Japanese citizens are balking at the lack of information and supervision of waste stored in public places, such as playgrounds.
Hundreds of plastic bags packed with radioactive dirt and other contaminated debris have been buried in parks throughout Koriyama, Japan.
Courtesy of Yasushi Takemoto
EnlargeThe small sandy square in front of Yasushi Takemoto's apartment in Koriyama, a city of 328,000 about 150 miles north of Tokyo, looks like a normal public park. On a recent weekday morning, a group of children played on the swings while the retired dentistry professor strolled under the trees.
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Beneath the soil in one unmarked, unfenced corner, however, lie hundreds of bags packed with radioactive dirt, sludge from drainage ditches, and other contaminated debris.
The waste was collected from around the neighborhood last November by citizens trying to reduce radiation from?the meltdowns earlier that year at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, about 37 miles to the east.
They packed the debris into bags, buried them about six feet deep between layers of plastic sheets, and covered them with soil ? all with the approval of city officials.
Radiation levels aren't especially high here because the waste is covered with a thick layer of clean dirt. And because radioactive cesium (one of the main contaminants in Fukushima) binds strongly to clay particles in the soil, the risk of it seeping quickly into ground water is low, say soil scientists at Japan's Forestry and Forest Products Research Institute.
Mr. Takemoto says children have a right to know what's in their environment all the same.
"We'll be able to say these storage sites are safe only after we've collected a certain amount of monitoring data," he says.
Oregon State University radioecologist Kathryn Higley says soil type, chemistry, and geology all come into play when it comes to water contamination. "The key feature is to keep water, critters, and plants out. Water will leach it; critters will spread it around," she says.
Are nuclear waste sites properly monitored?
Takemoto learned about the plan to bury the waste from a neighbor. When he called city hall to request a public meeting explaining the plans, he was turned down. But by filing freedom-of-information requests, he learned that at least 20 similar pits exist at parks and other public spaces in the city. He believes local officials are breaking the law by failing to inform residents and ensure the sites are properly monitored.
Last year's meltdowns exposed a culture of government secrecy surrounding the nuclear industry that allowed lax safety rules and poor oversight. Yet while the government has taken some steps toward transparency, it faces significant pressure to meet the country's energy needs. Koriyama's case illustrates that much related to nuclear power ? and its very powerful business interests ? remains hidden from an increasingly distrustful public.
"A lot more people are suspicious of government PR [public relations] now and want to see original documents," says Yukiko Miki, director of Tokyo-based Information Clearinghouse Japan. Her organization is using Japan's information disclosure law, which went into effect in 2001, to request and archive documents related to the Fukushima disaster. Media organizations have done the same to uncover a string of recent disaster-related scandals.
Japan's most passionate protest movement
The meltdowns have also sparked Japan's most passionate protest movement in several years. Weekly anti-nuclear demonstrations outside the prime minister's residence have gone from a few hundred activists to tens of thousands, and petition campaigns have garnered millions of signatures.
Still, few ordinary Fukushima residents have the know-how to get the information they want from the government, Ms. Miki says. Takemoto is a rare exception. An avid requester of government documents before the meltdowns, he's now turned his attention to disaster-related problems such as the decontamination work that's just starting to pick up speed.
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