Japan’s
senior citizens are the silver lining in the dark cloud cast by the Fukushima
Daiichi catastrophe. It’s the same in other countries, too, where it has become
a truism that only pensioners can afford to raise their voices against
entrenched bureaucracies that are sending civilization hurtling toward a cliff.
There has been a conspicuous majority of seniors at the anti-nuclear rallies in
Japan, and strangely many of the
living former prime ministers have converted to the anti-nuclear cause. Why do
they never see the light while they are holding power?
There
must be some members of the present government who wish they could reclassify
all pensioners as state employees and thus subject them to the state secrets
law. They could be forced to make a confessional “self-evaluation” every few
years in order to re-qualify for funding, and that way they would fall into
line just like journalists, academics and everyone else of working age who has
been intimidated into hiding personal opinions for fear of seeming too “dangerous”
to remain employable.
I
probably shouldn’t give such ideas to the prime minister and his cabinet. It’s
dangerous to feed them ideas that they might not recognize as sarcasm. At least
for now, the senior citizens are free to say what they want. One fine example
is the recollection of a former high-ranking police officer published by
Nippon.com in April 2015.
In an
article entitled “Japan’s Disastrous ‘Safety Myth’: Ignoring the Lessons of
Minor Nuclear Incidents,” Sassa Atsuyuki related the tale of the 1974 reactor
accident on the maiden voyage of Japan’s experimental nuclear cargo ship, the
Mutsu. It is definitely one of the lesser-known fiascoes on Japan’s long list of
nuclear mishaps, but it is worth relating for what it reveals about the early
signs of trouble in Japan’s nuclear establishment.
There
is very little information in English about the Mutsu incident on the Internet.
One technical, factual review can be found here, but it leaves out the foibles and the “human angle” of
the story—the very elements of it that reveal what an ill-advised venture the
nuclear scheme was right from the beginning.
Mr.
Sassa covers some familiar aspects of the Fukushima catastrophe and troubles
with the Monju reactor, so the story of the Mutsu got somewhat buried in the middle
of the article. It didn’t get much attention when the article appeared, so I’ve
excerpted it here so it stands alone.
Although
Mr. Sassa’s recounting is quite critical of the way the incident was handled,
he implies that the fishermen’s claims were emotional and not founded on
scientific evidence. It may be true that normal operations would not have
harmed the fishery, but the locals were right to be worried about accidents and
the expansion of the nuclear adventure into dangerous projects like power
plants and reprocessing facilities. In 1985, there was indeed a serious
environmental release of radiation from a nuclear vessel near Japan’s shores—on
a Soviet
submarine stationed in Chazhma Bay, near Vladivostok. A similar accident in
a Japanese fishing village would have done real harm and reputational harm to
the residents, so their reasons for being opposed were rational.
In
any case, regardless of this minor criticism, Mr. Sassa’s recollection of the events
is damning enough:
Sassa
Atsuyuki, April 30, 2015
Writer Profile:
First director general of the
Cabinet Security Affairs Office (1986–89). Born in Tokyo in 1930. Graduated
from the Faculty of Law, University of Tokyo, and joined the National Rural
Police (now the National Police Agency). While at the NPA, was responsible for
handling the Yasuda Hall incident and the Asama-Sansō incident. Has also worked
for the Defense Agency and headed the Defense Facilities Administration Agency.
… The first time it became clear that the
Japanese government and nuclear industry were not prepared to meet a crisis was
in 1974 during the failed test voyage of the Mutsu nuclear ship. At the time I
was security division chief at the National Police Agency, so I was able to
observe all of the turmoil from behind the scenes.
Sticky Rice Farce
Locals
mounted extraordinary opposition when the nuclear ship was to set out from its
home port of Ōminato in Mutsu, Aomori Prefecture. They protested vigorously
that pollution from the ship would harm rich scallop fishing grounds in the
area, although there was no scientific evidence to back this claim. The lively
demonstration developed a festive atmosphere, with the fishermen all drinking to
the point where virtually all of the bottles of sake in the local liquor shops
were sold out. Then, fortified by alcohol, the fishermen attached themselves to
the Mutsu anchor with rope and lined up their boats in front of the bow of the
vessel so that it could not leave port.
