Erenlai - Fukushima one year on: nuclear workers and citizens at risk

Fukushima one year on: nuclear workers and citizens at risk

by Paul Jobin (彭保羅) on Monday, 26 March 2012 Comments

An interview with Paul Jobin

Paul Jobin’s research on Japanese (and Taiwanese) nuclear plant workers began in 2002, mainly at Fukushima Daiichi. After March 2011, he conducted further interviews in Fukushima and joined rounds of negotiation launched by labor groups with the Ministry of Health and Labor.

Could you summarize the policies towards radiation protection in Fukushima, and what characterizes the current situation, one year after the nuclear disaster?

Even before the disaster, TEPCO (Tokyo Electric Power Company) employed a large pool of workers in order not to exceed the annual quota of radiation per person. The latest statistics from TEPCO (dated November 30, 2011) reported 3,745 workers on the site in March (about 1700 TEPCO employees and 2,000 subcontractors), and 14,000 for the time from April to October. The overwhelming majority of the latter, more than 12,400, were subcontractors. These figures, already substantial, might not take into account level 5 to 8 subcontractors who perform the tasks that are the most directly exposed to ionizing radiation.

Level 1 refers to TEPCO employees and level 2 to those employed by the reactor manufacturers, Hitachi, Toshiba, and GE. These are the “upper crust”, executives and technicians who enjoy high salaries and good social security benefits. Beneath them, levels 3 and 4, are composed primarily of employees of Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) specialized in nuclear power. These are the most highly skilled workers (plumbers, heating engineers, electricians, etc.). Many of the SMEs are local, but their employees include many "gypsies" who go from one plant to another in search of work. Levels 5 to 8 form a very opaque world, with recruitment methods that range from hiring by temporary agencies to yakuza. The result is that half of the workers do undergo little or no health and radiation checks. We can say that there is systematic camouflage of the collective radiation of the most exposed front line workers.

Since the 11th of March 2011, TEPCO has employed many people to attempt to bring under control the remnants of Fukushima Daiichi, so as to stabilize the dangerous situation of the reactors and the pools which contain radioactive fuel rods requiring constant cooling. A lot of temporary workers have been employed for a short period to collect the debris from the explosions that occurred during the first week of the disaster. At a rate of 3,000 workers per day on average, a year later we have a theoretical figure of more than one million workers who have spent at least one day on the Fukushima Daiichi site. This figure does not mean much, however, because most of the workers have been on site at least three days, and since June they have been on site for an average of over one month. Thus, if we double the numbers mentioned above by TEPCo, we may reach a more exact number of workers who have gone through Fukushima Daiichi since March, perhaps around 30,000 in all. It is they who have been exposed to significant levels of radiation. And there will be many more. Because, contrary to what the Prime Minister Noda said on December 16, the reactors are far from a "cold shut down".

At what level does radiation become dangerous?

This question does not only concern nuclear workers; it stirs controversy globally. Since the 1990s, the consensus of the international community of doctors and epidemiologists specialized in radiation is that there is no threshold of a non-hazardous level. This is notably the position of the International Commission on Radiological Protection (ICRP), which is more or less independent from the nuclear lobby. Their latest recommendations (2007) advocate a limit on exposure of 20 millisieverts (mSv) per year for workers and a rate of 1 mSv for the rest of the population. Until 1990, these standards were 50 mSv and 5 mSv; they have been continuously revised downward since the creation of the Commission in 1928.

In fact, the debate has been greatly distorted since World War II, starting with the American “Atoms for Peace” program of 1953 that promoted nuclear power globally and in Japan sought to sweeten the pill of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki by clearly distinguishing the ravages of nuclear weapons from the benefits of nuclear power.[1] The result is that, for sixty years, nuclear industry-subsidized pseudo-scientific research has greatly simplified the health consequences of exposure to ionizing radiation. [2]

Thus the epidemiologists who advise the Prime Minister of Japan hold that below 100 mSv per year, there is no proven risk of radiation. In Fukushima Prefecture, including the urban areas where many children still reside, the rates range from 10 to over 80 mSv annually, levels which, in the long-term, pose a severe threat particularly to the health of children and young adults. One expert, a special advisor to the cabinet on radiation, Tokyo University radiation specialist Prof. Kosako Toshisō, resigned in April 2011 refusing to go along with the recommendation of his colleagues which insisted on the safety of 20 mSv for Fukushima children.[3] Most of these industry specialists base their conclusions on studies that were conducted on survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and they claim that below 100 mSv, there is a negligible abnormal high death rate from cancer, and that more generally, there are no 'stochastic' effects, i.e. observable consequences which would require assigning a certain probability of risk to a given population.

