The core of the stricken number three nuclear reactor in
Fukushima Japan is now leaking water with 10,000 times the allowable
radioactive limit. This was announced yesterday while the actual
damage itself happened over a week ago. Japanese authorities
announced that local fish and drinking water supplies were safe yet
the Japanese people no longer believe the pronouncements of their
government. That seems to be a common situation world wide, people no
longer trust their governments nor should they.
International
nuclear detectors operated by Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty
Organization (CTBTO) show initial radioactive release was "in
Chernobyl range." They have reported spikes of caesium-137 from
forty to sixty percent of the Chernobyl reactor disaster. This
worldwide network of radiation detectors designed to spot clandestine
nuclear bomb tests shows that iodine-131 is being released at daily
levels 73 per cent of those seen after the 1986 nuclear
disaster.
The Japanese government has suggested a voluntary
area evacuation but only because of the difficulty in supplying the
people with relief supplies near the reactor. Prime Minister Naoto
Kan said yesterday, "We must continue to work with a high sense of
alertness." Today as it became clear that the situation was
deteriorating the Prime Minister said the situation at the reactor
remains "grave and serious" and "doesn't warrant optimism."
It also signals a public admission that the situation isn't under
control and is deteriorating.
While the US media were cheering
about the power being restored to the damaged reactors it failed to
mention that the pumps had failed to operate at the number three
reactor. The injured workers had come into contact with the
irradiated water while trying to reconnect the electricity. This
water burned the workers right through their protective clothing and
so was incredibly radioactive. The Japanese are now dealing with a
bubbling cauldron of nuclear filth exposed to the atmosphere on the
edge of a major metropolitan area. The Chernobyl nuclear plant had
180 tons of nuclear fuel on site. The Fukushima plant has 1,700 tons
of nuclear fuel on site.
The west was whistling, "It Can't Happen Here" while strolling past the graveyard. The Russians were directing attention away from the culprits responsible by praising the heroism of those sacrificing themselves because of careless and foolish decisions and design schemes. Except that the Russian designers weren't so foolish as to build a multiple nuclear reactor facility on the edge of their countries capitol and largest city.
The incredible hubris of building such a plant in an earthquake prone country on the cusp of a major metropolitan area boggles the mind. New York's Mayor Rudy Giuliani wandered the streets after 9-11 because he had placed his emergency response headquarters inside the twin towers. The reason is always money; transmission lines are expensive and great distances lower efficiency and that costs money. So the politicians and corporations wager the relative chance of an accident against the cost of longer transmission lines. Giuliani had chosen the twin towers as a political favor despite the towers having all ready been the target of a terrorist attack.
Always under the rubble of disaster lies the root of profit and of greed. The decisions and shortcuts taken by the people in power to save money while putting the public at unconscionable risk. Next time someone says that no one has died because of nuclear power remind them that rescue efforts were halted after the Tsunami in the area surrounding the Fukushima reactor. Here in our own country we live surrounded by such decisions, the Indian Point nuclear power plant lies a mere thirty eight miles from New York City. Had the 9-11 terrorists flown those planes into the containment domes or control station the city of New York could have been depopulated and made a nuclear wasteland.
Some things are just too important to be left in the hands of those whose job it is to make money and some things are just too important to be left to decision makers influenced by money. A drunk driver who kills someone will face murder charges while politicians and corporations whose money driven decisions heedless of public safety will face bupkis. As in Abu Garab a few underlings will be rounded up and prosecuted while those actually responsible will skate away unhindered.
No one knows exactly what is going on inside Fukushima complex, no one outside the government or outside Tokyo Electric Power knows exactly how many men, women and children have been needlessly exposed to radiation in the name of preventing public panic. When it rains and it will rain this radiation will find its way into the soil and sidewalks and into the water and the food supply. It will be on the bottom of the shoes of Tokyo housewives and children. It will be on the bottoms of the paws of dogs and cats when they come back into the house. It will be on the little shoelaces and then on the little fingers that wipe the little noses and there is nothing that anyone can do about it now.
In all of the horror and tragedy on display we see the illustration of the Japanese government back to back with Tokyo Electric working to protect each other rather than protect the best interests of the people. Think of how we've seen this same type of behavior in our own Gulf coast. Our government spouting oil company figures about how much oil was being spilled out while independent experts put the figures at five or six times the amount of those estimates. This government, your government was sending US Coast Guard units to protect private contractors from public media scrutiny while on public property.
Screw the families, screw the fishermen, screw the public tell them the seafood is safe. It will save the oil company millions in damage claims and oh, go ahead and start drilling again. It will be much safer this time as we've instituted new paper work requirements. Exxon is still vigorously fighting Exxon Valdez claims from two decades ago. The number of Americans actually killed in Hurricane Katrina wasn't advertised.
These events illustrate a common modus operandi among these alleged Democratic governments. There is no honor among these thieves, money is God and the people of the world will be exposed to any hardship or to any horror in the name of this golden calf idol. The defense department continues work on programming to allow one government employee to assume up to ten persona's on Social Media. Stories of the Fukushima disaster are heavily censored in the United States with adjectives phrases used such as perhaps, might have or could have. The stories in the US media quickly move on to the Tsunami damage as a whole or prefer to talk about the heroism of the Fukushima plant workers.
Reports today from the Tokyo Times says that samples of seawater taken 1,000 feet from the Fukushima plant contain radioactive Iodine131 at 1,258 times the legal limit. Imagine that you took a Olympic sized swimming pool full of water dyed red and released it from the plant into the ocean, what color would that water be at one thousand feet from the plant? Radioactive Iodine has now been found in the drinking water in 16 communities and in 6 prefectures at levels considered hazardous to infants. Tokyo electric and the government claim that the ocean samples are from contaminated water leaking from the plant.
That might be a believable scenario if you believe that water leaching from the plant into the ocean at 10,000 times the legal limit is only diluted by the ocean to ten percent in one thousand feet of ocean. Iodine in the drinking water isn't a leading indicator it is a following indicator. Either there is an incredible amount of highly radioactive water leaching from the plant or the unthinkable has happened. The number three reactor has melted down to the point where it has ruptured the containment vessel and the radioactive isotopes are in contact with the water table.
A nightmare scenario where every gallon of water used to cool the fuel rods passes over them like a sieve and into the drinking water supply. If this has happened and it is still a big if, but if it has happened the prospects for the region are grim. The Chernobyl failure was arrested before it ruptured the containment vessel if this is not the case in Fukushima then encasing the reactor in concrete will be almost pointless. Thirty five million people might have lost their fresh water supply to save a few million dollars in construction costs.
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