 Hi everybody. My name is Mark Shklav. I'm the host of Think Tech Hawaii's Law Across the Sea program. Today we will go across the sea to learn the facts about the current conditions in Fukushima, Japan. My guest is Steve Tirata. On March 11, 2011, the Fukushima earthquake tsunami and nuclear disaster occurred, and many of us have heard about it and watched it on the news then, and we hear a little bit about it now. Steve Tirata was in Japan when all of those events happened, and his experiences in Fukushima since then have made him a zealous advocate for the truth about the current conditions existing in Fukushima. Steve, welcome. Good to see you. Thank you for being here to talk about the facts of Fukushima. Before we get into that, tell me a little bit about yourself. You know, who you are, where you're from, and maybe how you got to Fukushima. Sure. Thank you for having me on the show. I was born in Honolulu and raised in Hawaii in Los Angeles. How did you learn or how did you get to Fukushima? How did that experience get you there? After you were in Hawaii, did you get involved in Fukushima? It was a close career after I had retired from my last position and actually went back to Fukushima, discovered a mission that I needed to volunteer for, set it up, and physically move there. That is where I'm reporting from now. Before you got to Fukushima, what were you doing? What was your profession? What were you involved in? I was working in real estate in Hawaii for over 30 years. In 2008, 11 years ago, my wife and I wanted to change our mission. We both moved to Washington, D.C. We worked for the State Department. Then we moved to Japan, learned about Japan. Finally, we moved to Seattle in the Corps of Engineers where I retired. The disaster happened when I was in Japan. Where were you when the disaster happened? I was a civilian stationed at Camp Zama, the U.S. Army headquarters. On March 11th, I happened to be in Okinawa on a temporary assignment. You heard about this disaster. I think our photo number one shows a little bit about what that was. Yes. It was a triple disaster, as you had mentioned. Earthquake was 9.0 magnitude. It was a terrific shock, followed by a massive tsunami that was by all accounts over 35 meters high at its highest point. Then in Fukushima Prefecture, there was an accident at the Daichi nuclear power plant. As a result of the earthquake and tsunami, over 19,000 people died, and over a million buildings were damaged or destroyed. The nuclear accident had its own aftermath. About 160,000 people or more were evacuated, and even today, 40,000 of them have not returned home. And Fukushima is on the east coast. That's a prefecture, right? It's more than just a city. There is a city there, and then there's a prefecture. Is that correct? That's correct. Fukushima is one of the 47 prefectures in Japan. Prefectures are the first organizational unit under the national government. It's like a state. That's the best way to compare it. In size, it's the third largest prefecture. And in comparison to Hawaii, it's about the size of Oahu, Maui and the Big Island combined. A little under two million people live there. And Fukushima City is the capital. Is that how it works? Yes. It's the capital city, and that's where I live now. Okay. And at the time of the earthquake, tsunami, a nuclear disaster, you were in Japan What did you, you know, what experience did you have with Fukushima at that time? In June of that year, which is three months after the disaster, friends from Hawaii, the Rotary Club, I had been in Rotary in Hawaii for many years, contacted me and said they were going on a humanitarian mission to Fukushima and to present a donation check. And if you recall, immediately after the disaster, virtually worldwide, everyone was getting together and trying to find ways to help Fukushima. They asked me to join them. So I jumped on a bullet train with them. We all went up to Fukushima together. Let's take a look at slide number two. And what does this show us on this slide? Slide on the left, the X shows where the Great East Japan earthquake happened. The coastline, which is in red, shows the area that was affected by the tsunami. The tsunami hit more than Fukushima. It hit all up and down the coast. The slide on the right focuses on the Fukushima Prefecture. It's about 5,000 square miles. And the tsunami went on shore, virtually all across the beaches there. Okay. And so you and your buddies decided to go and present some donations and see what you can do to help. Within a couple months after the events, what happened with that and that respect? What did you do? What experience did you have there? Sure. I had taken one week's leave to help out with the humanitarian mission. We got there on the first day, arrived in the capital city of Fukushima City and interacted with some local folks, Rotarians and so forth to get the lay of the land. We took a tour and because Fukushima City is inland, we could see earthquake damage, but not tsunami damage. Unfortunately, though, I had received a call the first evening from my army base saying, I could not stay in Fukushima because I was within