At the same time, nuclear workers can file an application for recognition of an occupational disease if they can show a total cumulated dose of 5 mSv. This is a major contradiction since, according to ICRP last recommendations (2007), workers can be exposed to 20 mSv per year in normal time, and up to 1000 mSv in case of emergency. On this subject, I interrogated twice Nagataki Shigenobu, an adviser to the Japanese Prime Minister[4]: he evaded the issue by separating "Science" - that is to say the epidemiological studies of UNSCEAR and WHO, which are closely monitored by the IAEA - from "Policy", that is to say, the various “social compromises” that a government must make depending of the situation. So, if the nuclear industry exposes workers to dangerous radiation levels in order to solve the crisis, or in normal time to perform the maintenance of power plants, in return, the industry agreed to pay a certain level of compensation for those who “accept to take that risk”.

Regarding the "social compromise" mentioned by the Prime Minister’s expert, we note that since 1991, fourteen Japanese workers have been recognized as victims of an occupational disease due to their employment in nuclear power plants. Some contracted leukemia after exposure to 50 mSv per year. However, in Fukushima City, which stands nearly 50 miles away from the nuclear plant, some neighborhoods show levels close to 60 mSv per year. Such levels are similar to a nuclear plant’s "controlled areas", which are exposed to high rates of radiation. For example, in 2009, even at Fukushima Daiichi which is one of the oldest Japanese nuclear plant (thus cumulating more radiation), according to the figures from TEPCO and NISA, no worker was exposed over 20 mSv a year.

A hot spot in the suburbs of Fukushima city, August 2011: 6.25 microsieverts per hour per hour (54,75 mSv a year). (Photo: Paul Jobin)

But so far, Fukushima city has not been evacuated by the authorities, and evacuating it is not on their agenda, since this would mean government commitment to compensate its 290,000 residents.

Thus, it is obvious that the workers are not the only ones who are at risk from over-exposure to external radiation; the population is at risk too, as if the entire prefecture of Fukushima has become a vast "controlled area".

What is the government’s response to internal contamination when radioactive particles are inhaled or when contaminated food is ingested?

The major problem is that the government is not investing enough in monitoring devices for food. Of course, these devices are more expensive than simple dosimeters, and there is also the high cost of the labor force required to perform the tests.

However, this would be more effective than the "decontamination" operations being conducted in Fukushima. For example, the nuclear lobby has urged the Government to provide grants for cleaning with pressurized water guns!

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Decontamination work (josen) in Iidatemura, 13 January, 2012. (Photo: Kristopher Stevens)

This is really not a good idea as, at best, it transfers the contamination to the rivers. And as farmers in Minamisoma and Iitate - two cities in Fukushima Prefecture - explained to me, it is even more absurd that these operations are conducted in residential areas and farmlands, ignoring the tops of the hills, the woods and forests, which are the most contaminated areas. Since these areas are neglected, when rain falls, it carries the pollution back downstream!

It would be wiser to compensate farmers and encourage those who wish to move to depopulated and aging rural areas, which are numerous in Japan. But this is obviously not the priority of the industrial sector nor the “social compromise” planned.

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A testament written with chalk on a desk by a farmer of Iitate before he committed suicide.
''Genpatsu sae nakereba": "If only there was no nuclear plants"(Photo: Hasegawa Ken’ichi)

What is the attitude of the public and the media toward this issue?

