Radiation in No. 3 reactor too high for work

[robdogbucky]

Radiation in No. 3 reactor too high for work

The operator of the damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant says radiation levels in one of the reactor buildings remain too high for workers to do their jobs.

Tokyo Electric Power Company, or TEPCO, sent 9 workers into the No.3 reactor building for about 20 minutes on Thursday, in a bid to start stabilizing the reactor.

The utility plans to inject nitrogen gas into the containment vessel to prevent accumulated hydrogen from causing an explosion. It also intends to install a system to cool the reactor with circulating water.

The workers withdrew after measuring radiation of 100 millisieverts per hour near the reactor's containment vessel. TEPCO says it intended to limit the workers' exposure to below 5 millisieverts per hour. But as all 9 received higher doses, it has suspended work while considering a course of action.

Friday, June 10, 2011 20:23 +0900 (JST)

http://www3.nhk.or.jp/daily/english/10_26.html



Other updates:


Retailer told to stay mum about radiation level in tea


SHIZUOKA (Kyodo) -- Shizuoka Prefecture told a Tokyo-based mail order retailer to refrain from carrying information on its website that radioactive materials in excess of the standard limit were detected in tea grown in the prefecture, the retailer said Friday.

A prefectural official told Radishbo-ya Co., after the retailer made a query to the local government Monday, not to disclose the finding for a while on fears that the message could cause unwarranted harm to Shizuoka tea growers, adding that the prefecture would confirm it on its own, the firm said.

The firm, for its part, sent purchasers of the tea letters informing them about the finding, while offering to recall the products.

Shizuoka is famous for its tea production...

http://mdn.mainichi.jp/mdnnews/news/20110610p2g00m0dm090000c.html



Fukushima workers' exposure tops 650mSV

Detailed tests have found that 2 workers who were exposed to radiation at the crippled Fukushima nuclear plant received doses of more than twice the government-mandated emergency limit.

The men in their 30s and 40s were each found in early June to have been exposed to over 250 millisieverts -- the new higher limit for exposure that the government introduced after problems began at the Fukushima Daiichi plant.

The National Institute of Radiological Sciences conducted 2 more rounds of detailed tests to measure the amount of radioactive iodine and cesium the 2 men could have inhaled.

After analyzing the men's work shifts since the March 11th disaster, the Institute concluded that the man in his 30s was exposed to 678 millisieverts, and the man in his 40s, 643 millisieverts. Internal exposure accounted for more than 80 percent of the figures...

Friday, June 10, 2011 19:45 +0900 (JST)

http://www3.nhk.or.jp/daily/english/10_33.html




Radioactive strontium detected in 11 places in Fukushima Prefecture.

2011/06/10

Low levels of radioactive strontium have been detected in soil at 11 locations in Fukushima Prefecture, the government announced June 8.

The radioactive strontium was found in samples taken at places around the region where radioactive cesium was previously detected.

The government says continued monitoring is necessary because some strontium have a long half-life and could affect human health for a prolonged period if absorbed by the body. However, at the levels found, the substance is not a health hazard, the ministry said.

The Ministry of Education, Culture Sports, Science and Technology said it took soil samples between April 10 and May 19...

http://www.asahi.com/english/TKY201106090172.html




Sludge from contaminated water would be packed with radioactive substances: TEPCO


Sludge that will be generated in the process of treating radioactive water at the tsunami-hit Fukushima No. 1 Nuclear Power Plant is estimated to contain 100 million becquerels of radioactive substances per cubic centimeter, the plant operator said.

Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO) made the estimation in a report on the water treatment system submitted to the government's Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency (NISA).

While trying to begin treating the increasing volumes of radioactive water at an early date, TEPCO has failed to indicate how it will store the toxic sludge or a final disposal site in its road map to bring the crippled plant under control.

TEPCO will launch treatment of the radioactive water on June 15 at the earliest. Specifically, it will use special equipment produced by Kurion Inc. of the United States and France-based Areva -- which have broad experience removing radioactive substances -- to separate sludge contaminated with radioactive substances from the water. The sludge is expected to contain such high levels of radiation because radioactive substances in it will be condensed...

http://mdn.mainichi.jp/mdnnews/news/20110610p2a00m0na010000c.html

[meow mix]

1. pretty toasty in that reactor too, despite the "cooling" nt

or i should say...under the reactor

[barbtries]

2. they throw out these numbers

without giving an explanation of what they mean to no-nothings like me. are the lives of those workers jeopardized? i'm going to say yes, they are. is the threat immediate? i don't know. are they suffering from the radiation today? i don't know.

i listened to an interview with Arne Gundersen the other day. he said the biggest unaddressed issue, or one of them, at this point is the ground water. has Tepco or the govt of Japan addressed the issue of the ground water, ever?

sometimes i think this disaster will just play out in this haphazard way until bodies are just dropping. and if that doesn't happen then the people living close to the disaster will just be exposed to so much radiation over time and they will die later on of cancers and the PTB will be there saying you can't be sure it's from the disaster. but it will be because of it.

