It looks like you're using an Ad Blocker.
Please white-list or disable AboveTopSecret.com in your ad-blocking tool.
Thank you.
Some features of ATS will be disabled while you continue to use an ad-blocker.
While traveling in Japan several weeks ago, Fairewinds’ Arnie Gundersen took soil samples in Tokyo public parks, playgrounds, and rooftop gardens. All the samples would be considered nuclear waste if found here in the US. This level of contamination is currently being discovered throughout Japan. At the US NRC Regulatory Information Conference in Washington, DC March 13 to March 15, the NRC's Chairman, Dr. Gregory Jaczko emphasized his concern that the NRC and the nuclear industry presently do not consider the costs of mass evacuations and radioactive contamination in their cost benefit analysis used to license nuclear power plants. Furthermore, Fairewinds believes that evacuation costs near a US nuclear plant could easily exceed one trillion dollars and contaminated land would be uninhabitable for generations.
Originally posted by autopat51
an entire nation knowingly self destructing
i cant believe im seeing this!!
Originally posted by IkNOwSTuff
Would be interesting to know what the Japanese elite are doing, if their all jumping ship and heading out of japan it could be very telling.
Originally posted by Human0815
The amount Mr. Gundersen found are not really deadly
Originally posted by loam
reply to post by Human0815
Originally posted by Human0815
The amount Mr. Gundersen found are not really deadly
Yet the amounts are nonetheless sufficient enough to be deemed nuclear waste in this country,
What is the point that you are making? That we in the US are too conservative?
Dear Ms. Testa:
I am writing to you in reference to an unbylined Associated Press story that appeared in a number of newspapers earlier this week with the headline, "Vt. consultant Gundersen: Tokyo soil is N-waste."
The claim made in this article by Arnie Gundersen of Fairewinds Associates that soil collected in Japan could be classified as radioactive waste does not seem to have been independently verified, and hence should not have been published by the AP in violation of long established journalism standards.
I believe a correction is in order.
In order to classify an object or a substance as radioactive waste, it takes more than simply triggering a Geiger counter. In the United States, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission has explicit guidelines. U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission licensees who need to dispose of items that have become irradiated -- in the case of nuclear power plants this often means water purification filters and resins, tools, protective clothing and other plant hardware -- have two options. In the first case, you can ship the waste to a certified disposal site.
However, there are cases where the levels of radioactivity are so low that you can actually petition the NRC to dispose of it in an alternate manner. However, if someone who is not a regulated licensee finds materials that have been irradiated, different regulations come into play.
In the case of Japan, the levels of radiation found beyond Fukushima Prefecture -- and that includes the Tokyo metropolitan area -- are so low that our resident health physicist says that there are no regulations that would require the soil there to be disposed of. Furthermore, without seeing the report from the lab that Gundersen used, it would be impossible for any radiation protection professional to completely evaluate his claims. If a radiation protection professional with 40 years of experience in our industry wasn’t able to verify Mr. Gundersen’s claims, then how was your reporter able to do that?
In none of the articles that I have seen in various newspapers is there any specificity provided to readers on radiation levels—simply broad claims attributed to Mr. Gundersen. Furthermore, there isn’t any evidence in the articles that your reporter attempted to verify Mr. Gundersen’s claims with any independent third parties. According to the Society of Professional Journalists Code of Ethics, reporters should, "Test the accuracy of information from all sources and exercise care to avoid inadvertent error." In this case, it seems clear to us that the reporter failed to do either, which makes us wonder why it was ever published. We would also dispute your characterization of Mr. Gundersen as merely a "consultant on nuclear issues."
Mr. Gundersen has a long history of working as an anti-nuclear activist, and has a direct financial interest in seeing plants shut down, something he is already working actively to accomplish while in the employ of the state of Vermont as it seeks to close the Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Plant.
According to an article that appeared in the Burlington Free Press in February 2010 and is featured prominently on Mr. Gundersen's own Web site, he and his wife Margaret have been paid up to $47,000 by the state to provide just these sorts of consulting services.
---
They read, "Any time a question is raised about any aspect of our work, it should be taken seriously." If the AP truly stands by that statement, one that was first committed to paper by your organization in 1914, you should immediately review Mr. Gram’s reporting and issue a correction to every AP member newspaper that ran the story.
Originally posted by amraks
Maybe if the whole countries toxic, They can all leave Japan and live in another country?
Thats what they are playing at, we will wait to people get sick then play some nation will feel sorry for us and take us under there wing..
Crazy thought, but could happen.