Many prefer to turn a blind eye as it is reassuring to believe TEPCO’s nonsense and the nostrums provided by scholars associated with the nuclear lobby. But there is also a growing awareness of the problem, which can be observed for example through the vast mobilization in the region of Fukushima and Tokyo among citizens and on the Internet. In mid-January, a conference organized in Yokohama by a forum of antinuclear associations brought together 11,500 people including researchers and activists over two days.

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Conference for a Nuclear Free World, Yokohama, Jan.14-15, 2011. (Photos by Aiya Hsu)

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Children during Conference for a Nuclear Free World, Yokohama, Jan.14-15, 2011. (Photo: Aiya Hsu)

In the first month of the crisis, the mainstream media mostly conveyed the partial and untrue information released by TEPCO and the nuclear safety authority (NISA). It would have been better to highlight the information published by organizations like the Citizen Nuclear Information Center (CNIC), which reacted more quickly and provided independent information through the Internet. Today, the situation has changed in part. Some mainstream media now contribute significantly to public awareness of the dangers of radiation. This includes the Tokyo Shinbun and Mainichi Shinbun newspapers, the weekly Sekai and Shūkan kinyōbi, the monthly magazine Days Japan, and some programs of the national television broadcaster NHK. For example, in a documentary broadcast last December, the NHK has challenged the economic biases of the ICRP recommendations. The nuclear lobby then protested this documentary had biases itself![5]

Are nuclear workers more aware of the risks posed by radiation?

It depends on which workers. Temporarily hired workers who have never entered a nuclear plant before probably have a very vague perception of these risks. For senior nuclear power plant workers, awareness varies.

During the first week of the crisis, those who remained or returned to work at Fukushima Daiichi were well aware that it was very dangerous. Some wanted to take responsibility and from the month of June, the worst seemed to have been avoided. But this did not mean that all the workers on-site had precise knowledge of the risks they were taking. I remember for example a young skilled worker, TS, whom I met for the first time in late June. He provided a very genuine and sincere account of the first weeks of the disaster. He had very good technical knowledge of the power plant operating system, including the reactor buildings. However, he had very limited understanding of the consequences for health of a sudden or prolonged exposure to significant amounts of radiation. At our second meeting, in late July, he agreed to meet in the company of a friend who is involved in union negotiations with the Ministry of Health and Labor. They kept in touch afterwards, and today, TS regularly informs his co-workers of the risks.

At the symposium on occupational exposure in nuclear plant, held within the Yokohama conference in January 2012, journalist Fuse Yūji invited Mr. Ookawa to give his testimony. He was employed for 16 years in the nuclear sector, in the fourth level of subcontracting, working on air conditioning and plumbing. In early April 2011, he received a dose of 16 mSv in just four days, whereas the average dose was about 2 mSv per year before the disaster. He said that, given his age, he was not afraid at the time. Still, he stopped working and is thinking about filing a lawsuit against his employer or TEPCO for having subjected him to overexposure without warning.

Gradually, thanks to contact with anti-nuclear associations, trade unions based in Tokyo or Osaka and some journalists and researchers, these workers have realized the price they might pay themselves, or their children.[6] Associations are trying to negotiate with the Ministry of Health and Labor to restore the maximum level of exposure to the previous level of 20 mSv per year. They are also calling for a precise definition of the notion of "emergency work", as the “emergency” could justify maintaining high standards of radiation exposure for many years to come.

What defines the urgency and the gravity of the situation?

This is a never-ending question. I interviewed the deputy head of the emergency response unit of the IRSN (French Institute for Radiological Protection and Nuclear Safety), who was sent to the French embassy in Japan on March 12, 2011. He commented that at that time, the major challenge was to save the storage pools of used fuel rods from meltdown. This was even more vital than saving the reactors, since if the fuel rods in the pools melt, they would produce radioactivity levels that could not be measured in hundreds of millisieverts but would need to be measured in hundreds or thousands of sieverts! In that case, TEPCO would have been unable to intervene by sending in workers. It would lose complete control of the site. The result might then be something like a Godzilla movie, an apocalyptic scenario. As a recent ‘independent’ report suggests, at the very least, Tokyo should have been evacuated.[7] I doubt the authors’ independence because they focus their criticism on Prime Minister Kan Naoto, avoiding discussion of the responsibility of the nuclear industry lobby, which, unlike the former Prime Minister, is still very active. Nevertheless, the report confirms that the tremendous risk posed by the nuclear meltdown, is indeed far “beyond expectations”. The storage pools, in particular those of reactor no 4, might not survive another significant seismic event. The recent interview of nuclear scientist Koide Hiroaki by Asahi Television made that crystal-clear.[8]

In short, if the nuclear "risk managers" themselves tell us that the industry’s risk exceeds the probability calculations, a risk so great that they do not even want to think about it, we had better take their word for it.

