Decontamination

Hi

It was back in June. An acquaintance who lives in the Shima district of Koriyama was grumbling about the decontamination work at her house. First the boss man came, re-moved 5 cm of soil from the garden, took readings and having satisfied him-
self that radiation could be halved (that seems to be the criterion, not to reduce radiation to a certain level), he disappeared leaving sub-contractors to carry out the work. Shrubs and trees were pruned and the top layer of soil removed. Several houses in the vicinity were having work done at the same time so one moment there would be 8 workers in the garden, the next minute - just as she'd taken out some tea (!) - there were none. It took the best part of a week.

She and her husband were complaining that more time seemed to be spent recording and photographing each branch as it was cut, rather than actually doing the work. You have to take this with a grain of salt but you get the picture. At the end of the week they dug a hole about 2 metres by one metre and one metre deep behind the shed at the back of the garden and buried the plastic sacks of soil. Then they covered the garden with rough sand (yamazuna 山砂) which she was convinced was going to kill her plants. I met her a month later and she hadn't yet had the final results which were to come in the post. She's in her 70s and what with the heat she'd found the whole thing stressful. No doubt younger families would have welcomed having the work done.

The city of Koriyama, 60 kms from Fukushima Daiichi, was not evacuated and is not eligible for decontamination at central government expense. But early on the then Mayor decided to carry out its own decontamination plan to reassure residents and stop the outflow of people. Work started in the most heavily contaminated areas (around Ikenodai, Saikon) in October 2012 and is now being rolled out across the city.

I want to point you to an excellent piece of work by Azby Brown on this subject entitled. Decon or Con: How is Remediation being Managed and how effective is it? available on the Safecast website. It's a bit long but clearly written and easy to understand. Safecast, a global voluntary organisation, takes issue with the fact that there is no independent evaluation of decontaminaton (or 'remediation') and sets out to try and compare their readings with official before-and-after readings taken by the government. Accessing the government data seems to have been very time-consuming and Azby deserves credit for ferreting it out.

There are good maps and explanations of the different zones, explanations of how decontamination is to be managed, how the government's dose rate calculations are reached, and estimates of the effects of natural decay and weathering. To summarize, the goal was to reduce radiation in areas over 20mSv/year (the evacuated areas) rapidly to 20 mSv/year and to reduce radiation in other areas (Koriyama included) over the long term to 1 mSv/year. The evacuated areas are to be decontaminated at central government expense and other areas by the local authorities with subsidies etc. While work by local authorities seems to be progressing transparently (despite the grumbles of my friend above), work in the evacuated areas is behind schedule and proving more difficult. To quote, 'By early 2012, when pilot decontamination projects had been completed and the results examined, the government knew they could get areas with dose rates less than 30 mSv/yr down to below 20 mSv/yr, but not if they were originally 40 mSv or above ...'  So the outlook for residents in the exclusion zone is not good.

For those in the 'restricted residence zones' and 'preparing for return zones' things are more ambiguous. Safecast measured two sites to see if decontamination had been effective and to estimate whether it had accelerated natural reduction (weathering and radioactive decay). Results for the two sites were different which highlights the difficulty of this subject but it seems that decontamination is worth doing at higher levels but it's difficult to reduce further to 1 mSv/yr. This is polarising residents into those who say they will go back regardless and those who insist that levels need to be reduced to 1 mSv/yr.

Anyway, check it out here. A good read.
Safecast: Decontamination blog

The headline in yesterday's paper was Forest Levels Reduced by 38%. What this means is that airborne radiation had reduced by natural means (weathering and radioactive decay) in 2012 over the previous year by 38% in forests outside the exclusion zone, 10% of which was attributed to systematic felling of trees. (Seventy percent of Fukushima prefecture is forested.)

