7/30/2019 Chiho Kaneko's presentation on Fukushima was well received

1/3

Noted journalist Eesha Williams, author ofGrassroots Journalism, recently

posted the following comment in his May 10 column, written by Jules Rabinof Marshfield, Vermont

________________________________________________________

Last night in Montpeliers Christ Church I sat spellbound for 2 hours as ChihoKaneko, an eloquent Japanese woman who has lived in Vermont for a decade,recounted to us the news and present situation of the Fukushima district in Japan

which was unrecoverably contaminated by radiation when the poorly protectedand inadequately equipped nuclear power plant located there was struck by theTsunami of 2011. Kaneko has visited the neighborhood of Fukushima severaltimes since the disaster, with camera, Geiger counter, and her native fluency inJapanese, in order to get details and the "tone" of the aftermath of the Fukushimadisaster, and its implications for Vermonters who live within the potentialradiation shadow of our states own nuclear power plant in Vernon.

7/30/2019 Chiho Kaneko's presentation on Fukushima was well received

2/3

I was especially struck by a couple of things in Kanekos talk. The first is theinherent incompleteness and consequent falseness of the assurances given to the

publics who live downwind from the nuclear power plants of the world, by thetechnical and corporate masters of those power plants. Everything is Hunky-

Dory, were told, and under the perfect control of the self-certifying experts, untilthat one more Oops-thing occurs that technical genius didnt anticipate, orcorporate thrift didnt allow for, and that sets off another inexpugnable nuclearhell- fire and poisoning of man, earth, and beast, lasting into unnumbereddecades.

A second impression Kaneko left with me was the tentative and uncertain natureof how life can be lived at all in territories adjacent to the failed nuclear power

plants of Fukushima, infected as they have been with small or large amounts of

enduring nuclear radiation. There are to begin with the children, who, by thenatural process of their growth are more susceptible than adults to the long termeffects of radiation. And there are at the other extreme of public concern, letsmention them, the spinach and wild fiddleheads and beloved persimmons andevery thing else that grows in the wider Fukushima region: are they and theirkind safe to eat? or come on, lets not be fussy! only a teensy bit unsafe? Andthere are the widely popular wild mushrooms of the region: dont even think ofeating them -- theyre the worst for concentrating radioactivity in themselves.

And the mysteries of life under radiation being endless --there is the drip linearound ones house to think about, too. Atmospheric radiation bonds withraindrops, and the radioactive rain that falls on rooftops becomes concentrated inthe drip line around the house. In some places around Fukushima, the surface ofthe earth has been scraped up (how deep to go, and at what unimaginable troubleand cost?)and packed into giant round plastic-covered bales, like the white-wrapped hay-bales we see around Vermont ... bales of contaminated soil by thethousands and tens of thousands, piled up and covering acres of land andconcentrating their radiation ... with no place to go. So they sit in unfenced

gathering places by the roadsides, suppurating, radiating, constantly. For yearsand years, and decades and decades. And longer, yet? And how dangerously? Noone knows for sure, is the standard answer when it comes to the disposition andlongevity of deeply radioactive waste.

7/30/2019 Chiho Kaneko's presentation on Fukushima was well received

3/3

I think that every nuclear power plant still functioning is an example of TechnicalMans hubris. THEY, the experts in charge, say to us, We know the science andare fully in control of every thing. And we care about you, too, first andforemost. So never fear.

So it was with Chernobyl: Were experts, were the responsible ones, and weknow what were doing.

And so with Fukushima: The Russians will make their mistakes, but weJapanese are more clever and more careful.

And so with our own little Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant in the town ofVernon, whose hot breath will reach even the table where Im tapping out thesewords now, if Something Bad happens there, and a wrong wind blows in

afterwards through the window behind me. The Entergy Corporation ofLouisiana, which owns Vermont Yankee from a distance, acknowledges theyvemade mistakes in the past, and have misspoken sometimes when queried by theVermont legislature; and acknowledges also that there have been some mishapson a scale not to worry about -- in the distant up there which is our Vermont.

Their claim : we, the owners and operators of the plant, are the experts in charge,and we know what were doing, never mind the little troubles weve had before.Chernobyl was one thing, Fukushima another, but were something different. So

sit back, rest easy, go on eating your home-grown spinach and collecting yourfiddleheads, and just-- trust us -- to put your safety and the wholesomeness ofyour land at the head of our concerns.