This interview was translated from French by Cerise Phiv, edited by Daniel Pagan Murphy for eRenlai.com, with further editing by Paul Jobin and Mark Selden for the Asia-Pacific Journal, Japan Focus.

A previous version was published in Nouvel observateur: http://leplus.nouvelobs.com/contribution/374383-centrale-de-fukushima-que-sont-devenus-les-ouvriers-du-nucleaire.html

See also Paul Jobin, “Back to Fukushima”: http://www.etui.org/en/Topics/Health-Safety/HesaMag

And Japan Focus: http://japanfocus.org/-Paul-Jobin/3523

[1] Yuki Tanaka and Peter Kuznick, Japan, the Atomic Bomb, and the “Peaceful Uses of Nuclear Power” The Asia-Pacific Journal, Vol 9, Issue 18 No 1, May 2, 2011. http://www.japanfocus.org/-Yuki-TANAKA/3521

[2] Sawada Shōji, emeritus professor at the University of Nagoya, explained very clearly how the neglect of internal contamination on the cohorts of Hiroshima and Nagasaki hibakusha have led to an obvious minimization of the consequences of low-doses radiation. See http://peacephilosophy.blogspot.com/search?q=%E6%B2%A2%E7%94%B0%E6%98%AD%E4%BA%8C

[3] 20 Millisieverts for Children and Kosako Toshiso’s Resignation, The Asia-Pacific Journal, May 1, 2011 http://www.japanfocus.org/events/view/83.

[4] Shushō kantei genshiryoku senmonka gurupu: http://www.kantei.go.jp/saigai/senmonka.html

[5] Tsuiseki shinsō fairu, NHK, 26 December 2011: http://nanohana.me/?p=10335

See also the defense of that documentary by Prof.Sawada Shōji against the protest of the nuclear lobby, in Days Japan, March 2012. Another NHK documentary, on January 15, 2012, "Umi kara no hokoku" was an outstanding investigation in collaboration with scholars on the marine contamination. Hot spots were found so far as 100 km downward of Fukushima Daiichi: $BCN$i$l$6$kJ| $B!A3$$+$i$N6[5^Js9p (http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xnq56z_20120115-yyyyyyyyyy-yyyyyyyy_news?start=2#from=embediframe

[6] See the report by the German TV-channel ZDF (with English subtitles): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V1T4Ac9nHeY

[7] http://rebuildjpn.org/fukushima/report

[8] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJi-o4F8eOo&feature=youtu.be

Published in Development as Fairness 創造公平的資源分配

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Paul Jobin (彭保羅)

Paul Jobin is the current director of Taipei branch of the French Centre for Research on Contemporary China (CEFC Taipei). Since majoring in Oriental Studies, Paul Jobin has been researching the link between industrial pollution and public health first in Japan and then for the last four years based in Taiwan. His breadth of experience has given him first hand insight on everything from Japan's biggest post-war pollution disease, Minamata, to the nuclear energy question, having personally spent time researching Fukushima and other power plants before the Japan crisis struck in March of this year. He has previously conducted interviews with Japan's and Taiwan's nuclear engineers.

1968，出生於法國諾曼地。1991，巴黎狄德羅大學中文系和日文系學士。1995，日本慶
應大學管理學碩士。2001，法國社會科學高等研究院(EHESS)博士 ; 日本一橋大學博士後研究員。2002，法國波爾多大學助理教授。2004，巴黎狄德羅大學助理教授。2007，巴黎狄德羅大學副教授；法國現代中國研究中心(CEFC)台北分部訪問學者。2009.9，CEFC 台北分部主任。