The Environment Ministry has decided to decontaminate areas where people could be exposed to radiation of 5 millisieverts or more per year by removing up to 28.78 million cubic meters of radioactively contaminated soil in Fukushima and four other adjacent prefectures affected by the ongoing crisis at the Fukushima No. 1 Nuclear Power Plant. The areas subject to the decontamination project are in Fukushima, Miyagi, Yamagata, Ibaraki and Tochigi prefectures. A huge temporary storage facility for contaminated materials needs to be built, and therefore the government is likely to have tough talks with local municipalities on selecting a space for such a facility.
Under the special measures bill passed into law in August to deal with radiation contamination and debris, the environment minister designates highly contaminated areas as "special decontamination areas" and the central government becomes directly in charge of decontaminating such areas. The central government also designates other areas with certain levels of contamination as "priority inspection areas for contamination" and local governments are to check the levels of contamination in those areas to determine locations to be decontaminated and actually decontaminate them. Read More
