Japan

2012-02-19 Prof. Yukio Hayakawa's Walk with his Survey Meter in Nagareyama-Kashiwa in Chiba Prefecture, ex-skf.blogspot.com (h/t , 25km from Tokyo: Radiation now 10 times higher at many locations in Kashiwa compared to pre-Fukushima levels — Only includes external dose (INTERACTIVE MAP), enenews.com)
Radiation levels remain elevated in Kashiwa City in Chiba Prefecture. It was in Kashiwa that 450,000 becquerels/kg of radioactive cesium was found from the soil near the drain in the public space in the middle of the city. There is a strange (to me anyway) collaboration between the city and the citizen volunteers to decontaminate the city.
Before the Fukushima I Nuke Plant accident, the background radiation level in Kashiwa City must have been no higher than the average in Chiba, which was 0.03 microsievert/hour (see this site). Now, as Professor Hayakawa's walk shows, it is 10 times that in many locations. Contrary to a belief by some in Japan that there was no radioactive plume that went south from Fukushima through Ibaraki to Chiba, Tokyo and Kanagawa, these elevated radiation levels in Kashiwa City are the evidence that the plume did in fact come.
2012-02-19 Japan emperor has heart surgery, irregular pulse detected in muscle — Health worsened after March 11, enenews.com.
2012-02-20 Call for re-think on nuclear plants by Staff Reporter, thehindu.com
On Sunday, at a discussion held at the National Gallery of Modern Art, John Clammer, professor of sociology at the UN University, Tokyo, shared his experiences during and after the earthquake and tsunami that claimed around 15,000 lives and exposed many more living around the Fukushima prefecture to radiation. The lecture, titled ‘Lives in the shadow of Fukushima', painted a vivid picture of how people in the areas surrounding the plant, and Tokyo, coped with the natural disaster.
Prof. Clammer spoke about how there was little information being given out by the Government, and even the official figures released were often not supported by adequate data or attempts to create awareness, or properly inform people about the risks. “At one point, the Government claimed a certain amount of radiation was safe. But this was at least 20 times more than the radiation that was declared as safe or acceptable by the World Health Organisation,” he said.
The Government was suppressing information, in fact, lying to us constantly, he said.
“Being in Tokyo was like being in a science fiction movie,” he said. While he spoke about how for weeks Tokyo remained “deserted, empty and dark”, and continues to have around 20 per cent power shortage, he also said that there have been reports about traces of increased levels of radioactive content in mothers' milk. The events at the Fukushima Daini Nuclear Power Plant have proved that nuclear power is not safe, particularly in the face of natural disasters. Even in India, Tamil Nadu is along the coast, and there is not enough discourse on the risks associated, he said, adding that there needs to be a serious re-think on nuclear plants. He also quoted newspaper reports from the ‘Japan Times' that reported that Japan had not disclosed information on the unaccounted plutonium or uranium stored in its nuclear waste dump...
2012-02-20 Another Look at the Inside of Fukushima Daiichi, wsj.com/japanrealtime [Ed. Note: A critical question most Fukushima watcher's continually ask is "what is the status of the spent fuel pool in building 4." The article below suggests most of the fuel rods are still in tact and are being cooled. But what if this pool were to rupture or fall over? Building 4 is already sagging, and radiation eats into concrete and steel supports.]
... reporters were taken on a tour of the reactors – starting with damaged units 1 through 4. The tarpaulin that covers reactor No. 1 made it impossible to see the state of the building behind it. The building for reactor No. 2 appeared undamaged, though it’s thought to be the source of much of the highly contaminated water that’s leaking from the plant.
Reactor No. 3 was a mess of tangled metal and appeared to have lost its top floor, after an explosion last March. Radiation readings peaked in front of that reactor, hitting 1,500 microsieverts per hour.
Reactor No. 4 appeared badly damaged but Tepco officials blamed that on the force of the explosion at No. 3. A dozen or so workers could be seen on the roof of that building. That’s near the location of the reactor’s spent-fuel pool – the pool of water where nuclear fuel rods are stored when they’re not active in the reactor. Since unit 4 had been undergoing major maintenance at the time of the disaster, all the reactor’s fuel rods were in the pool for storage, making it a particular concern for experts worried about the weight of the fuel in a building that may have been damaged by the magnitude 9 earthquake last March.
Behind the reactors were the pipes used for recycling contaminated water back into the reactors...
2012-02-20 Radiation dose spikes to 48 sieverts per hour at Reactor No. 1 — Highest level in months — Remained stable until 10-fold increase — Instrument failure?, enenews.com.
Title: Radiation dose of the state of the nuclear reactor nuclear power plant reactor / Fukushima Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant
Source: NISA via atmc.jp, Date: Feb 20, 2012
Dry Well

* 2/20 @ 11.1 Sv
* 2/19 @ 47.8 Sv
* 2/18 @ 48.3 Sv
* 2/17 @ 4.87 Sv
* 2/16 @ 4.73 Sv

2012-02-22 (for this day) Cesium spikes to highest level in 7 months north of Tokyo — 10 times recent averages (CTBTO), enenews, Feb 29, 2012
h/t Fukushima Diary
Source: http://www.cpdnp.jp/pdf/120227Takasaki_report_Feb22.pdf
CTBT (2012-2-22)