[robdogbucky]

3. So, I thought I would share the story of my MIL

She is 90. Lived 45 of those years on military bases, was the daughter of a general and then married an AF Colonel. Had thyroid disease that required her to have radiation to treat it. Then later, she had breast cancer and mastectomy, also received radiation in that treatment to ensure it did not return. Her husband, my late father-in-law, was an atomic veteran, having been intentionally exposed along with hundreds of others while witnessing a nuclear detonation during tests on the Nevada desert. He had been diagnosed with little brain tumors known to be generated by exposure to radiation. He did not die from those, but that cancer was in him. As husband and wife they slept in the same bed for over 50 years.

The disease she is currently diagnosed with is:

"myelodysplastic syndrome, a disorder of the stem cells in the bone marrow which results in poor production of red blood cells and production of abnormal red blood cells by the bone marrow. (Carl Sagan had this.) This causes anemia, fatigue, pallor and often leads to leukemia. It is incurable and often results from radiation exposure and exposure to toxic chemicals. Many patients get it after chemotherapy..."

The treatment, an expensive drug, is a stop gap measure and hopefully can gain her some vitality in her last days, but it is incurable and only a matter of time. Yes, she is 90, but the medical literature says this illness can be caused by two things, benzene and radiation. There were no direct benzene exposures that I know of. She certainly has it, she certainly had multiple exposures to radiation of her own and then was close to her husband that had been irradiated intentionally by our military while he served. She had to be quarantined for a period of time back when treated for the thyroid condition due to her radioactivity.

This is one way that radiation (even all that low-level radiation we receive for cancer, X-rays, etc.)kills. Very slowly. Granted, she could have been developing other diseases, but this is what is taking her out. We only hope the medicine can keep her comfortable and more alert than she has been feeling. In other words, this is a form of bone marrow cancer caused by radiation.

This is the way that the industry and government support for nuclear power and its dangers can be shoved under the rug. Most times the radiation takes so long to develop into cancers, etc., that folks do not recall any contact with radiation and have no clue. They count on that period of time and folks' memories being short.

That is why we are told there is no real danger. We won't realize the danger until it is way too late in most cases. This is a silent, invisible killer. Slow acting, and like global climate change, it is easy to deflect and distract becuase its effects are not immediately apparent. Until it is way too late.


Just my dos centavos

robdogbucky

[barbtries]

4. well...

yes, but 90. Nobody in my family that i am aware of has made it past 85. that is a good long life. and since she is your mother-in-law, she must have had healthy children, right? so that's a good thing. so on balance, i find your story more reassuring than scary. i hope she has a peaceful and love-filled exit and does not suffer.

[robdogbucky]

6. Thanks for the sentiment

She is a tough old woman and her children were/are healthy now.

I added her story because I just became aware of the diagnosis and had it explained to me. I agree she is a lucky one, as was her late husband in that he lived with those little tumors in his head for 50+ years and did not die from them. Cold comfort. Everyone is different and genetic component is hard to deny in cases where one person's immune system is able to stave off what would kill others much sooner. Both my wife and I have longevity in our blood lines so that is a comforting thought.

I have had cousins where the entire family has fallen to various cancers well before age of 50, except the mother, my aunt, my mother's sister, who died from Alzheimer's at 93. My own mother is 95 in September and going strong still. My dad died of lung cancer and emphysema at age 62 from smoking about 4 packs a day most of his life. Exposures and lifestyles and genetics tell the tale as to when and how we can develop diseases. Doctors say we have such little cells in us and our immune systems deal with most of them efficiently, until one day, for whatever reason, that immune protection breaks down and nature comes a calling with a growth here, a lack of red blood cells there, etc.

So, I know we are lucky with her and indeed I think she will have a peaceful passing, eventually.

Others are not so lucky and I have personally known of two men that served in Vietnam in the Navy of all things, and died extremely premature deaths from painful cancers, one pancreatic and the other adenocarcinoma. In their late 30s and early 40s. Neither one was sickly their entire lives until they got back from their TDYs. They both did attack their own immune systems with tobacco and alcohol and I'm sure that didn't help them. But I can't help thinking why did they both have similar fates when they both had similar war time experiences? Oh, well, ours is not to reason why, ours is but to do and die.

This is how radiation works over time as the Hiroshima and Nagasaki projects have shown with 60+ years of data to work from. I think they are getting away with murder, albeit slow murder.



Just my dos centavos

robdogbucky

[barbtries]

7. i absolutely agree.

lot of people's health is just being disregarded.

[aquart]

5. My stepmother was a Red Cross secretary in Japan, 1946.

She took a sightseeing tour of the A-Bomb sites. Came home to New York. Her first cancer was thyroid cancer. Then stomach cancer. Then breast cancer finally got her in her 70s.

Nah, that stuff doesn't affect health. It's a great big coincidence.

[Melissa G]

8. Thank you for your posts! n/t