaks to the outside or exposure to plant workers inside the water treatment facility.
Akira Ono, head of TEPCO’s decommissioning unit, said he regretted the utility’s failure to address the problem earlier. He promised to improve safety management.
Japanese officials are working with the International Atomic Energy Agency to prepare to discharge into the ocean the wrecked plant’s cooling water, treated so its radioactivity levels are below legal limits. Slated to start in spring 2023, the controversial plan is fiercely opposed by Fukushima’s fishing community, as well as local residents and nearby countries.
Fully decommissioning the nuclear plant is expected to take decades, experts say.

Woman shows Okinawa’s plight with photos of U.S. copter crash
https://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/14422895
By DAIZO TERAMOTO/ Staff Writer
September 3, 2021 at 07:10 JST
Michiyo Arakawa visits Okinawa International University in Ginowan, Okinawa Prefecture, on Aug. 13. (Daizo Teramoto)
GINOWAN, Okinawa Prefecture--Michiyo Arakawa has visited Okinawa International University here on Aug. 13 almost every year to take photos in a surrounding residential area since a U.S. military helicopter crashed on the university 17 years ago.
When she finds changes in the townscape, such as new homes having been built, Arakawa is overwhelmed by the unchanging reality of this southernmost prefecture, which continues to be plagued by accidents caused by the U.S. military.
On Aug. 13, 2004, Arakawa rushed to the university, about a 15-minute drive from Urasoe, where she lived at the time, after seeing the breaking news about the accident on TV.
She saw the charred wall of a building on the campus, just south of U.S. Marine Corps Air Station Futenma, where the CH-53 heavy-lift transport helicopter was based.
Arakawa has since organized an annual exhibition of photos about the accident taken by students and residents to coincide with the anniversary as a leading member of the Watashi no Mita Kabe (The wall I saw) project.
A photo provided to the Watashi no Mita Kabe project shows Okinawa International University and the surrounding area in Ginowan, Okinawa Prefecture, immediately after a U.S. military helicopter crashed on Aug. 13, 2004. (Provided by the project executive committee)
On that day, Arakawa remembered how her father, who was born before World War II, used to tell her that U.S. military aircraft could fall from the sky at any moment.
In 1966, a relative of her father was killed when a U.S. military aircraft crashed into a car he was driving. He was 33 years old. Okinawa Prefecture was still under U.S. military occupation.
Arakawa feels uncomfortable seeing U.S. military aircraft flying over the accident site where there is not even a cenotaph every time she passes by the location after she became an adult.
No residents were injured when the CH-53 helicopter crashed on Okinawa International University, but the accident uncovered the realities of the lopsided Japan-U.S. relationship.
The U.S. military shut down the site for seven days based on the bilateral Status of Forces Agreement and other arrangements. Prefectural police were not allowed to carry out substantial investigations.
Broken pieces of the fuselage were scattered in a residential area around the university.
Arakawa, a “kirigami” paper-cutting artist, started collecting photos of the crash site taken by students and residents. She felt as if the photos were filled with their anger and frustration.
One shows the white wall of the university building with scorch marks, while a java cedar tree whose upper part was chopped off is seen in another.
A photo provided to the Watashi no Mita Kabe project shows a damaged part of a crashed U.S. military helicopter near Okinawa International University on Aug. 13, 2004. (Provided by the project executive committee)
The executive committee of the Watashi no Mita Kabe project collected about 1,000 photos in two years after the accident. The number has increased to about 1,500.
Arakawa was forced to cancel the exhibition for the first time last year due to the novel coronavirus pandemic. She intends to hold the event this year after things settle down.
In Okinawa Prefecture, there were eight U.S. military aircraft crashes and 394 crash landings between 2005 and 2020, according to figures compiled by the prefectural government.
In June, a U.S. military helicopter made an emergency landing on Tsukenjima island in Uruma in the prefecture.
The central government says Japan-U.S. guidelines on responses to U.S. military aircraft accidents have been improved.
But Arakawa is left unconvinced as she sees prefectural police officers checking out accident sites from outside the perimeter.
“I’m sure those who provided the photos are also angry,” she said. “We want to continue the exhibition until there are no more accidents.”
A photo provided to the Watashi no Mita Kabe project shows the wreckage of a U.S. military helicopter at Okinawa International University. (Provided by the project executive committee)

