– “Hot Spots” in Koriyama City’s Public Schools Revealed, as High as 20 Microsieverts/hr in the Side Drain in One School (EX-SKF, May 7, 2012):
High-radiation “hot spots” including a side drain that measured over 20 microsieverts/hour had been found in public schools in Koriyama City, Fukushima Prefecture, but the information only came to light after citizens’ groups in the city demanded the disclosure to the city’s Board of Education.
From Kyodo News (5/6/2012):
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“Hot spots” in schools in Koriyama City, revealed by information disclosure request
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Citizen’s groups in Koriyama City announced on May 6 that the request for information disclosure to the Koriyama City Board of Education revealed that at least 14 elementary schools and 7 junior high schools, and 5 nursery schools had “hot spots” where the radiation levels exceed 3.8 microsieverts/hour, equivalent of 20 millisieverts in annual cumulative radiation exposure.
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According to the information disclosed, the Board of Education had asked the elementary schools and junior high schools in the city in January to measure the air radiation levels in 8 locations [at each school] including side drains, hedges, and drainage outlets. The measurement was in addition to the regular measurement of radiation levels in the school yards and classrooms. In the April measurement, one junior high school had a spot in the side drain at 20.4 microsieverts/hour at 1 centimeter off the surface.
Toyo Keizai, weekly economic magazine, had an article (5/2/2012) about the same topic – high radiation levels in schools in Koriyama. Even though the schools are supposed to have been “decontaminated”, the reality is that all that’s been done was to replace soil in the school yard, according to Toyo Keizai. Nothing has been done to the locations that tend to concentrate radioactive materials such as drains and water spouts.
Koriyama City finally decided to “decontaminate” those “hot spots” after the Golden Week holidays, but the decontamination work won’t be finished before the annual spring athletic meets that these schools plan to conduct, just like last year and the year before.