Billy wrote:
songbird wrote:
Billy wrote:
...
When will it be safe for the farmers of Fukushima to resume their
livelihood, and grow non-toxic crops again?

depends upon who and where.

one plan puts clean up at 40 years.

if i were an older person without children
it wouldn't make that much difference as
hot spots can be detected and cleaned up
before a garden could be used.

for younger people who are hoping to
have children i'd wait...

right now with the plant still being
a possible source of more leaks it is too
risky to be too close. i wouldn't want
to be any place within 10 miles in general
and probably further away if it were down
wind of prevailing winds.

still, the country of Japan with such
limited land area it would make more sense
to get on top of this sooner rather than
later to get the land back into production.

i'm a bit more worried about what has been
and might be still dumped into the sea. a
contaminated fish can swim a long ways before
being caught.

I was thinking of farmers, not gardeners, Bird. Yeah, ma, and pa may be
too old to worry about getting cancer in 20 years, but farmers sell to
the full spectrum of society from geezers to those who are pregnant. All
the released radiation will have a statistical effect on large
populations, and devastating effects on those affected, for generations
to come.

this really depends. like i said above. one
area may have enough radioactive particles as to
make the topsoil unsafe for workers or anyone
who might ingest the dust. other spots may not
be so much that it would be all that different
from background radiation levels of any volcanic
origin.

and the fun part is that it really depends upon
not only how much radiation is there but what kind
of particles are giving off the radiation. some
particles will be made up of elements that will
decay within a few years time. others are going
to be there for ever.

for the worst areas they could take the top
layer of soil and invert it so that it is
below the most biologically active zone (depends
upon frost/thaw cycles and the fauna that moves
soils). more moderate to lightly contaminated
areas are likely too expensive to cleanup and
could be turned with a deep plow and then used
without too much of a problem.

ok, so to go a little further you have to also
look at each plant species to see what they take
up. some will not take up much at all. turn the
soil deep enough and plant shallow rooted plants
and that could easily cover 90-99% of the area
affected for not much $. the rest of the 10-1%
is where the big $ will be spent and much of it
will be wasted.


The newly elected prime minister of Japan, Shinzo Abe, said that he will
seek to build new nuclear reactors, which will be completely different
from those at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. I guess the
acid test is whether the private companies, like Tokyo Electric Power
Co., will take responsibility for insuring their nuclear power plants
for public liability, or will they depend on the government, as here in
the U.S., to cover their liabilities.

i hope the design is safe and they don't build the
things close to the ocean, fault lines or other populated
areas... which for Japan pretty much rules out all of it.


Been having line problems with my DSL, so while I have the opportunity,
I'd like to wish all you gardeners a Happy New Year.

thanks! it's been a riot so far.


songbird