"Decontamination" of Fukushima zones can destroy ecosystems and habitat

Efforts are underway to "decontaminate" areas close to the destroyed Fukushima reactors, but the removal of what now amounts to radioactive waste can also exacerbate the problem Japanese authorities are trying to fix. Japan has decided to attempt a cleanup, rather than create a no-go zone, like Chernobyl, hoping to return residents to the area. But, aside from the problem of where to put all the removed soil, leaves and plants, the process can also destroy habitat and ecosystems. According to a detailed article in The Guardian, the "efforts will create new environmental problems in direct proportion to their success in remediating the radioactive contamination," according to writer Winifred Bird of Yale Environment 360. An excerpt:

"Officials involved with the cleanup are well aware of the drawbacks to these approaches: huge amounts of radioactive waste that no one wants to store long-term; immense investments of money, labor, and time; damage to wildlife habitat and soil fertility; increased erosion on scraped-bare hillsides; and intrusion by people and machinery into every area scheduled for remediation.

"You remove leaf litter from the forest floor and radiation levels fall," said Shinichi Nakayama, a nuclear engineer at the JAEA who is overseeing the 19 decontamination pilot projects planned or underway. "You take away the deeper layers and they fall more. But you take it all away and the ecosystem is destroyed. Water retention goes down and flooding can occur."" Read the full article.