So it's a complex question that involves us all, not only those of us who live here but the nation's taxpayers who have to foot the bill. Questions are being raised about the cost-effectiveness of decontamination. Then there's the question of where to put all the soil. Not to mention the thorny question of compensation.
Thanks for reading this
Anne

Tomioka video and new comments

Hi

If you don't mind I'm going to cop out this time and pass on some of the feedback I've had recently.

You may remember that in June I visited Tomioka, since the end of March redesignated as a 'preparing to return' zone, with a photographer friend from England (Tomioka 1). He has made a video from the images and set it to music. Very moving. Take a look (6 minutes).
Tomioka video

Next, let me draw your attention to a comment on my post Airborne Radiation 1 (24 July 2013) by one DiogeneseNJ who was helpful and reassuring in those difficult days two years ago. He takes issue with my comment that 100 mSv of exposure to radiation causes cancer. I thought this was the received wisdom and the one figure that is generally accepted. However, the RERF (Radiation Effects Research Foundation), a cooperative Japan-US research organisation dating back to Hiroshima, says the 'association remains unclear'. In addition, there is new research (Dec. 2011, Berkeley Lab) on cellular repair processes which does show that exposure is not linear, i.e. low-rate doses are not as damaging as a single dose.

There is also a link to a paper showing how my glass badge worked (clever technology) and a final comment about risk concluding that when you factor in air pollution, Koriyama is probably a healthier place to live than Tokyo! Anyway, see for yourself at the following link. Unfortunately, the links on the comment itself don't seem to connect. You'll have to copy and paste. But worth it. The references are easy to understand.

Airborne Radiation comment

Here, the news is dominated by the issue of contaminated water leaking into the sea. It's been rated a Level 3 accident. Two more tanks have been found to be leaking - and it's highly radioactive stuff (100 mSv/hour). Japan's nuclear watchdog, the NRA, visited the site today and complained of 'sloppy management' (zusan na kanri), for example radiation around the tanks is neither measured nor recorded. If it had been, the leaks might have been spotted sooner. Things didn't seem too bad at first back in April. But every time something goes wrong, Tepco  apologizes - and then make the same mistakes over and over. The PM has said the government will get involved but there's no money till next year. Action is needed not words.

The other issue being discussed here is the removal of the children's classic manga Barefoot Gen (Hadashi no Gen) about the atomic bombing in Hiroshima from school libraries in Matsue in a burst of political correctness on the grounds that the book shows violence to women and the images might disturb children. Barefoot Gen does depict the grisly reality of the bomb: horrid pictures of people's skin melting and hanging loose. But there's been an uproar. Japan as a country has not been good at facing up to responsibility for causing the War, but it has been good at keeping the horror of war alive. There's a national consensus that war should never be repeated. So most people, I'm glad to say, oppose the banning of this book.

Some welcome rain has given us a few cool days but the heat is to return this weekend.
All the best
Anne

August

A field of sunflowers planted on the ski slopes at San-no-kura, outside Kitakata

Hi
The O-bon holidays are nearly over. Back to work tomorrow. This last week was an odd week, as it always is, with the various ceremonies commemorating the end of the war coinciding with the peak holiday season. I was with an American friend in the mountain resort of Yanaizu at noon on the 15th. That's when the Emporer in 1945 gave his speech on the radio announcing the surrender, known in Japanese as gyokuon (玉音), the 'Jewel Voice'. Loudspeakers summoned the good people of Yanaizu to prayers in the square. 

Thankfully the Prime Minister decided not to visit Yasukuni Shrine this year. It's all very well remembering the war dead but 'A class' war criminals are interred there too and any official visit aggravates relations with China and South Korea. The TV does its best to keep memories of the war alive. One guest on a current affairs show said it's all very well remembering Hiroshima on 6th August, Nagasaki on the 9th and the end of the war on the 15th but Japan should also remember Pearl Harbor and the beginning of hostilities in China. Always interesting, and often shocking, are the reminiscences of people in their 80s and 90s, speaking up at last. As we approach the 70th anniversary, Abe is trying to rewrite the peace constitution so that Japanese forces can defend an ally under attack. It's an interesting time.

