Report from 6/11/18 NNA rally・
About a dozen of people (plus a doggy) got together for the 71st NNA rally.
There were some speak outs about Fukushima and SF Hunters Point problems.
https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/SF-residents-sue-firm-over-soil-cleanup-at-12879777.php
The letter to PM Abe was written and read out by Don Eichelberger of Abalone Alliance Safe Energy Clearinghouse. Attached please read his letter.
There was no video taping at this time.
Kazmi Torii prepared some tea and snacks unexpectedly which we enjoyed after the rally.
We will be there again at SF Japanese Consulate on June 11th!
Please join us!
サンフランシスコは少し暖かくなってきて、初夏を思わせる午後、約１０人ほどと一匹の犬が集まり、一緒に抗議をしました。
スピークアウトでは当然、福島の犠牲者に対する政府と東電の不誠実、無責任が指摘され、裁判そして裁判外紛争解決手続きなどが長引き、決裂しそれに疲れ切っている犠牲者さんの痛みが語られました。
そしてここサンフランシスコには当地の放射能汚染問題があります。元海軍のシップヤードがクリーンナップされ住宅地になる計画でしたが、放射能のクリーンナップに業者が嘘をついていたことが今年の１月に明らかにされ、周りの住民が集団訴訟を起こしました。これもスピークアウトの一つでしたが、詳しくはSFクロ二カル新聞の記事をお読みください。
https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/SF-residents-sue-firm-over-soil-cleanup-at-12879777.php
今回首相への手紙はDon Eichelbergerさんが書き、読み上げました。添付の手紙を読んでください。
今回録画はありません。
抗議集会を続けなければならないことは実に遺憾です。でも諦めたら状況は良くなるのでしょうか？ とんでもありません、諦めたら状況はますます悪くなるばかりです。
だからわたし達は来月、７月１１日にまた領事館前に参集し、抗議の手紙を提出し、スピークアウトをし、政府と核産業の不正を弾劾します。
皆さんも参加してください！
reported by NNA member Chizu Hamada
— Letter to Japanese P.M. Abe —
Dear Prime Minister Abe:
You may wonder why I am writing you this letter concerning your government’s policies from America’s California shore over 5000 miles away.
I am a staff person for the Abalone Alliance Safe Energy Clearinghouse, and my anti-nuclear activism goes back over 40 years. I have looked on with horror and growing dismay at the events around the meltdowns at Fukushima Daiichi and your subsequent decision to restart your country’s nuclear reactors.
Time is on the side of nuclear radiation, and I fear, as my state is both down-current and downwind of you, the long-term affects of your actions will eventually affect me and future generations here.
The profound aftermath of the Tohoku Earthquake and resulting tsunami that claimed tens of thousands of lives and untallied losses of property would have been a challenge for any government to overcome. But, before the people could begin to mourn their losses and recover from them, outside power and onsite back-up generators that cooled the cores and waste pools at Fukushima Daiichi were lost, and what happened next preempted everything else.
The ensuing meltdowns and hydrogen explosions have greatly expanded the boundaries of that one earthquake, great as it was, in time, distance and effect.
In distance, already three years ago we detected albacore tuna off our coast contaminated with radiation from your reactors. Despite best efforts radiation will spread, sometimes even when it is contained. At Fukushima, it is not contained.
New technologies will need to be invented and it will take many decades to bring Fukushima under full control and the Prefecture may never be declared clean of harmful levels of radiation. Meanwhile, for the foreseeable future a great deal of the run off through those broken, melted cores will continue to emit high levels of radiation in to the water; will you be able to contain it all? Just one element being released, Cesium-139, can be a threat to health for over a century.
As I said, time is on the side of radiation.
Besides cancer and other diseases caused by radiation, there will be damage to our chromosomes and genetic pool. Ionizing radiation breaks down atoms and the resulting free radicals pierce through chromosomes like a bullet through flesh. There are many chromosomes, so it is hard to kill them all. But higher density ionization will be released through the generations as they concentrate, free radical damages will grow, putting more chromosomes in danger over time.
The spread of human-made plastics in to the bodies of the birds, mammals and fish of the sea should be a warning to us about the ocean’s power for dispersion. Radiation will also be concentrated in sea life generation after generation as sea creatures prey upon the irradiated bodies of the prior generation so that in fifty years, will there be any sea life left free of radiation? Radiation exposure over a long timeframe in low doses is, according to follow-up studies on Hibakusha, more dangerous to us than the short term, high level burst from a weapon. Neither should be tolerated.
The subjects of childhood leukemia and thyroid cancer are hard to avoid given increased sensitivity of children to the effects of radiation. Yet, it is difficult to access credible statistics on them. An article I read recently told of the October 2015 study of Toshihide Tsuda from Okayama University showing 137 children from the Fukushima Prefecture described as either being diagnosed with or showing signs of developing thyroid cancer. Tsuda stated, according to the article, that the increased detection “could not be accounted for” by attributing it to the increased screening of children after the meltdowns. It was being widely reported that the more intensive tests undertaken after the meltdowns were detecting an increased number of childhood thyroid nodules. Most were benign and the results seemed to point toward a “new normal”. However, Dr. Tsuda described his screening results to be “20 times to 50 times what would be expected” even by mass screening. By the end of 2015, the number of effected children reportedly had increased to 166.
Even though these findings have been challenged, they are troubling. I hope you would want to know the true costs to your children and citizens. You should not give the impression you are protecting an industry that needs to be held more accountable. If you have access to statistics independent of industrial interests I have not been able to locate that give hope, please let me know of them.
I do not believe we should try to predict a successful future for nuclear power. Just one accident at Fukushima resulted in three meltdowns; an event that no one would ever have guessed, yet it happened. All predictions are just guesses, and I fear the industry’s more hopeful guesses are more the result of economic desire than scientific rigor.
Which begs the question: Knowing this, why, would you continue to allow more reactors to restart operations? The conditions that brought about the Fukushima tragedy have not left your country. It is still a seismically active tsunami zone along the shores where many of these nuclear facilities operate. Please do not tempt fate lightly.
On the 11th day of every month I can, I stand at the Japanese Consulate in San Francisco with my friends from Japan to remember Fukushima. Many of them have loved ones in Japan and worry for their long term well being.
I join with them and call on you to use your power to oppose all things nuclear and show the world that Japanese resourcefulness can lead the way toward a truly nuclear free future. Keep the reactors shut and show the world the economic strength of more efficient energy use powered with waves, wind, the sun and cutting edge technologies.
Alternatives to nuclear power will grow more quickly if subsidies to the nuclear industry for clean-up and waste handling after an accident can be saved. Future accidents will take more money away from the development of long-term, sustainable solutions.
Please shut down all nukes and stop threatening your economy’s long term well-being in favor of short-term economic gain using a dangerous technology.
Sincerely,
Don Eichelberger
Abalone Alliance Safe Energy Clearinghouse
2940 16th Street, #310
San Francisco, CA 94103
No Nukes Action Committee 