the 80 kilometer exclusion zone for U.S. citizens. So you had to follow orders and leave. And how did that make you feel? I felt guilty. I felt like I was abandoning the people that I went there to help. But before I left, I told them that I would be back. I didn't know when I would be back to help them. And then what happened? At some point? Yes, it took me seven years. Seven years was last year. After I retired, my wife and I took a reconnaissance visit, the way I describe it, to Fukushima. We visited everywhere in the north, in the south, in the east, in the west, even the coastline where had been damaged the most. And what we saw was that most of Fukushima prefecture was recovered and restored. It's like we were walking on King Street. Everything looked normal. And I did not have any projects that I could participate in. Let's take a look at the next set of slides and see what they tell us. What is this? These next few slides will show how the recovery had taken place. This picture is taken in Kotsu Rao Village, which is one of the evacuated small villages near the coastline of Fukushima. What happened is, during the major decontamination program that the government had, the contractors under local municipal control went in and followed a certain protocol, including scraping up the top five centimeters of dirt, power washing roofs and gutters, cleaning playgrounds, tool yards, et cetera. And all of that contaminated debris went into black bags that were stored in the neighborhood from which they came. Eventually, there were over 1,100 sites of these neighborhood bags. Let's take a look at the next slide. This slide shows the same temporary site that the black bags have been removed and taken to an interim storage site on the coast. And crimson, which is the site of Fukushima, crimson clover flowers were planted. Crimson clover will really enrich the soil. And in that area, they plan on using it for grazing of cows. It's an example of how the temporary storage areas, which had decontaminated waste, which was really an eyesore in all these neighborhoods, are being scooped up and hauled away in the area restored. In the next slide, let's take a look at the next slide. This is a picture of what used to be called the Jay Village. The Jay Village is on the Fukushima Coastal area and used to be the National Soccer Training Center. Right after the disaster, the government converted it into a disaster operation center. It stayed like that for several years. Today, it looks far different. Let's take a look at the next slide. Oh, well, Jay Village has been converted into a modern sports complex with a covered all-weather field and its own train station. But what's very notable about the Jay Village is, next March, March of 2020, the Tokyo 2020 Olympic torch lighting ceremony will be held at the Jay Village, which is only 12 and a half miles from the Daichi Nuclear Power Station. So it looks like everything's recovered. Almost everything. Now, what is not recovered, and what are you feeling about the representations or the view that people have of Fukushima? Sure. First, what has not been recovered? At the Nuclear Power Station itself, it's undergoing extensive decommissioning work. It's been slower than expected. Decommissioning is expected to take upwards of 30 years to complete, maybe 50 years. Right around the power plant are the areas that were evacuated, and they retain high levels of radiation. So those areas are closed off. They have restricted access. Those areas comprise about 2.7% of the total land area in Fukushima. So it is a relatively small area on the coast that still has high radiation levels. But the other place that has radiation in Fukushima are some of the forests that also have restricted access, because what happened when the nuclear accident happened, radiation went into the air. The air stream picked it up, and a lot of that radiation went over some of the forests. Those forests have restricted access, because they have not been decontaminated yet. And my impression is that there's a lot of publicity that still says, Fukushima, stay away. And you're telling us, your own experience says that things have recovered enough that that need not be the impression that the public has. Yes. The public has information that is basically outdated. There has been a lot of media coverage of the restoration and revitalization of Fukushima, as there was right after the disaster. If you remember, there was 24-7 nonstop coverage of the disaster. It's been 8.5 years now, and the government has done a lot of good work in restoring Fukushima. That part is virtually unknown to the world public. And is that how you became a spokesperson for Fukushima? Pretty much. When we went to Fukushima last year and took our tour of the different areas, we met dozens and dozens of residents, and they said, there's nothing for you to do. You can't come to our house and dig out the mud from the tsunami. All that stuff has been done already. But where you can help is to explain to people the true facts about Fukushima. And we have come a long way, and it's not like how people think it is. Okay. And I want to talk more