Executive Of Fukushima Subcontractor Admits To Telling Workers To Falsify Radiation Exposure Levels

[FBaggins]

"I came up with the idea to use covers because the dosimeters' alarm repeatedly sounded" when he first entered the site, said Teruo Sagara, a director at the subcontractor, Build-up, during a press conference Monday at its office in Koriyama, Fukushima Prefecture. "It was wrong," Sagara, 54, said.

President Takashi Wada, 57, who also attended the conference, said Sagara would be dismissed from his post.

...snip...

He made it clear the move was aimed at falsifying exposure readings, saying, "If we're exposed to levels close to the maximum, we won't be able to get future work." Three of the 10, however, refused to wear dosimeters with lead covers the following morning and were excluded from the day's work.

Sagara and four other employees had dosimeters with lead covers in their pockets while working at the embankment, while others did not as they were working at a different location with relatively lower radiation levels. However, Sagara found the shields did not lower the radiation readings and he gave up on the scheme and discarded the lead covers at the plant.

"I feel sorry for causing trouble to many people with my selfish decision," Sagara said.

http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/national/T120724004147.htm

Sagara found the shields did not lower the radiation readings and he gave up on the scheme

Lol... not the sharpest tool in the shed. He cut the "shields" from a sheet of lead he found in a waste pile at the site. He might have actually increased the total measured dose if the sheet was itself contaminated.

Then there's the issue of bremsstrahlung radiation. Lead isn't exactly ideal when you're talking about beta particle radiation (as with decaying cesium)

[phantom power]

1. sometimes the answer is definitely "stupid *and* evil"

[FBaggins]

2. Oh... I don't know about "evil"

It would be for some corporate exec to require it off all his employees, but this seems like it's a manager of a dozen people trying to keep them employed.

I don't remember the specifics, but let's say that the annual limit is 100msv (the level at which additional cancer risk is thought to be identifiable). Let's further suppose that he assumed that his deception would result in exceeding that dosage (call it 200 msv). We'll say that this could increase the workers' chances of contracting cancer at some point in their life from 40% to 41% (the actual increase is much lower of course).

If you have 1,000 people working for you, then your decision could be said to cause ten extra cancers (and five extra cancer deaths). That could reasonably be called "evil".

But now consider all of the dangerous jobs that people take on. The additional risk for choosing to be a fisherman for a decade is greater than this exaggerated example, yet tens of thousands of americans elect to do it anyway. They want the job.

Workers choose to take such risks all the time. The handyman who recognizes asbestos in the insulation he's replacing, but elects to ignore it because he knows that to report it would shift the work from him to someone who was certified to remediate asbestos. He chooses to accept the tiny additional risk in exchange for the paycheck he needs.

Don't get me wrong. It's the wrong thing to do (the safety guidelines exist for a reason), but IMO it transitions from "stupid/reckless" toward "evil" in stages as the number of people involved increase and their ability to accept/decline the decision decreases.

[phantom power]

3. If it's a risk they wanted to take, and he was trying to help...

then no, I wouldn't consider that evil.