Paul Jobin, who follows workers at the Fukushima nuclear power plant, analyzes government denial regarding the health consequences of their work and, more broadly, the long-term effects of the disaster. This censorship, however, is being undermined by social mobilizations which take place in particular via the internet.
On April 12, 2011, the Japanese government announced that the Fukushima nuclear accident, which had occurred a month earlier, had reached level 7, the highest level on the scale. INES (International nuclear event scale). Only the Chernobyl disaster had the same level of severity. Since then, the transparency of information and the radiation protection measures taken by the Japanese government and the Tepco company have regularly been called into question, not only by the media and the associative world, but even by experts close to power. The sociologist Paul Jobin shows us to what extent the exposure standards which are applied to the workers of the nuclear power plant and to the civilian populations of the contaminated regions and which are displayed as responding to the leitmotif of radioprotection, the principle ALARA (“As Low As Reasonably Achievable”), are ultimately primarily political and economic logics and have no real epidemiological foundations. In the first days of the nuclear disaster, on March 14, 2011, the Ministry of Health and Labor (Kōsei rōdōshō) announced that the maximum exposure for workers was raised to 250 millisieverts per year, instead of 20 to 50 mSv in ordinary times. The maximum possible exposure doses for Fukushima schoolchildren also provoked the anger of residents and teachers and the resounding resignation of Kosako Toshiso, member of an advisory committee for the Ministry of Science and Education. It is, moreover, very difficult today to measure what the health impact of a disaster which is far from over will be, given the number of existing studies, the best known of which have been carried out on the victims of bombings. atomic bombs of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, are the subject of controversy. The difficulties of radiation protection and the fact that we know today that we came very close to a catastrophe which could have been of an even more considerable dimension, without the heroic efforts and sacrifices of the radio workers. the power plant, aided by firefighters and soldiers from the self-defense forces (Japanese army), make the very idea of risk management in the nuclear field very presumptuous.
What is the outcome of the Fukushima disaster? ?
The Japanese government declared on December 16 that the disaster was over, that the site was under control since there had been a cool down reactors — but when I question the workers who are still on the site, obviously the situation is far from being under control and stable. Concerning the results of the disaster, for the moment there is no question of the human toll that contamination, for example with cesium or other radionuclides, could cause. In fact, it is still a little early for there to be consequences of exposure to ionizing rays. This is likely to happen unfortunately. An investigation system is set up at Fukushima University, but it is highly contested by a large number of civil associations and citizens who suspect the government of treating them like guinea pigs, a bit like what had happened. place for Hiroshima and Nagasaki, without really having the concern to protect them. What is particularly controversial are the maximum exposures that the Ministry of Health and Labor is preparing to consider as an acceptable horizon: 20 millisieverts per year instead of 1 millisievert per year in normal times. Some government experts estimate that up to 100 millisieverts per year there is no danger, even for children.
Does civil society react ?
At the end of April, one of these experts, Professor Kosako, announced his resignation in tears on television. It had a very significant impact, not only in the nuclear sector but also on the population, including among nuclear activists, until then in a state of apathy, paralyzed. We said: if even he has this reaction, this concern, if even he refuses to expose children to such a standard, something must be done.
It was said abroad that the Japanese were passive or naive about the information leaked to them. This is not true, we have seen discontent from viewers and civil society towards the information provided by the major media and in particular the national channel. First there was massive use of the Internet, a big difference with Chernobyl: not only discussion forums but very precise information forums, which transmit maps of dosimetric readings carried out by ordinary citizens equipped with dosimeters, or by academics independent of the government or the nuclear safety authority and everything is shared on blogs. It is difficult to navigate for a citizen unfamiliar with radiation protection issues. ; but we see, conversely, that ordinary citizens are becoming radiation protection specialists. We see mothers who until then were not at all aware or mobilized who become popular experts. This also pushes the major media to take responsibility and distance themselves from government declarations.
Has the government decided to abandon nuclear power? ?
The ambiguity of the Japanese government with regard to an exit from nuclear power is due to the fact that what has been called the nuclear village, the Japanese nuclear lobby, still has some good remains: the monster is not dead and it manifests itself in different ways ; I think his power has diminished within the Ministry of the Economy which still houses the nuclear safety authority. There is a plan to reform this authority but for the moment it is still under the supervision of the Ministry of the Economy. It was an incestuous environment between the nuclear industry, the safety authority and the Ministry of the Economy but I think that within the Ministry of the Economy there are more and more economists who see the cost of the disaster and the cost of nuclear power, even without a disaster, in terms of dismantling power stations or the management of used fuel rods, radioactive waste: a bit like recently in France, the report of the Court of Auditors made it official the economic cost nuclear. Until now, it was only Greenpeace that did this or this type of anti-nuclear association. There, when it was the court of accounts, we said to ourselves: oh well there is something… I think that in Japan, there is a similar debate, even more dramatic in relation to the situation. It is true that this does not yet appear clearly in a very clear declaration. This was the case with Kan, and I think that’s why he was removed from power. Since the end of August, the situation has evolved further and it is difficult to see at the moment what strength of resistance this nuclear lobby has.
Have we taken stock of the nuclear risk since Fukushima? ?
In terms of safety there is a huge blind spot from nuclear risk. As proof, I cite an interview I had with a specialist in nuclear crisis management in France at theIRSNOlivier Isnard, who was sent to the Japanese ambassador on March 12 to advise the French ambassador to Japan in managing the crisis. I asked him about the radiation protection standards that had been raised for workers from 20 millisieverts to 250 millisieverts per year. I find them very dangerous for the workers and I asked him what he thought about them. He told me: 250 millisieverts per year is nothing. Because at that time the challenge was to save the swimming pools which contain the used fuel rods. Because if they melted, it was such a dose rate that we could no longer bring anyone to the site. It wasn’t in millisieverts it was 100 to 1000 sieverts/hour. He told me: if we send someone, they will be grilled straight away like a sausage. I asked him: what would be the consequences if these pools melted, if we lose the site, then what happens? ? He replied: it’s such a risk that we don’t want to think about it. These things are rarely rationalized, rarely explained and the scenario recalls what Nesterenko, the nuclear physicist who was directly involved in managing the Chernobyl disaster, had said: if there had not been the sacrifice of the liquidators, it would is all of Western Europe which would have gone there, and would have become practically uninhabitable. The problem is that it’s not said, since they themselves don’t want to think about it ! It’s an open door to the wildest fantasies, reminiscent of Kurosawa’s nightmare in his film Dream…
Transcription: Stéphanie Mimouni.