Cesium level spiking in area where I used to take my children to play

[kristopher]

About every other weekend we went the Okutama area for recreation as it was only about 30 minutes from our home. It is a major playground for Tokyo.

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20111007x1.html
Okutama cesium level seen spiking

By MIZUHO AOKI
Staff writer

The science ministry's aerial monitoring of the capital and Kanagawa Prefecture found highly contaminated areas in northwest Tokyo, but most of the surveyed areas were in the range of normal levels, a ministry official said Friday.

According to the ministry's latest monitoring results released Thursday, mountain areas in the town of Okutama in northwest Tokyo had the most contamination in the two prefectures with a reading of 100,000 to 300,000 becquerels of radioactive cesium per square meter.

Hourly radiation readings in the area was between 0.2 and 0.5 microsievert, but few spots had radiation levels between 0.5 and 1.0 microsieverts, ministry official Hirotaka Oku said.

Radioactive cesium spewed from the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant was carried by winds in a southwestern direction through northern parts of Tochigi and Gunma prefectures before heading south over eastern Gunma and western Saitama to reach Okutama, Oku said.

The geographic ...

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20111007x1.html

[kristopher]

1. I had forgotten about the reservior in Okutama that serves Tokyo

Letter to Editor:
Water supply concern for Okutama

By GIOVANNI FAZIO
Tokyo

Mizuho Aoki's Oct. 8 article "Okutama cesium level seen spiking" considers the potential risk to crops in the area, and mentions wasabi in particular as being studied for possible radioactive contamination.

Strangely, the article fails to mention the fact that Lake Okutama is a major source of tap water for Tokyo. I suspect there are readers who may be interested to know that Tokyo tap water comes from an area with cesium contamination at levels equivalent to the Chernobyl evacuation zones.

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/rc20111016a6.html