Toxic Fukushima fallout threatens fishermen's livelihoods

[kristopher]

Toxic Fukushima fallout threatens fishermen's livelihoods
Rising anger at Tepco two years after Japanese tsunami and nuclear meltdown as contaminated water seeps into Pacific

Justin McCurry in Hisanohama
The Guardian, Friday 9 August 2013 13.56 EDT



Fisherman Kazuo Niitsuma has been unable to work since the 2011 meltdown at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. Photograph: Justin McCurry for the Guardian


Despite his age, 63-year-old Kazuo Niitsuma believes there are many more years of fishing ahead of him. The sea is in his family's blood, he says. His octogenarian father began working on boats when he was 12, and only retired three years ago.

But even if his health permits, Niitsuma knows he may never again get the chance to board his boat and head out into the Pacific in search of sole, whitebait, flounder and greenling.

The greatest threat to Niitsuma's livelihood, and that of other fishermen in Hisanohama, a small fishing town 125 miles north-east of Tokyo, lies just up the coast at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.

The environment ministry recently announcement that 300 tonnes of contaminated groundwater from Fukushima Daiichi is still seeping over or around barriers into the Pacific every day, more than two years after it was struck by a tsunami in March 2011. Government officials said they suspected the leaks had started soon after the accident, which resulted in a nuclear meltdown.

The admission by the ministry, confirmed by Tokyo Electric Power (Tepco), which runs the plant, is...

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/aug/09/fukushima-fallout-threatens-fishermens-livelihoods

[thelordofhell]

1. Welcome to the party pal

Signed,

The Gulf Coast

[darkangel218]

2. I pray for the day when all nuclear plants will be shut down.

I'm afraid I won't see it happening in my lifetime though



I can't believe how many weapons of mass distructions we have created , rather than find ways to help our fellow planet inhabitants.

Its really disappointing that all the advance human race has achived , could one day back fire on us and exterminate not all humanity, but all other life as we know it.

[phantom power]

3. This guy is a victim of fear of radiation, not radiation.

[kristopher]

4. Like the fishermen of Minamata are actually victims of fear of mercury?

You are ridiculous.

[phantom power]

5. 60,000 children suffer from mercury poisoning each year. 164 every day.

Not one international panic has put fishermen out of work because people suddenly discover there's mercury being released into the environment.

That is, definitely, ridiculous.

[kristopher]

6. You must mean the thriving fishing industry in Minamata Bay

Or that center of marine commerce Minamata Village...

Mercury poisoning of thousands confirmed
Thirty years on, the victims of Japan's worst case of industrial pollution are getting support from scientists and the courts - but not the state
Jonathan Watts in Tokyo

The Guardian, Monday 15 October 2001 22.31 EDT

For Yasuko Tanaka, it started when the village cats turned into demons. One year, they were sleepy pets; the next, they were hyperactive monsters - screeching, scratching and jumping around as if possessed.

That was when she drew the connection between Japan's worst case of industrial pollution in nearby Minamata and the splitting headaches, tunnel vision and shaking hands that she and several other villagers had been suffering.

Yesterday, more than 30 years later, researchers presented evidence that the mercury poisoning of Minamata bay in the 50s and 60s lasted longer, spread further and affected tens of thousands more people than previously believed.

The study by doctors at Kumamoto University could cost the Japanese government billions of yen (millions of pounds) as thousands of claimants seek recognition as having Minamata Disease - the nerve disorder caused by eating seafood from the polluted bay or nearby waters....

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2001/oct/16/japan.jonathanwatts

Minamata (and its effect of the local fishing industry) may be news to you, but it is firmly embedded in the consciousness of the people of Japan.

I can't tell you how disgusting is your attempt to minimize consequences of the massive and ongoing pollution off the coast of Fukushima. It's one thing to argue that meltdowns are infrequent, it is another thing entirely to pretend everything is honky-dorey for those whose lives have been destroyed once that supposedly rare event occurs.

[diane in sf]

7. Thank you...