The Search For Safe Water in Tokyo

Although radiation levels in Tokyo tap water have dropped considerably since the brief period in March when levels exceeded government safety standards for infants, many people in the Kanto region are still worried about drinking tap water.

As this TBS news video shows, bottled water remains scarce at some supermarkets, so some people have been travelling great distances to obtain drinking water:

People are shown lining up to fill bottles with water from a natural spring at the Anasawaten Shrine in Inagi, in the western part of Tokyo. The water from the spring is officially certified by authorities as safe to drink.

However, some people are travelling even farther to get “safer” water. Tokyoites have been travelling 160 kilometers west to fill water bottles at a highway rest area in Yamanashi prefecture. The group they filmed included people from Shibuya and Edogawa areas of Tokyo. One woman said she was getting the water for her pregnant daughter, who has been unable to obtain bottled water in Tokyo.

Because of uncertainties about the availability of electricity, bottled water factories have been operating at reduced rates of production. At the end of the clip, we are shown footage of a shipment of bottled water sent to Japan from Coca Cola’s South Korean factories. It seems that Japanese supermarkets may soon start selling a considerable amount of Korean bottled water.

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9 comments - What do you think? Posted by James - April 7, 2011 at 11:13 am

Categories: General Japan Tags:

Stereo

Talking of radiation panic, Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, a US government organization, is now preparing a handbook for mental care for radiation anxiety, and translating it into Japanese so that Japanese will not panic due to un-rooted fear of radiation.
http://news.goo.ne.jp/article/sankei/world/snk20110407100.html

I think this is last thing Japanese need today. They should send them to Americans in the West Coast.

http://tepido.org/ LB

They should send a copy to a certain Japanese individual currently in Canada first, methinks.

Won’t even have to translate it.

http://theinconvenienttruthonwhaling.blogspot.com/ kujirakira

Wait, is he Japanese* or Japanese?
I can never tell.
He sues people for treating him like Japanese*, but then slates the government for not letting him submit as Japanese* on the census.

Jordan

Meanwhile I’m back to drinking from the tap, because of all these freaks out there.
andrew

This fear induced behaviour wouldnt be a problem in the EU or USA where it wouldnt have even made the news as the “safety limits” are less strict.

Anyone quit smoking yet, being obese, etc…a far higher risk for cancer?

Pag

It’s quite possible that more people will die from the lung cancer they got from smoking cigarettes to calm their radiation anxiety than from the radiation itself

randomcommenter

This is why a basic science education is important even for non-scientists. They reported that the amount of radioactive iodine was double the safety threshold for infants. Radioactive iodine has a half life of 8 days. These people could have just filled empty bottle after empty bottle with tap water, and then waited 8 days for the radioactivity in the bottles to drop to the threshold (or 9 days for it to drop under). The water radiation spike was 14 days ago, enough time for the radiation level to drop to around 50% *under* the limit for infants.

But due to their lack of knowledge of fairly basic (and very very well-reported) science, they’re traveling 160 kilometers for no reason.
gaijin

I think the present elevated levels of radioactive iodine in the water, spinach, etc. have been there from numerous past covered up leaks at the Tokyo power co.s nuclear facilities in the North. There just wasn’t any way to cover it up any more with all of the media attention so they’ve accredited it to this latest catastrophe. I believe that the people of Tokyo and other municipalities have been drinking miniscule amounts of radioactive iodine and consuming it in their vegetables for the past 30 plus years. Who knows in smallest enough amounts radioactive iodine is probably healthy for you like the sun. A little is good too much is cancer!

ponta

1) I don’t believe anybody would take your claim of cover-up seriously.
But if you can back up your claim, please.

2) anyway,

“Asked what health consequences he expected from Fukushima, he said: “From what I know now, nothing, because levels are so low. In food, people are talking about levels which would give you one millisieverts per year, five millisieverts per year . . . this is nothing where we would expect major health impacts.”

http://www.calgaryherald.com/health/expert+sees+serious+health+impact+from+Japan+nuclear+accident/4568981/story.html

“Professor Richard Wakeford from the Dalton Nuclear Institute and visiting Professor of Epidemiology at Manchester University said the health effects would be extremely small. He calculated that drinking water for a year at the Japanese limit would give an infant a dose of 0.4mSv, so you would need to double that to get the effect of drinking water at the higher level of radiation for a year. Professor Wakeford said “in theory, there would be a very small additional risk of cancer, but in practice nothing more than you could expect to get from normal background levels of radiation”.
So the extra risk from drinking tap water in Tokyo for a year would be far less than that of someone moving, say, from London to Cornwall for a year.”

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/ferguswalsh/2011/03/japan_nuclear_leak_and_tap_water.html

“The radioactive cesium was detected in broccoli in Fukushima prefecture well above the country’s limit. The estimated increase in cancer of eating two unwashed pounds is about two chances in a million”

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2011/04/02/world/asia/assessing-the-radiation-danger.html?ref=world

Radiation levels and their effects on the food supply are explained in this videographic

“Radiation effect on foods”

Eating ２lbs. of the most contaminated spinach detected so far = Dose of CT scan to the head”
http://abcnews.go.com/International/japan_disaster/

And keep in mind the vegetables above the legal limit are not on the market.

3)I am not sure if there is a scientist who claims “smallest enough amounts radioactive iodine is probably healthy”, but “scientists disagree about the effects of very low doses of the sort that may have occurred so far in Japan

Some researchers say it is reasonable to use data from high doses to calculate the risk of smaller and smaller doses. They argue that any exposure to radiation raises the risk of cancer, though probably by only a small amount in the case of small doses. ”

.http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/05/health/05radiation.html?_r=1

The Search For Safe Water in Tokyo

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