Young people from Fukushima were invited to participate in the ceremonies at Nagasaki. I suppose there is a link but I'm afraid that that word 'hibakusha' sends a chill down my spine. Not only did the victims suffer terribly from the atomic bombs but they've also been victims of discrimination and I don't want us lumbered in the same boat. 

But this last week was also holiday time when most companies, certainly up here, take works holidays. I spent it with good friends in the Aizu area. We went up the Tadami River deep into the beautiful area of Oku-Aizu. We saw fields of sunflowers, temples, lakes and mountains. The area's branded itself  'fairy land' and you can see why: it certainly seems a mystical place.

Families having fun at Lake Numazawa - paradise!

The magnificent Tadami River. It has many power stations along its length.

The Tadami River was developed in the early 1950's for hydro-electric power by Shirasu Jiro (educated at Cambridge, interesting man). I came across a book recently when I was tidying up the office called Fukushima: Electricity County published in the 1970s. Local dignitaries showed great pride in Fukushima's contribution to Japan's economic growth and were hailing nuclear power as the next phase with photos of Fukushima Daiichi under construction. So you see, it's not just nuclear, Fukushima has provided power for Tokyo for many, many years.

And finally, Matsuri in Kitakata. The last day of four days of festivities. Can you hear the drums?
Anne

Update: 11 August 2013

Hi

At last the government's stepped in. PM Abe has recognised the urgency of dealing with the issue of contaminated water at Fukushima Daiichi and said he's no longer going to leave things up to Tepco. Not before time. It's a long running saga. In April and May 2011 there were two spillages in addition to the 10,000 tons Tepco dumped in the sea prompting an international incident. After that a cleaning and recycling system was developed which has been dealing with the water injected to cool the reactors. Then in May this year we heard about problems with underground water: 400 tons a day were pouring down the hill into the reactor buildings and is being pumped out and stored in an ever-increasing number of tanks onsite. In May, Tepco unveiled a plan to bypass the water before it got near the reactors and direct it into the sea but the fishing industry opposed the plan and it got shelved. All the while Tepco denied that any contaminated water had seeped into the sea. Then on 22 July, the day after the Upper House elections (I kid you not), Tepco said it was 'possible' that contaminated water had got into the sea. 

Things went downhill from there: trenches on the seaside of reactors 1 and 2 were found to contain highly radioactive material dating back to the time of the accident; contaminated water had been flowing over the top of a newly built containment wall at high tide. And then the Natural Resources and Energy Agency recently estimated that not 400 tons but 1,000 tons of underground water had been flowing into the nuclear plant every day since May 2011. Of this 400 tons per day had indeed ended up in the bottom of the reactor buildings but 300 tons had seeped into the highly contaminated trenches and from there into the sea, and the remaining 300 tons had flowed uncontaminated into the sea. 

To put this in perspective, we're talking about the shoreline at the plant. Beyond the plant is a seawall, a barrier between the harbour and the open sea. Obviously monitoring of the sea has been stepped up and the beaches in Iwaki to the south were declared safe. But fishing which was supposed to start in a small way in September has been postponed. These revelations have damaged the industry too much. The issue will also affect whether people return to the area, not to mention international relations.

So the Prime Minister is right to take charge. But why wait for next year's budget? There's money from the Recovery Budget that hasn't been spent and what about the money that was mis-spent on non-disaster projects and is supposed to be paid back? It's clear that a private company cannot sustain expenditure on this scale. The government's committed to paying for the 'frozen wall' to be built underground around all four reactors (1,000 rods stretching 1.4 km) and taxpayers will have to pay the electricity bill for this almighty fridge for the next 30 to 40 years - plus myriad other astronomical costs. And nuclear is cheap?