U.S. Marines in Okinawa dump contaminated water into sewer
https://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/14427364
THE ASAHI SHIMBUN
August 27, 2021 at 15:20 JST

The U.S. Marine Corps Air Station Futenma, located in the heart of a residential area in Ginowan, Okinawa Prefecture, in July 2021 (Eiji Hori)

U.S. Marines based in Okinawa Prefecture dumped water contaminated with a potentially dangerous chemical into the local sewage system on Aug. 26, raising a stink among central, prefectural and municipal government officials.
The U.S. military did not help matters by informing their Japanese counterparts about the dumping less than an hour before proceeding with it. The incident occurred on the same day U.S. military officials were to discuss with Japanese officials about how to release the water.
“I feel strong outrage that the U.S. military unilaterally dumped the water even while they knew that discussions were proceeding between Japan and the United States on how to handle the contaminated water,” Okinawa Governor Denny Tamaki said at a hastily called news conference on Aug. 26.
“The unilateral release of the water is regrettable," a Foreign Ministry official handling the issue said. "We will lodge protests from all possible levels.”
A Defense Ministry official said, “It occurred so suddenly. I never thought they would do such a thing.”
The U.S. Marines said water contaminated with perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS) was released into the sewage system from U.S. Marine Corps Air Station Futenma in Ginowan.
According to Okinawa prefectural government officials, an email was received at 9:05 a.m. on Aug. 26 from the U.S. military saying that water treated at a processing plant on base would be released at around 9:30 a.m.
The Foreign Ministry in Tokyo received a similar message.
Okinawa prefectural officials were notified at 10:14 a.m. by the Okinawa Defense Bureau that the water had been released at about 9:30 a.m.
A local Okinawa newspaper reported in early July that the U.S. military had inquired with their Japanese counterparts about the possibility of releasing the water. Okinawa prefectural government officials asked the Okinawa Defense Bureau to confirm the report.
U.S. military officials explained to central and prefectural government officials that they had been commissioning a private-sector company to treat the water, but that the fiscal burden had become excessive. But U.S. military officials also said the released water would be treated to meet water quality levels for drinking water before being dumped into the sewage system.
Okinawa prefectural officials asked that no release of the water be conducted until the safety of doing so could be confirmed.
The Ginowan municipal assembly unanimously passed a resolution and opinion paper asking the U.S. military to handle the water in a responsible manner as in the past.
NO RULES TO STOP SEWAGE SYSTEM RELEASE
In its Aug. 26 announcement, the U.S. military said the water had been treated so that most of the pollutants were removed. Okinawa Defense Bureau officials told Okinawa prefectural government officials that about 64,000 liters of water had been released.
The Okinawa prefectural and Ginowan municipal governments immediately lodged protests with the U.S. military.
While the Environment Ministry and health ministry have water quality standards for the levels of PFOS in rivers and drinking water, there are no rules at the central or local government levels about releasing water containing PFOS into the sewage system.
That led to a meeting on July 19 at the Futenma air station among officials of the U.S. military as well as the central and prefectural government. The three parties collected samples of treated water that went through the processing plant on base and were scheduled to conduct separate analyses.
The meeting scheduled for Aug. 26 was intended to discuss how to release the results of the three studies.
According to the U.S. military announcement, the water released contained less than 2.7 nanograms of PFOS per liter of water.
Water quality standards limit the combined presence of PFOS and other substances to 50 nanograms per liter of water.
But Tamaki blasted the U.S. military announcement about the water quality level as not relevant because the water was released as discussions were to be held on whether the water could be safely treated.
A high-ranking prefectural official said without standards for the release of water no estimate could be made about the possible environmental impact. The official added there was a high possibility the water would flow into the ocean untreated as the prefectural government sewage processing facilities are not equipped to reduce the concentration of PFOS.
Ginowan Mayor Masanori Matsugawa touched upon the leaking of firefighting foam containing PFOS from the Futenma base into a nearby river in April 2020.
He issued a statement on Aug. 26 that said, “It is extremely regrettable because the release of the water lacked any consideration for local residents who still have not erased their concerns” from last year’s incident.
Matsugawa, through the Okinawa Defense Bureau, has asked the U.S. military to stop all future releases of such contaminated water.
(This article was written by Mika Kuniyoshi and Naoki Matsuyama.)