Considering Game Changing

In spite of a great amount of surplus in reconstruction budget, the Government of Japan considers lowering the target of decontamination in Fukushima attributing it to money shortage. Nobody guarantees the impact on human health, when the threshold for residents is eased. Young families, namely with kids, don’t want to go back their hometown, worrying about high radiation. It is old people who really consider going back home. The government is just buying time until all those old residents will die.

The government set a long-term goal to reduce the radiation of towns around broken First Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant to 1mSv per year, and required Tokyo Electric Power Company to achieve it for residents to go back home. However, incompetent TEPCO is not serious about reaching it, making the government frustrated. While it realized the necessity to inject a huge amount of tax money in decontamination, the government embarked on changing the rule of game.

Keeping the goal as it has been, the government is considering letting the residents return before the long-term goal will be achieved. Experts found that actual radiation monitored on the land was lower than measurement by aircraft that would determine standard radiation level. The delegation of International Atomic Energy Agency led by Von Carlos Lentijo encouraged the government not to insist on the goal of 1mSv, saying that “It should be determined within the range from 1mSv to 20mSv, balancing benefit and burden.”

The residents in Fukushima saw Lentijo as a devil. Even workers for dismantling First Fukushima are protected with threshold of 5mSv. If one got over beyond that line, he needs to report how he worked. The 20mSv regulation means forcing the ordinary residents harder situation than workers in the plant. Overall recognition of the people in Fukushima is 1mSv goal must be maintained.

1mSv has been a symbol of safety for sufferers in Fukushima to go back home. The promise of the government has been that it is forcing TEPCO to reduce radiation level down to 1mSv. While there was a broad skepticism for achievement of the goal, the government rigorously kept on saying that it would do that, with a hint of underestimation of impact of the accident.

Ambitious decontamination policy was introduced by former administration of Democratic Party of Japan. The politics could not decide setting unlivable land, because it would directly connects to TEPCO’s responsibility. As long as the government insists on survival of TEPCO, no answer will be found. To vest those burden stemmed from the accident is a violation of humanity.