That's all for now

Anne

Summer

Hi again

It's hot. The mercury hit 40 degrees centigrade in Shikoku today and it's 33 degrees here in Koriyama. It's Saturday afternoon and even I have switched on the cooler.

I've been away so I guess the heat is getting to me. Maybe I'll have some more peaches. The Fukushima white peaches are so good. So good that every year the very best are presented to the Emperor. Here they pass fruit through a light sensor to measure the sugar content: the sweeter it is, the higher the price. According to the local paper, of 260,000 peaches passed through a light sensor 1,000 with a sugar content of 12% were selected and from these experts picked 180 perfect peaches. The Emperor and Empress are very popular here. They've just paid their third visit since the disaster. During a two day stay, they visited a factory in Iitate in the 'restricted residence' zone, and talked with peach farmers in an attempt to boost confidence in Fukushima fruit and veg.

Summer in Japan means Matsuri. Koriyama and Fukushima cities had their big festivals last weekend (on the same days - these two cities are so competitive) but it's the O-Bon holiday next week (13th to 15th) so there are still lots more festivals and firework displays to come. 

In this region at O-Bon you visit the graves of the ancestors and this seems to be very important to people. Graves in the 'difficult to return' zone have been repaired and decontaminated and former residents (wearing white overalls) are being allowed in. People are also being allowed to stay at their homes in the 'restricted residence' zones for this period only. 

For the kids, summer holidays should be about swimming and playing outside. But is it safe? Professor Takamura from Nagasaki University and an advisor to Fukushima Prefecture writes a column in the local paper once a week. He says that tests carried out in June and July of all school swimming pools, lakes and swimming beaches detected no radioactive material in the water and airborne radiation levels are generally below 0.1 μSv/hour. Even if a child swallowed water when swimming there is no risk of internal exposure, he says. He did say that there is a slight possibility of caesium being stuck to sand but you can wash this away by showering and washing the hair. Same for exercise. He says that if a child played outside in an area of 0.5 μSv/hour for two hours a day, that would be 40 μSv over the summer holidays, the equivalent of a chest X-ray. There are no radioactive materials in the air now so no danger of internal exposure from breathing. But like swimming, best to wash your hands and feet when you come home and shower and wash the hair at the end of the day. Likewise, rinse any cuts and grazes. The benefits of running around outside and getting Vitamin D from the sun outweigh any worries. Sorry this is a bit technical but it's practical advice and I thought I'd pass it on. Probably sensible advice, wherever you live in the world ...

Now if you'll excuse me, I'll go and get that peach ..

Anne

Airborne Radiation 2

Hello again,

Last time I talked about the survey meter that I borrowed for a week from the city office. This time I'll share the results of the dosimeter that I borrowed from the same place for a month. It's a bit like a blue thermometer that you carry around in a pocket or on your belt.and it calculates accumulated radiation. The city asks you to record the results every day along with an estimate of how many minutes you were outside and where you were.

For me, it was clocking 2 μSv/day. At the end of the month this was worked out to 0.65 mSv/year which after subtracting natural radiation in Koriyama of 0.35 mSv/year left me with only 0.3 mSv/year in additional radiation as a result of the accident, well below the government target of 1 mSv./year. When I handed the dosimeter back I was told that it was low probably because I live and work in concrete buildings 7 and 8 floors up and I don't go outside much (usually less than an hour a day). I was told that many people are recording more than 1 mSv/year.

Incidentally, this 1 mSv/year does refer to radiation over and above natural radiation. (The term in Japanese is  年間追加被ばく線量 nenkan tsuika hibaku senryo.) But even so, natural radiation is so low here that even with the additional radiation, levels are still lower than many places in the world.

This is a point that the authorities are keen to stress and the Fukushima prefecture website now has banners and links showing comparative levels in other parts of the world. And you might be interested to check out Safecast, an independent organisation which monitors levels throughout the world and also here in Fukushima.