about that after we take a short break. We'll be right back with Steve Tirada talking about Fukushima facts. Thank you. Aloha. I'm Mellie James, host of Let's Mana Up. Tuesdays, every other Tuesday, from 11 to 1130. This show is meant to dive into stories of local product entrepreneurs and how they're growing their companies from right here in Hawaii. I'm so thrilled to have our show kicked off, and so please join us on Tuesdays at 11 o'clock as we talk to local entrepreneurs and hear their stories. Hey, aloha everyone, and welcome to the Think Tech Hawaii studio. My name is Andrew Lanning. I'm the host of Security Matters Hawaii. We air here every Tuesday at 10 a.m. Hawaii time, trying to bring you issues about security that you may not know, issues that can protect your family, protect yourself, protect our community, protect our companies, the folks we work with. Please join us and I hope you can maybe get a little different perspective on how to live a little safer. Aloha. Aloha. I'm Mark Schlaufe and I'm back with Steve Tirata, and we are talking about Fukushima facts. What the real circumstances and conditions are like in Fukushima after a disaster in 2011 not just ruined the countryside, but really ruined the reputation. Now, Steve, you've been to Fukushima several times. You know the background there. What is the truth? What are the facts about Fukushima? Let's take a look at the next slide as we do that. The first question that people ask about Fukushima is, is it safe? And what they mean is, what are the radiation levels like? Because they remember so many stories about dangerous radiation in Fukushima. Radiation levels in Fukushima have gone down considerably into what would be considered by most scientists a safe range that are comparable to other major cities in the world. And this slide kind of points that out. Yes, it does. The Fukushima map shows different levels of what is called microceverts, which is one of the measurements of radiation that range from 0.04 to 0.14. And if you look at some of the world cities they range from 0.04 to 0.12. They're very close and very comparable. But what's important, I need to explain how the radiation came down because they were much higher in 2011. Right. There are three reasons why the radiation levels came down in Fukushima. The first is that radioactive material loses its radioactivity over time. Different materials have different rates of loss, but it's inevitable. All radioactive material eventually become non-radioactive. In Fukushima, over the past eight and a half years some of the radioactive material has been losing its energy or radioactivity. The second reason is Fukushima is well known for its weather. Snow, storms and water. When the snow melts, the storm and rain come. It washes away some of the particles that radioactive materials have attached themselves to. It takes them away from your urban environment. It moves them someplace else. The third reason is the government had a four-year massive decontamination program where contractors under the supervision of local mayors, local municipalities, would go into neighborhoods, cut from the roof, power wash the roof, clean off the gutters, clean the yards, cut the shrubs, take them away and usually take the top five centimeter of soil. That's how we got all those black bags, by the way. Sounds like you had an effective government there. Boy, that's something we'd all like to see. That sounds good. Those three things, all combined, help to reduce the radiation level in Fukushima. Let's take a look at the next slide. What does this show us? This shows Fukushima prefecture and isolates the area that I spoke about earlier, where near the coast, there were areas that were evacuated that retain high levels of radiation. If you go to the far right of the prefecture at the power station and you go at an angle northwest, by the way, that is the direction of the nuclear plume that came out from the power station. It went in that direction. The radiation levels are still high in that area that's outlined there. The truth is, there is still an area of high radiation in Fukushima, but most of the area is ready to live in and it's not a problem. Yes, they are ready to live in. To constantly check on the level of radiation, there are almost 4,000 radiation measurement stations throughout the prefecture. Let's take a look at the next photo because I think that tells it. Here's one of them. This is right outside the train station at Fukushima City, the capital city. That's you? Yes. I am there with my personal guy or counter verifying what the government's reading says and my reading was virtually identical, almost the same. Besides doing that, wherever I went throughout the prefecture, I sort of triple-checked radiation readings with a civilian radiation aggregation site called SafeCast. SafeCast is quite interesting. It developed because local residents, right after the disaster, did not trust the government readings. They went out and got their own guy or counter or dosimeters and took the measurements themselves. They started inputting these measurements, the data of radiation into a website