In Japan, a Painfully Slow Sweep

[homasse]

In Japan, a Painfully Slow Sweep

The decontamination crews at a deserted elementary school here are at the forefront of what Japan says is the most ambitious radiological cleanup the world has seen, one that promised to draw on cutting-edge technology from across the globe.

But much of the work at the Naraha-Minami Elementary School, about 12

Comments

[playthefool]

Yeah, we're up here in Northern Japan and the opinion of how this is being handled, at least among our friends, is not at all positive or optimistic. :/

[homasse]

It's a fucking joke is what it is.

[pyroyale]

“And if we have foreigners roaming around Fukushima, they might scare the old grandmas and granddads there."

I volunteered in Tohoku and I can say that nobody I interacted with (and nobody any other volunteer I knew had ever interacted with) was scared or unhappy to see foreigners, no matter how old they were. Usually it was the oldest members of the community that were the most thankful and grateful just to get some help and see some action as they were feeling abandoned by the government.

The whole situation reeks of either being worse than they're willing to admit or just crooked as hell.

[tilmon]

No reason it can't be both.

[othellia]

That really struck me as off as well. Not to mention that taking advantage of foreign technology and aid doesn't necessarily mean that the foreigners themselves will come over to do the work. I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of it consisted of "here's this technique/technology, here's how it works, here's one or two people to make sure you're getting the hang of it."

[bnmc2005]

People outside of Japan should be concerned about this as well. If they're dumping that stuff into the rivers, then into the ocean, it's going to make it's way the NW Americas and all the other places in between- if it hasn't already.

[darlahood]

A lot of the detritus from the tidal wave has already hit the Northwest US. I read about it in last months Natural History magazine.

[fenris_lorsrai]

Nuclear cleanup isn't my specialty, but I did a shitload of soil and water management to prevent runoff of other stuff and this description is pretty backassward. The buildings, no idea what to do there. anyway, the basic way you deal with soil contamination is DON'T PICK IT UP. you're just going to make it airborne or encourage it to run off. Brushhog the area to create mulch. Large trees you're probably fine leaving in place so long as they don't produce fruit or sees people will eat. Lumber is fine

[girly123]

Not that I'm an economist or anything, but the plan that you laid out also sounds like it'd cost substantially less than paying 2,000 people to look like they're busy.

[fenris_lorsrai]

But with this version you don't appear to be DOING anything, and the illusion of progress is a lot of what people want. if there's nobody visibly DOING something, clearly nothing is actually being done. Letting stuff grow is clearly not DOING something. do something! lets see you do something

[oudeteron]

Reading your comments has just made this article even more horrifying with all the added detail of everything that's being done wrong there - but on the other hand, thanks for posting this because it's really interesting and useful. I mean, would be useful to those in charge of clean-up operations, one would assume...

[girly123]

Recent reports in the local media of cleanup crews dumping contaminated soil and leaves into rivers has focused attention on the sloppiness of the cleanup.

What in the hell. How could anyone order people to do that and even pretend that they're making a positive difference?