Next time, I'll look at the decontamination that's going on in Koriyama at the moment.
Bye for now
Anne

Airborne Radiation 1

Hi

I've been trying to get to grips again with radiation levels in this town. The last time I did this was two years ago. Levels which had been as high as 8 μSv/hour on 15 March 2011 fell to 2 in the summer of that year. Now they're down to about 0.3. That's micro sieverts (μSv) per hour. There are 1,000 micro sieverts in 1 milli sievert (mSv). 100 mSv (in a single dose, over the long term, over a lifetime?) cause cancer.

Koriyama has natural airborne radiation equivalent to 0.35 mSv/year. In normal times the ICRP dose limits are 1 mSv/year for members of the public and 20 mSv/year for radiation workers (for 5 years). After the accident at Fukushima Daiichi, areas over 20 mSv/year were evacuated. But there was confusion over what were safe levels for the rest of us. ICRP emergency standards were for a band of 1 to 20 mSv/year. There was outrage when the Japanese government set the acceptable exposure level for children at 20 mSv/year (the same as for evacuation) so they eventually brought it down to 1 mSv/year. Koriyama City is committed to decontaminating all areas to 0.23 μSv/hour which equates to 1 mSv/year.

Two years ago there was only one monitoring post in Koriyama. Now, we have monitoring posts outside every school and nursery and in every park. And the City is offering free use of monitoring equipment. So about a month ago I pitched up at the ground floor of city office and borrowed a survey meter and a dosimeter. The survey meter (pictured below) measures levels of airborne radiation and I was able to borrow it for a week (14 to 20 June). The dosimeter measures accumulated exposure and I wore it on my belt for a month. Today let's look at the survey meter.



Outside city office - a standard 0.235 μSv/hour

The meter resets every 30 seconds and the first thing you notice is that levels are constantly changing. So it's important to realise that the monitoring posts set up outside schools and parks only show levels at that position and at that moment in time. Two meters away and the reading could be quite different. 

I found that my meter showed consistently higher levels than the monitoring posts (for example it was 0.365 μSv/hr on the post at Hayama no Yakata Park but showed 0.445 on my meter). When I mentioned this to the staff as I handed the meter back I was told that lots of people had made the same comment and that levels do vary according to the equipment used. The highest variance was at the post at the prefectural office (godo chosha) which is the official reading you see in the papers for Koriyama which when I was there showed 0.19 but the reading on my meter was 0.336. The monitoring post there was different from the others. Perhaps it takes an average over a longer period. I'd like to know the reason for the difference.

Generally speaking, levels were about 0.075 μSv/hr in my apartment and 0.09 in my office. There was not much variation between the rooms and whether the window was open or closed. I was told these are low because they are both concrete buildings and on the 7th and 8th floors. In the car, levels were about 0.2. Outside, levels varied from 0.2 on the east side of the city to 0.3 around the station area and 0.5 in the west. The highest I recorded was 0.9 in a park in the west after rain.

A lot of decontamination work is being done but actual levels were often higher than those shown on signs put up a few days or a week or so ago. Decontamination is needed but the winds blow, the rain falls and the levels change all the time. One thing I can say: don't go near any bags of soil, don't go near when they're doing decontamination work. Levels are high.

The whole thing was stressful and I was glad to hand the meter back.

BTW levels for Aizu were low at 0.1 μSv/hr,  Inawashiro and Ura Bandai were 0.07, the same as indoor measurements in Koriyama.

More on the dosimeter and decontamination soon.
Anne
PS Good discussion of the variation in monitoring posts here http://blog.safecast.org/
PPS Place your bets on the name for the Royal Baby. Favourite is 'George' followed by 'James'.

Your vote, please

Hi

It's a public holiday today. The weather is swelteringly hot in the rest of the country but here in the windy city of Koriyama there's a fresh breeze which makes the heat bearable. Here's a silly story to match the holiday mood. 