Takasaki, Gunma Prefecture
7/25 – 7/26/2011

* Cs-134 @ 1,802 microBq/m³
* Cs-137 @ 2,338 microBq/m³

2/17 – 2/18/2012

* Cs-134 @ 821 microBq/m³
* Cs-137 @ 1,274 microBq/m³

2012-02-22 Tokyo is contaminated as the worst place in Chernobyl by Iori Mochizuki, fukushima-diary.com.
Following up this article..23,300 Bq/Kg of cesium from 4km of filter plant
The contamination level of Mizumoto Park turned out to be the same level of “off-limits zone” in Chernobyl.
The contamination level of the park was 23,300 Bq/Kg.
According to Nuclear Safety Commission, it is converted to be 1.4 ~1.5 million Bq/m2.
In Chernobyl, if the area is more contaminated than 1.48 million Bq/m2, it was labelled as off-limits zone, which was the worst level of the pollution.
Because cesium doesn’t choose Mizumoto park intentionally, at least some parts are contaminated as the worst area of Chernobyl.
Source
2012-02-23 BBC: 4,000 Bq/m3 of cesium detected in OCEAN water at least 30 km from Fukushima coast, enenews.com.
2012-02-23 Scientists: First time radioactive silver detected in ocean — Radioactivity levels in seawater are not diminishing as hoped — “Reactor site still seems to be leaking; it hasn’t shut off”, enenews.com.
2012-02-24 Again? Temperature up 20°C at Reactor No. 2 RPV in last 3 days — Other gauges at also rising (CHART), enenews.com.
2012-02-25 Evacuate Tokyo and All US Forces From Japan by Bob Nichols, veteranstoday.com.
(San Francisco) Widely known Physicist Dr Paolo Scampa, the publisher of the EU AIPRI Blog and an eminent chemical physicist, announced today his latest calculations of deadly radioactivity in Tokyo itself. Both the nuclear regulatory and media responses have been missing in action.
However, the outrageous statement of a Japanese politician pretty well sums up the level of understanding of the parasitic political class “Smile, and the radiation won’t hurt you.”
The Tokyo suburbs are about 100 miles or 160 km South of the six destroyed, deteriorating and badly leaking nuclear reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi Station for Nuclear Reactors.

Dr Scampa stated:
“An absorbed dose of 2,94 microSievert/hour at 1 meter of soil means an average deposit of 9,065E5 Bq/m2 of Cs137 -0,661 MeV-. This amount for 1 meter is in fact situated between a maximum deposit of 5,439E6 Bq/m2 for low energy gamma rays from radioactive elements such as U238 (0,0495 MeV) and a minimum deposit of 2,176E5 Bq/m2 of very energetic gamma rays from radioactive elements such as Co60 (2,55 MeV). This dose corresponds to 25 times the maximum permissible “artificial” hour dose (0,114 microSievert/h-1) and 5 times the maximum permissible total – natural and artificial – hour dose (0,571 microSievert/h-1). [1]” Dr. Scampa. [End Quote]

This is a tragedy of huge proportions. There are 30 Plus Million People in Greater Tokyo. It is brought home personally to each person who sees the work of Fukushima Diary by Mochizuki...

North America

2012-02-23 12x Background Radiation In Passing Drizzle: Saint Louis 2/23/12 8:45pm by Potrblog
There was a light passing drizzle this evening around 8:30pm; we took a sample swipe from our truck around 8:45pm and the reading returned a value of 12 times greater than background radiation...
2012-02-25 (for the broadcast on this day) Gundersen: They tried to crush us — Our house was foreclosed on, there was bankruptcy — We were followed, harassing calls — Got sued for $1.5 million (VIDEO),
Title: In Historic Vote, Vermont Poised to Shut Down Lone Nuclear Reactor
Source: Democracy Now via Fairewinds
Upload Date: Feb 25, 2012
Emphasis Added

AMY GOODMAN: [...] Arnie Gundersen, your own background, how you came to be a whistleblower? You’re a nuclear engineer. You worked in Connecticut?
ARNIE GUNDERSEN: Yeah, I had — I have a bachelor’s and a master’s in nuclear. I was a licensed reactor operator, was a senior vice president of a nuclear firm. And I discovered some license violations. This is twenty years ago. I told the president about them, president of the company, and he fired me. I then contacted John Glenn and my local senator, Senator John Glenn, about the license violations. And the Nuclear Regulatory Commission came in and found no violations. John Glenn then had the inspector general come in, and they found seven violations and found that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission had been taking illegal gratuities from my employer.
Didn’t stop there, though. I was sued for a million-and-a-half dollars by my employer, because I was slandering their reputation by writing to John Glenn. It went on for six years. And at the end, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission refused to do anything, despite what’s called a SLAPP suit, a strategic litigation against public participation. The net result of that was that we, my wife and I, took an out-of-court settlement, because the litigation would have continued on for another five years, and we got on with our lives. And I became a nuclear watchdog. And we moved from Connecticut to Vermont.
AMY GOODMAN: And here you now have become a, well, well-known nuclear consultant, executive member of the oversight panel and consultant to the Vermont legislature. When you were in Connecticut, you started to receive harassing calls as you were speaking out against the power plant there?
ARNIE GUNDERSEN: That’s — yes, that’s true. It was harassing calls, we were followed, there was private investigators that delved into our personal records. It was not a nice time. Worse, though, was the million-and-a-half-dollar lawsuit against us that ruined our credit. Our house was foreclosed on, and there was bankruptcy. It was literally designed to crush us. And it didn’t work.
AMY GOODMAN: And you were sued again by? You were sued by?
ARNIE GUNDERSEN: Oh, I was sued by the company I worked for, Nuclear Energy Services. They were the licensee, and I was the senior vice president there. And their claim was that I had defamed their reputation by talking about the license violations. And, of course, you know, Senator Glenn and his subcommittee clearly proved that I was right and that the NRC was taking illegal gratuities, so the — but it didn’t stop the process, because the Nuclear Regulatory Commission refused to get involved. [...]