DiaNuke.org

An appeal from Etsuji Watanabe, member of the Japanese anti-radiation citizen-scientist group ACSIR (Association for Citizens and Scientists Concerned about Internal Radiation Exposures)

A California federal judge on Friday dumped a $5 billion suit against Tokyo Electric Power Co.(TEPCO) and General Electric Co. over alleged radiation risks to U.S. Navy members responding to the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster, saying her court lacked jurisdiction over the sailors’ claims.

Nuclear waste storages in Namie, Minamisoma and Iitate, Fukushima prefecture in Japan. Adopting a return to normal policy, the Japanese government undertook an unprecedented decontamination program for areas of Fukushima contaminated by the triple reactor meltdown in March 2011. Fukushima prefecture is 70 percent mountainous forest which has not and cannot be decontaminated, with decontamination efforts focussed along roads and in towns, farmland and in narrow areas around peoples houses. The result has been that the Japanese authorities have produced a nuclear waste crisis, with over 7 million tons of waste located in 147,000 locations (as of August 2017). The Japanese government is determined to force people back to their homes despite the on-going radiation risks and the vast volumes of nuclear waste.

The government approved a revised 30-to-40-year roadmap that delays by three years the start of a key initial step — the removal of still-radioactive fuel rods in the three reactors that had meltdowns following the March 2011 disaster in northeast Japan.