As a
typhoon approached, the Mutsu took the opportunity to break through a gap in
the blockade. Once in the open sea, testers began a controlled nuclear
reaction. The Japan Nuclear Ship Development Agency, which was leading the
experiment, and the Science and Technology Agency were brimming with
self-confidence. However, a design flaw in the radiation shielding for the
reactor resulted in a minor leak. Early failures are standard in the world of
technological development, and if the testers had adopted some common-sense
countermeasures, they could have dealt with the problem. In this case, all that
was needed was to cover the radiation leak with lead plating. But the
experimenters on the Mutsu had assumed there would be no technical problems,
and they were not prepared for anything going wrong.
As the
Mutsu wandered in the ocean, in want of other options, the experimenters tried
to plug the leak using borates, to absorb the neutrons, mixed with sticky rice
intended for the evening meal! At first they tried throwing it, as nobody
wanted to approach the problem area. As might be expected, this did not work
well, so low-ranking researchers were selected to block the leak by hand. It is
said that they performed the ceremony of drinking farewell cups of water in
case they did not survive. Considering that these were people involved in
nuclear power development, it was a pathetic state of affairs.
 |
| Reactor room of nuclear ship Mutsu http://jolisfukyu.tokai-sc.jaea.go.jp/fukyu/mirai-en/2007/12_0.html |
The
Telephone That Did Not Ring
Obviously
the planners had shown a lack of foresight in failing to consider worst-case
scenarios. But this was not the only problem. The overconfident belief that
accidents were impossible also meant that the Mutsu was full of media
representatives, who gave detailed accounts of the farcical events onboard,
turning the affair into a completely unnecessary circus.
When the
radiation leak occurred, I was in the office of Moriyama Kinji, then director
general of the STA. The protests had been so fierce that the Maritime Safety
Agency was unable to deal with them, and the ministers in charge had decided to
dispatch Aomori Prefecture riot police and a Tōhoku chemical emergency team and
to treat events as a police matter. That was why I was in Moriyama’s office
representing the National Public Safety Commission.
There were
around 10 telephones on his desk, including one that was red. He said to me,
“Sassa, do you know what this phone is for?” “I don’t know,” I replied. “Is it
to call the fire service or something like that?” “No,” he said. “This connects
directly to the captain of the Mutsu. If there are any problems, the first
report will come to me. And then we can think about how to handle whatever it
is.” When I asked him later what happened with the direct line, he told me that
it never rang. It was pathetic. The first reports of the accident came from the
television news, before either the STA , the supervisory body, or the police
knew anything about it.
Buying
Silence
The Mutsu
was refused reentry into Ōminato port, the site of the original demonstrations.
As other ports understandably followed suit, the ship continued to drift in the
sea, sparking unrest among dock workers and fishermen wherever it went. As
security division chief, I remember being suddenly rushed off my feet because I
had to dispatch a police unit each time this happened.
It was a
disgraceful situation in which all the fishing cooperatives were demanding
compensation. Kanemaru Shin, chair of the LDP’s General Council, dealt with it
through blatant pork-barrel politics, throwing money at the fishing industry in
an attempt to silence it. But there was no end to the demands from fishery
representatives; they wanted the Mutsu to be scrapped and all related port
facilities, including the designated quay, to be destroyed and returned to how
they were before.
Despite
this great commotion, however, the government’s nuclear power administrators
made no attempts to step up crisis management, such as laying in specially
equipped vehicles for emergencies or conducting general checks for defects at
all nuclear facilities. The mist of the safety myth descended once again,
obscuring any possibility of an accident. That was the outcome of the Mutsu
episode.
People
Not Responsible?
The STA
continued to oversee the development of nuclear power, but it was incapable of
handling serious incidents (jiken) and accidents (jiko) at nuclear facilities.
For one thing, it had no designated teams to do so. And, given the nature of
the agency, it had no concept of “incidents” or “accidents.”
This was
vividly apparent after the December 1995 fire at the Monju fast-breeder
reactor, caused by a leak of molten sodium. At a press conference, a councillor
of the STA sparked an uproar when he talked about the jishō (“occurrence” or
“phenomenon”) at Monju. “What do you mean, ‘occurrence’?” one reporter pressed.
“You should call it an ‘incident’ or an ‘accident.’” But the councillor battled
gamely on: “This is classed as an occurrence under the STA’s rules. An accident
that causes injury or death is an incident, and if a machine had broken down or
been destroyed by fire, that would have been an accident. But a sodium leak is
considered to be an occurrence and not an incident or accident.”
excerpted from:
Sassa Atsuyuki, April 30, 2015
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