Yes, we have a hot spot and maybe more. But the city has also done some
checking around parks and kindergartens about 1 month ago and the
readings were MUCH lower. Something like 0.3 or 0.4. Which is about
2.0 millisieverts a year.
This hot spot that you saw on the news was caused by the concentration
of rain drain off of the many many houses above on the hill. Their
roofs would have collected some radiation and then when it rains, that
radiation gets in the down spouts and into the drains. This drain
where they found the high concentration was located at the bottom of a
hill and was
broken so that the water leaked out into a one yard by one yard area.
It is being cleaned up.
The dirt will be removed and the drain fixed. And I suppose it will be
watched it see if more collects there. We have been warned that their
are other places like this in our area.
This particular hot spot in NOT near me, it must be about 5 miles
away. BUT, I live at the bottom of a small hill. Every one's rain
spout goes directly into a downspout and then into those drains by the
side of the road. Ours are covered except for a "cleaning" grate near
my house. Now, I bet if I took a reading near that open grate, it
would be very high. One good thing, the city water people have been
doing work to change the water pipes on my street. I am hoping that
this activity and their constant use of water will have reduced the
amount of radiation that has collected. But who knows. The city of
Kashiwa is going to buy 1,500 Geiger counters and use them to check
all drains (which are city property) and then lend them out to us to
check our own land. Also, my street will be repaved, which is good as
this will further reduce the amount of radiation laying around.
I am also concerned about my yard. Not that radiation will collect and
concentrate, but after the March 23rd rain that brought the radiation
in the first place, I have tried not to use the yard much. I think I
would have the same concentrations at the kindergartens but it needs
to be checked. Takao does not want me to work in the yard till we get
it settled.
They also found a very high hot spot in Tokyo but it turned out to be
some radiation from an X-ray machine or something that some one had
thrown away years ago and had been laying there all this time!!!!
Goodness!
Here is an article about the Kashiwa hot spot subject from the Japan
Times Newspaper::
Tuesday, Oct. 25, 2011
Kashiwa's hot spot just one of many to come, expert says
By MIZUHO AOKI
Staff writer
The hot spot discovered in Kashiwa, Chiba Prefecture, has local
residents alarmed now that the science ministry has confirmed the
source of the radiation is probably fallout from the Fukushima No. 1
power plant.
But another radiation expert warns that there are more hot spots to come.
Masahiro Fukushi warned citizens Monday that more hot spots can be
found where rainwater accumulates, like near the ditch in Kashiwa, and
urged them to go out and take readings of such places in their
neighborhoods on their own, instead of waiting around for the
government's plodding surveys.
Contamination in much of Kashiwa is far higher than other parts of the
Tokyo metropolitan area, so the mini hot spot really wasn't much of a
surprise, said Fukushi, a professor of radiation science at Tokyo
Metropolitan University.
"If the (cesium) detected was 100 times higher than the amount
measured by the science ministry, then it'd be strange. But in this
case, it's just four or five times, so you should not be surprised,"
Fukushi said.
According to the science ministry, it is highly likely that cesium in
rainwater condensed in the soil after leaking with it from the broken
ditch.
The soil at the hot spot had a high 276,000 becquerels of cesium per
kilogram, the Kashiwa Municipal Government said. This is four to five
times higher than the level surrounding the hot spot and many other
places in Kashiwa, he said. The condensation process will allow this
level to be attained in any place where rainwater accumulates in a
limited area, Fukushi said.
Typical examples are side ditches, openings near downspouts and soil
under evergreen trees, Fukushi warned.
"As we now have the knowledge of where we can find hot spots, such as
areas under downspouts, we should work together to monitor such
places," he said. "I think this is where citizen volunteer efforts
must come into play."
Fukushi also said that Kashiwa's residents should not worry too much
about the hot spot. The highest radiation reading at the site was 15
microsieverts per hour, which is unlikely to harm anyone because most
people will be unlikely to stand around the site for extended periods,
Fukushi said.
"Even if a person walked through the site on every day (since March
11), the total exposure dose should not be a cause for fear," said
Fukushi, who visited the hot spot last week.
According to Fukushi, residents in Tokyo, west of Kashiwa, should be
less worried about hot spots because the contamination levels in Tokyo
are much lower.
For example, one hot spot was found at the end of a downspout at an
elementary school in Adachi Ward, but the reading was only 3.99
microsieverts per hour.
According to aerial monitoring surveys conducted by the science
ministry since September, some areas in Kashiwa contain 60,000 to
100,000 becquerels per kilogram of radioactive cesium.
The highest exposure level recorded in the aerial survey was between
0.2 to 0.5 microsieverts per hour.