which eventually became this civilian site called SafeCast. SafeCast also has radiation information on Honolulu, which I've checked out. Interesting. When I say that the radiation levels have come down, I'm referring to my own personal measurements, the government measurement says, and what that third party civilian site says. I want them all to be consistent, and they have been consistent during the time that I've been in Fukushima. You've checked all the ways you can check to make sure things are lower, the radiation is lower, and that you're talking the truth. You're saying the facts because you want to be certain? Yes, because even myself and my wife last year, when we were thinking of moving to Fukushima, we wondered if the published radiation measurements from the government were accurate or not, and I thought the best way to check it is to take my own guy or counter, which is what I did. Okay, so you have undertaken a new mission. Tell us what that mission is, and what you are doing now to spread the word about Fukushima. Fukushima has a problem. That problem is a global negative reputation. That reputation was formed right after the disaster, and people around the world, here in Hawaii, my family, my friends, still believe that Fukushima is an unsafe place because of high radiation levels. The people in Fukushima struggle with that stigmatization. It's affected their morale, and they have told me that this is something they didn't ask for or why are they burdened with it. But they also said, if you're seeking to help us here in Fukushima, because you came and did your site survey, what you can do is look around whatever you see and tell others, because we believe that the facts will liberate us. And I agreed to do that. I figured the only way to do that would be to be boots on the ground. Earlier this year, my wife and I moved from Honolulu to Fukushima City. We rent a house there. And from that house, it's our base of operation. In other words, if you're going to say something, you want to be able to be behind it. And that's why you're here today. And also, let's take a look at the last slide. What is that about? I'm trying to tell the world in different ways what Fukushima is like. And I'm limited as an individual. I've been trying to engage groups, other people. I formed a team of like-minded individuals in Fukushima. I've got engineers, scientists, school teachers, retired people, interpreters, who helped me in my mission. And part of that mission is engaging groups. That last slide shows my speech at the Fukushima City Rotary Club. It's the largest club, like the Honolulu Club here in Hawaii. And I gave a speech about my background, what I was doing in Fukushima, and what my observations were. And I asked them to use the information that I presented as they spoke to others. Because, for example, one question from a Rotarian was, how do I explain to my family? My family, we get into these emotional arguments about your place is not safe. I, as a person from Hawaii, gave some advice to that Rotarian, who is a businessman in the city on how to deal with his family. Well, what was that advice? That advice was the discussion of radiation is about your home and your place is not safe. He immediately becomes an emotional and sensitive discussion where you become defensive. He said, you have to realize that that is what's taking place. You kind of take yourself out of your yourself and look at that discussion from a third person perspective. And then, sensitively, answer the objection because there are facts to support what you're trying to say. And you're just trying to get those facts into that person's ear. So, in the minute we have left, what do you want to say about Fukushima and your experience and what you've learned and what you want everybody else to know? As I've been telling my family here, because they ask me the same question, and I say, number one, Fukushima is a safe place for most people. That restricted area, most of the Fukushima 2 million people never go there. They live there alive elsewhere in the large part of Fukushima. Fukushima is safe for most people in most places. Number two, the food and fish are safe because of the extremely tight standards that the government of Japan has instituted, which are food ten times stricter than the United States and the UK. And food testing results show no radiation above the limits, which are strict limits in Fukushima. So, Fukushima is safe. It's a place people can live. Its reputation should return to what it was and what it is now. It can never return to exactly what it was. The damage and the trauma was too great. But Fukushima is recreating itself. And in most areas, people lead normal lives and they're happy with what they have. But they'd like this global negative reputation to change. Okay. Steve, thank you very much. I appreciate you coming and hope that we can be part of that change and make the reputation what it is now as a good place to live in Fukushima. Aloha. Thank you for letting me explain about Fukushima. Thank you very much everybody. We'll be back in a couple weeks with another Law Across the Sea program. Aloha.