Cleanup Questions as Radiation Spreads

Fountain, Henry. "Cleanup Questions as Radiation Spreads." The New York Times. 31 Mar. 2011. Web. 3 Apr. 2011. .

As Japan struggles with the crisis at the Fukushima nuclear power plant, the government is now faced by another issue brought on by the disaster: whether and how to clean up areas that have been heavily contaminated by radioactivity. A soil sample has been taken from a village near the plant, called Iitate. The sample showed very high amounts of cesium 137, which is an isotope that produces gamma rays, which are harmful and accumulates in the food chain, while persisting in the environment for hundreds of years. The levels of cesium in the village were nearly double the minimums found in the uninhabitable area around the Chernobyl plant in Russia many years ago. This raises questions about whether the Japanese government should push the evacuation zone back from 18 miles to somewhere around 25-30, but the government has showed no signs that they are going to move the zone. With cesium, decontamination “has to be done very quickly,” said Didier Champion, director of the environmental and response division of the French Institute for Radiological Protection and Nuclear Safety. “Cesium tends to fix to materials and into soil.” The technology is there for the decontamination to be done, it’s just a question of whether the government feels its too early because once they decide its time to move in with the decontamination, it is able to be done. Dan Coyne, a vice president with CH2M-WG Idaho, which is cleaning up an Energy Department site in that state, said that given the uncertainty at Fukushima, one approach might be to spray a chemical on the soil that would prevent the cesium from migrating further. “Go and put a fixative on it, control the area, and save the remediation of that for a time when it fits your priorities,” he said. If buildings and roads need to be decontaminated, that could be accomplished by other relatively simple methods like wiping, power washing or steam cleaning, unless the cesium is deep. And because waste removal and storage are among the most expensive elements in any cleanup, Ms. Yassif said, the general goal is “to remove as much of the radioactive waste as you can in as small a volume as possible.”

This article is scientifically relevant because the radiation that is occurring in Japan because of these power plants could eventually cause severe problems for their country, such as death, birth defects, and serious illnesses. Also, their food could potentially be contaminated for years to come because their soil seems to be contaminated and their waters and slowly contaminating, which means the eating of fish and crops could have to be stopped for many years until the decontamination is complete and the water and soil is safe to produce foods without causing harm to the people. This could also seriously damage Japan’s economy because of the amount of trading they had has been diminished due to this terrible disaster.

I thought the article was very well written, giving me a good sense of what the actual situation is in Japan today. The author understands the severity of this situation and doesn’t take it lightly in his writing, by thoroughly describing the harm this terrible disaster could have on not only the Japanese people but on the rest of the world. This tsunami and its aftermath have caused Japan to be in a state of fear for the radiation and other terrible things caused by it.