Posted on 04/26/2012 1:24:51 PM PDT by ransomnote
Horror never ends.
I posted the photo of a peach juice can from JA Date City in Fukushima the other day. The juice had 34 becquerels/kg of radioactive cesium.
Here's the photo of kindergarten children in the same Date City cleaning the mailbox in appreciation for the hard work by mailmen every day. This particular district of Date City, Ryozen-machi, is 50 kilometers from Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant. The district is dotted with known "hot spots" with elevated radiation. Many locations measured by the city exceeded 1 microsievert/hour at 1 meter off the ground, some exceeding 3 microsieverts/hour (parks) last year. Even at the end of March this year, the highest is 1.28 microsievert/hour in a park at 1 meter off the ground.
That didn't stop this particular kindergarten from going through with the routine of thanking the mailmen. I wonder if they did it last year also.
From Fukushima's local paper Fukushima Minyu (4/21/2012; link added):
Kindergarteners clean mailboxes to show appreciation, as activity for "Memorial Day for Postal Services"
For the "Memorial Day for Postal Services" on April 20, kindergarteners from Shin-ai Kindergarten in Ryozan-machi in Date City cleaned the mailboxes at Kakeda Post Office and Ryozen General Branch Office.
8 kindergarteners visited Kakeda Post Office and handed the letter of appreciation to the manager of the post office that said "Thank you for delivering mail every day". The children polished the mailbox with the cleaning cloth, and decorated the mailbox.
After the cleaning, they were given presents by Manager Takagi at the postal office.
According to some blog, right?
What manner of testing was used to reach this conclusion?
Got bigger problems right here at home.
1.28 uSV = 0.13 mR
.13 mR/Hr = 1.13 R/Year or about 3x your normal yearly dose from all sources. Or 20% of the maximum allowable amount for a radiation worker.
That’s a pretty low level to be considered a High Radiation Area.
These are children. According to the National Academy of Sciences Biological Effects of Ionizing Radiation (VII) report, children are more sensitive to radiation (rapidly dividing cells)compared with adults. Also according to the BEIR VII, there is no safe threshold and even small doses of radiation contribute increased cancer risk so 3 times the amount of background radiation each year is bad news for anyone but even worse for children. Then multiply up for the number of years they are exposed. Not good.
Furthermore, the testing performed by the city (as well as Japanese gov. officials) typically measures cesium but does not test for strontium, uranium, or any of the other 31 isotopes that the IAEA reported present at Fukushima fallout areas. Furthermore, this unfortunately is only a measure of external dose whereas school children have been served Fukushima produce and beef (and publicly ridiculed for not drinking radioactive milk) in schools which later proved to be contaminated as well. Then factor in drinking water and air...the total dose these children are receiving is unknown. It’s just really sad to see photo opportunities (mail box cleaning) highlighting a carelessness toward the most vulnerable members of society - the ones with futures in jeopardy.
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