Fukushima, Seven Years After

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

February 12, 2019

Contact:
Thomas Bailey, 724-887-0952, [email protected]

Stephen Verchinski, [email protected]

On January 23, two members of the Green Party of United States (GPUS) delivered an open letter and three other documents to Ambassador Inga Rhonda King, president of the United Nations Economic and Social Council (UNESC). This open letter had been adopted by the GPUS National Committee, and it asked UNESC to listen to and talk with three speakers called by GPUS. At this audience, UNESC could have speakers with views opposing those of GPUS. Speakers would consider this topic: Has the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) provided for the public safety of the residents of Japan and the world community after the Great East Japan Earthquake of 2011, as required by the International Atomic Energy Treaty (IAET), Article III, Section A, paragraphs 6 and 7?

Ultimately, GPUS requests the IAE to take over the operation and control of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station (Fuku Station) from the Japanese government. Ongoing human rights violations and continuous releases of radioactive water into the Pacific Ocean merit direct action by the world community. GPUS expects UNESC to hold nations accountable to international law and to use the powers granted to it by the IAET.

Next, the two GPUS delegates, Thomas Bailey and Stephen Verchinski, delivered copies of the same open letter to the U.S. Mission to the United Nations. Verchinski, is a delegate from New Mexico to both GPUS International and Eco-Action Committees. Bailey, is a delegate from Pennsylvania to GPUS International Committee.

Bailey said, “We feel that the Japanese government is violating the human rights of everyone inside Japan by exposing them to excessive amounts of radiation leaving Fuku Station. The Japanese government is releasing 300 tons of Fuku-sourced radioactive water into the Pacific Ocean each day. Their government controls Fuku Station now. They should protect their own residents and the Pacific, not host the 2020 Olympics.”

Almost eight years have elapsed since the Great Earthquake, accompanying huge tsunami and subsequent disaster at Fuku Station, owned by Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO). The Japanese government took over the maintenance and operation of Fuku Station from TEPCO in 2013. The open letter explains two legal rationales for UN action now.

One involves the IAEA and the safety standards it has established globally. The Japanese government declared Fuku Station to be a Level 7 “nuclear exposure event,” the most dangerous on the International Nuclear and Radiation Event Scale. As a consequence, the International Commission on Radiation Protection raised the maximum permissible amount of radiation the residents of Japan were forced to endure twenty fold!

UN Special Rapporteurs Grover in 2013 and Tuncak in 2017 directed the Japanese government to reduce the maximum permissible radiation dosage back to one millisevert per year. While the Japanese government agreed to reduce the dosage in March, 2018, it has refused to do so to date.

Delegates from the Green Party of Pennsylvania (GPPA) proposed these actions originally to the GPUS National Committee. GPPA urges others to consider sending their own open letter to Ambassador King, [email protected], supporting this action by GPUS.

The Green Party is an independent political party that stands in opposition to the two corporate parties. GPPA candidates promote public policy based on the Green Party four pillars: grassroots democracy, nonviolence, ecological wisdom, and social
justice/equal opportunity. For further information about GPPA, please visitwww.gpofpa.org. Follow GPPA on social media: Facebook, Green Party of Pennsylvania and Twitter, @GreenPartyofPA.

Further information:
Green Party Requests UN to Takeover Fukushima Reactors, GPPA News Release, January 10, 2019, https://www.gpofpa.org/green_party_requests_un_to_takeover_fukushima_reactors.

Addendum:

Contents of letter hand-delivered to Ambassador Inga Rhonda King

1/21/19

Ambassador Inga Rhonda King

United Nations Economic & Social Council, President

685 Third Avenue, Suite 1108

New York, NY 10017

Executive Summary

Open Letter regarding Fukushima Daiichi: Seven Years Later and a Plan Forward

Thank you for reading our words so you can see what we see. We all have loved ones, many of us are parents. We know we must act now as stewards of the Earth’s water, air and soil for the benefit of future generations.

The Japanese Government releases of 300 tons of water contaminated with radioactive particles into the Pacific Ocean each day. As the current plant operator of Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station (FukuStation), the Japanese Government dumps fresh water into the remains of the three reactor buildings blown up in 2011. It does this to cool the remains of the fuel rods which melted inside. FukuStation must be sealed off to the natural environment!

The 2011 triple disasters created two classes of Japanese residents: the evacuees and those residents who did not flee the nuclear fallout from FukuStation. Some residents have been forever banned from returning home. They received a mandatory evacuation notice from the Japanese Government. Like the people who fled the nuclear fallout surrounding Chernobyl’s damaged nuclear reactor, the lives of the children, women and men who resided around FukuStation have changed forever. Government contractors have begun to contain and temporarily store the radioactive pollution now found in their homes and businesses. This waste remains throughout the region, stacked like municipal garbage.

The Japanese Government violates the human rights of these forced evacuees. In 2013 and 2017, Special Rapporteurs Grover and Tuncak of the United Nations’ Human Rights Council “recommended” the Japanese Government reduce the maximum permissible radiation dose to residents from 20 milisieverts per year to 1 milisievert per year.

The United Nations Economic and Social Council (ESC) noted similar problems after Chernobyl. Paragraph 5 of ESC Resolution 1990/50 made an “urgent appeal to all States Members …to mitigate the consequences of the accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant.” The General Assembly, as a result, passed it’s own Resolution 45/190. Both these Resolutions ultimately lead to the immense roof being placed over the Chernobyl sealed off reactor building as we write.

The Green Party of United States respectfully requests an audience with Ambassador King. We wish to discuss our Open Letter, Background with Endnotes and the 2013 Experts’ Letter to Ban Ki moon included in our materials. We would ask Ricky Adaichi and Dr. Kiode to speak. We would also ask for you to hear from a person who signed the 2013 Experts’ Letter to Ban Ki moon. Ricky Adaichi is GreensJapan’s International Secretary. Dr. Hiroaki Koide is a former assistant professor at the Research Reactor Institute of Kyoto University. Mr. Adaichi would also translate for us.

Should other persons be present who disagree with our views, then we will have a lively, but civil, discussion. That is our goal. Should you thereafter decide not pursue the actions our Open Letter recommends, you will have heard our voices and spoken with us in person.

One world, one human race. Thank you Ambassador King,

Tom Bailey and Steven Verchinski

Green Party of US International Committee members

[email protected]

Jody Grage, Green Party of US, Secretary

[email protected]

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Fukushima, Seven Years After

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