{"id":6389,"date":"2014-07-19T10:08:42","date_gmt":"2014-07-19T10:08:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/?p=6389"},"modified":"2014-07-19T10:10:26","modified_gmt":"2014-07-19T10:10:26","slug":"tepco-failed-to-disclose-crops-over-20km-from-fukushima-were-contaminated","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/?p=6389","title":{"rendered":"TEPCO failed to disclose crops over 20KM from Fukushima were contaminated"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Screen<\/a><\/p>\n

RT.com<\/p>\n

Fourteen different rice paddies outside of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant evacuation zone were contaminated with radioactive material in August 2013, Japan\u2019s agriculture ministry has found.<\/p>\n

Despite the findings \u2013 which blamed the removal of a large piece of debris from the Fukushima No. 3 reactor building for the contamination \u2013 Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO) is moving ahead with plans to remove more highly radioactive debris from the No. 1 reactor building later this month.<\/p>\n

According to the\u00a0Asahi Shimbun<\/a>, TEPCO\u2019s removal process was halted when the agriculture ministry informed it of the contamination back in March, but operations are set to begin again soon. The ministry instructed the operator to implement protective measures for future work, but it\u2019s unclear how extensive those changes are. One thing TEPCO officials will do is deploy more anti-scattering agents than they did before, but the company cautioned that\u00a0\u201ca large amount of radioactive substances\u201d<\/em>\u00a0would likely be released anyway.<\/p>\n

\u201c(If TEPCO hopes to resume rubble-clearing operations), providing information on the possibility of the spread of (contaminated substances) is a major premise,\u201d<\/em>\u00a0Takehiko Murayama of the Tokyo Institute of Technology said to the newspaper.<\/p>\n

In addition to the fourteen paddies contaminated beyond the Fukushima evacuation zone, five sites within the zone were also contaminated. The rice paddies are located in the city of Minami-Soma \u2013 more than 20 kilometers away from the nuclear plant itself \u2013 and government officials said that crops gathered in August featured cesium levels beyond Japan\u2019s safety limit of 100 becquerels per kilogram<\/p>\n

\"AA farmer cuts the grass at an abandoned farm at the edge of the exclusion zone at the coastal area near Minamisoma near the crippled Daiichi nuclear plant in Fukushima prefecture (Reuters \/ Damir Sagolj)<\/div>\n

So far, officials believe Minami-Soma is the only city within Fukushima prefecture containing multiple sites with such high cesium levels.<\/p>\n

Although the agriculture ministry\u2019s findings were completed in March, neither the government nor TEPCO opted to inform the public about the situation. As a result, residents \u2013 including Minami-Soma Mayor Katsunobu Sakurai \u2013 are voicing anger over the lack of transparency.<\/p>\n

“We cannot help but distrust the agriculture ministry, which did not promptly let us know of the matter, despite it being a serious issue,”<\/em>\u00a0Sakurai said, as quoted in a\u00a0separate<\/a>\u00a0Asahi Shimbun report.<\/p>\n

“We protest (TEPCO’s) irresponsible clearing of rubble that raises concern among farmers. We demand an explanation.”<\/em><\/p>\n

TEPCO officials claim it\u2019s not 100 percent clear that removing debris from the No. 3 reactor building was to blame for the incident, noting it still doesn\u2019t know just how far away the cesium spread. Government officials, meanwhile, said an uptick in contamination readings following the August 19 operation would only make sense if radiation was dislodged and spread during the removal process.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe cannot think of any other factors,\u201d<\/em>\u00a0a prefectural official told the Shimbun.\u00a0\u201cIt is almost certain that the rise in readings was caused by the clearance work.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

The news comes after rice harvested from several fields in Fukushima prefecture was fed to government officials last December, as a way to show that decontamination efforts had been successful. As RTreported<\/a>\u00a0then, that rice was collected from Kawamata Town (about 40 kilometers from Minami-Soma) and Iitate Village (roughly 27 kilometers away).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

RT.com Fourteen different rice paddies outside of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant evacuation zone were contaminated with radioactive material in August 2013, Japan\u2019s agriculture ministry has found. Despite the findings \u2013 which blamed the removal of a large piece … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6389","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6389","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6389"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6389\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6389"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6389"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6389"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}