Officials: Tons of Fukushima radioactive waste in area beyond Tokyo, 150 miles from reactors – Higher strontium levels there than spot 1 mile from Daiichi plant

– Officials: Tons of Fukushima radioactive waste in area beyond Tokyo, 150 miles from reactors — Higher strontium levels there than spot 1 mile from Daiichi plant — “Southern wind directions and rainfall explain relatively high activity levels” (ENENews, Feb 1, 2014):

Asahi Shimbun, Feb. 1, 2014: Sludge designated radioactive waste for 1st time in Kanagawa — The Environment Ministry has classified 2.9 tons of sludge from Prefecture as radioactive waste derived from the Fukushima nuclear disaster, the first such designation for the prefecture on the southern border of Tokyo. The designation, made in December, means the ministry is responsible for disposing of the radioactive sludge. […]  Yokohama city government officials said the designation covers sludge from rain collection and storage facilities at 17 municipal elementary, junior high and other schools. […] The designation also included sludge collected from roadside ditches and elsewhere […] Waste containing more than 8,000 becquerels of radioactive cesium, spewed from the crippled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant, per kilogram is eligible for the designation. […]

Concentration of Strontium-90 at Selected Hot Spots in Japan, PLOS ONE (Scientific Journal), March 2013:

[…] Southern wind directions and rainfall explain the relatively high activity levels in the remote hot spot in […] Yokohama

[Results in chart below are in grams, not kilograms. Multiply figures by 1,000 to get Bq/kg]

Mainichi, Nov. 16, 2011: Radiation-tainted sludge, ash continues to pile up at Yokohama treatment centers […] I visited the southern sludge treatment and recycling center in Yokohama’s Kanazawa Ward, where some 4,000 tons of [ash contaminated with radioactive materials] — over 70 percent of the city’s total — is stored. […] As I was photographing workers transferring ash into bags, one worker warned me, “Don’t get too close.” […] Bags of ash covered with plastic sheets formed mountains on the premises. The amount of ash is increasing at a rate of 20 tons a day at the center. Seeing them up close, I felt the ominous weight of the nuclear crisis, which had seemed a distant affair to me up until then. […]

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