NH #439: Fukushima Disappearing?: 4- Day Journey through Japan’s Radioactive Olympics Prefecture w/Beverly Findlay-Kaneko (Pt. 1)

Fukushima Disappearing? Tomioka 2019 – the dead end at the “difficult to return” zone. One side of the street is in the repatriation zone; the other, behind the red and white barriacade, is in the exclusion zone. Can you see the difference?
Photo: Copyright 2019 Yuji Kaneko; used by permission of photographer.

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This Week’s Featured Interview:

Fukushima Disappearing? An on-the-ground report by Beverly Findlay-Kaneko. She lived in Yokohama, Japan for 20 years until March 2011 after the Great Eastern Japan Earthquake.  She worked at Yokohama National University and The Japan Times.  Beverly has a Master’s degree in East Asian Studies from Stanford University, and speaks Japanese fluently.

Beverly Findlay-Kaneko (l) and Setsuko Kida at a monument dedicated to tsunami victims. Many were never found because Namie was in the exclusion zone, and no one could search for bodies. (Photo copyright 2019, Yugi Kaneko. Used by permission of the photographer.)

Since returning from Japan, Beverly and her husband, Yuji Kaneko, have been active in raising awareness about nuclear issues, including the nuclear accident at Fukushima. Their main activities have included organizing speaking tours, giving presentations, networking in activist and nuclear-impacted communities in the U.S. and Japan, and co-producing the annual Nuclear Hotseat podcast “Voices from Japan” special on Fukushima. 

Numnutz of the Week (for Outstanding Nuclear Boneheadedness):

Why in the world should the United States worry about removing the radioactive waste stored under Runit Dome in the Marshall Islands when the Marshall Islanders haven’t taken seriously the U.S. demand to remove the dome’s… graffiti? Don’t they realize that anti-U.S. graffiti is more dangerous than radioactive waste???

Action Links:

  • U. S. LISTENERS: Contact your Congressional Representative and urge them to VOTE “NO” ON HR 2699, the Nuclear Waste Policy Amendments Act of 2019. To find your representative, CLICK HERE.
  • LA Times 12-page insert on Marshall Islands – Brilliant reporting by Suzanne Rust and a team of journalism graduate students from the Columbia School of Journalism. Published November 10, 2019.
Cover of Nov. 10, 2019 LA Times 12-page supplement on the nuclear betrayal of the Marshall Islands. Important reporting by Suzanne Rust & Columbia School of Journalism graduate students.
  • KNBC-Los Angeles November 8, 2019 reports on radioactive/toxic water runoff from the Santa Susana Field Lab.
  • Uranium Detected at Maple Grove Elementary School near Honeywell-Metropolis, Illinois.
Another public school found to be contaminated by radiation – first Zahn’s Corner Middle School in Piketon, Ohio, and now Maple Grove Elementary School in Metropolis, Illinois.