The Silence Coming Out of Japan

For reasons completely obscure, I got it into my head to watch the documentary below about the meltdown at Fukushima, the Japanese nuclear energy plant which was damaged by the earthquake of March 11, 2011. The damage was not enough to prevent a cooling down of the reactors, and the plant was shutting down. Then the tsunami hit.

Anybody who has lived in hurricane alley knows—it’s not the wind, it’s the water. And unbelievably, the backup generators were located in the basement of the buildings. Oh, and while there was a sea wall in place to protect against tsunamis, it wasn’t high enough, since nobody imagined….

You remember what happened—or if you don’t, you can see it in the video below. It was, as my mother would deem it, a shambles. And then, the day after the tsunami, some 300,000 people were evacuated; the area around the nuclear plants to this day remains evacuated, and it will likely be years, or perhaps decades, before anybody can live there again.

There was, at the time, real concern about whether the world—not to mention the Japanese themselves—were getting the real information about what was happening in the plants. Part of that is that the plants had no electricity: workers were using car batteries to take vital measurements, such as radiation levels and pressure levels.

Ah, guys? Car batteries? This, as my brother would say, does not inspire confidence.

The plants were—and still are—being run by a company called Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO), which understandably was scrambling to put the best face on the matter. They were reluctant to say that the situation was essentially out of hand, and getting worse by the minute.

Into this picture sails—quite literally—the USS Ronald Reagan, who were first responders and who spent four days in the area. Here’s one account of what happened….

Meanwhile sailors like Lindsay Cooper have contrasted their initial and subsequent feelings upon seeing and tasting metallic “radioactive snow” caused by freezing Pacific air that mixed with radioactive debris.

“We joked about it: ‘Hey, it’s radioactive snow!” Cooper said. “My thyroid is so out of whack that I can lose 60 to 70 pounds in one month and then gain it back the next. My menstrual cycle lasts for six months at a time, and I cannot get pregnant.

“It’s ruined me.”

In fact, the lawyer representing the sailors reports that of the 71, half of them are suffering from cancer.

The lawyer, you ask? Why do the sailors have a lawyer?

Do I really have to answer that?

Well, the sailors put in, in some cases, 18-hour shifts, and then left after four days. Then what happened? Japan refused them entry into the harbor. Oh, so did South Korea. And also, unbelievably, Guam. So the USS Ronald Reagan drifted around at sea for two and a half months.

Here’s the same source’s description of the ship:

Senior Chief Michael Sebourn, a radiation-decontamination officer assigned to test the aircraft carrier, said that radiation levels measured 300 times higher than what was considered safe at one point.

There’s always been controversy about TEPCO, which had been dumping and denying radioactive water it the Pacific for months; they later admitted it.

Which they may no longer have to do. Why? Because Japan has passed—apparently, the Internet decided to drift off somewhere…—a state secrets act, and what happens if a journalist or a leaker like Snowden blows the whistle? Up to five years in the can. Here’s Reuters on the subject:

Media watchdogs fear the law would seriously hobble journalists' ability to investigate official misdeeds and blunders, including the collusion between regulators and utilities that led to the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster.

A probe by an independent parliamentary panel found that collusion between regulators and the nuclear power industry was a key factor in the failure to prevent the meltdowns at Tokyo Electric Power Co's (Tepco) tsunami-hit Fukushima plant in March 2011, and the government and the utility remain the focus of criticism for their handling of the on-going crisis.

Tepco has often been accused of concealing information about the crisis and many details have first emerged in the press. In July, Tepco finally admitted to massive leaks of radiation-contaminated water into the Pacific Ocean after months of media reports and denials by the utility.

Oh, and who gets to determine the secrets? Top departmental officials of the government.

The documentary below features one authority who says that everything is fine—the fish is safe to eat and the ocean is safe for swimming even in Japan. So not to worry, readers in California who might want to go to the beach.

Me?

I’d stick to the pool….