There's a trend in this country for every town and city to have its own 'character', as in Disney character. They're known as 'yurakyara' and it's serious stuff. There are national competitions and a famous 'character' will boost local industry and tourism. Not to be outdone, Koriyama has Gakuto-kun (Mr Musical Capital)  - for Koriyama, aka the Vienna of the North, has delusions of grandeur in the choral and musical spheres. Here's a picture of Gakuto-kun and his little sister Onpu-chan (Miss Minim) I took months ago and wouldn't have dreamed of mentioning but Gakuto-kun has come top in the qualifying rounds of the Tohoku (north eastern) region and is through to the national final!

A leader in the local paper urges us all to vote - for victory would be a piece of good news and show the world that Fukushima's not beaten. So, I call on you to cast your vote for our local mascot Gakuto-kun!

Voting starts on 10 July to 25th. Here's the link, scroll down and click on the gold bar (キャラいいね）under the picture of our hero. Thanks.

http://gotochi2013.jp/finalvote/
Enjoy your holiday,
Anne
8 August:  Gakuto-kun was 5th (1,981 votes) beaten by the character from Ishibashi in Chiba (near Tokyo) which got over 11,000 votes! 

Update 11 July 2013

Hi

The 11th of the month always gets a mention in the media although these days it's just a quick relay of the latest figures for the disaster: 18,550 people dead or missing and 2,688 'related deaths' (most of these are in Fukushima due to evacuation stress). The number of evacuees from the Fukushima accident has fallen below 150,000 for the first time (149,949 to be precise). It peaked in June last year at 164,000 but people are coming back or are moving into permanent accommodation.

The situation at Fukushima Daiichi doesn't get any better. The latest set of troubles centres on high levels of radiation in groundwater on the seaside of the reactors. The first revelation was in April when strontium and tritium were detected in a well in front of Reactor No 2 but this was put down to leakage at the time of the accident. However, levels of caesium have since been rising at an alarming rate (100bq/litre in April, 1,100 in June and now 2,300bq/litre) so there are real worries that all this stuff is seeping into the sea. Chemicals are being injected into the wells to solidify the water but again these are only stop gap measures. 

Yoshida Masao, who was in charge of Fukushima Daiichi at the time of the accident died two days ago. He was taken off the job late in 2011 after being diagnosed with cancer of the oesophagus and although his exposure was estimated at 70 mSv his illness is said to be unrelated - though you can't believe that the stress he was under wasn't a contributing factor. He's been hailed a hero and certainly watching those videos of the teleconferences with Tepco head office in the aftermath of the accident you have to admire his leadership and presence of mind. He famously disregarded an order to stop injecting water, and when they were trying to open the vents he told his boss not to get in the way, 'disturb shinaide kudasai'. He's not 100% squeaky clean however. Years previously he delayed the construction of higher seawalls as he didn't think they were necessary. But he always said that water was the main problem and he's certainly been proved right on that.

There's been some progress on housing for evacuees. Government funding seems to have been sorted at last and new housing for 3,700 households is to be built within the prefecture by fiscal 2015. Some initiatives are already underway. Iwaki on the coast where most of the evacuees are, announced that 1,600 dwellings would be available next March and was inundated with applications. Iitate county has put forward plans for a development designed to house 23 young families (80 people) in Iino, Fukushima City. It looks really nice with a community centre and lots of space to play. A bit different from the utilitarian block going up in Hiwada, in the north of Koriyama. Then there's a plan for evacuees from Futaba county evacuated to Saitama, outside Tokyo, to be rehoused en masse in existing blocks of flats in Iwaki. The Reconstruction Agency is also going to set up an advisory committee which will implement lessons from the Kobe Earthquake when rehousing people. So, as usual in this country, it takes an age for anything to happen but once it gets going it's done meticulously.

Energy in the headlines too. A floating wind turbine over 100 meters high was towed up from Tokyo. In August it will be moved to the Naraha coast for tests (including effects on fishing). The wind turbine (in Japanese fusha 風車 windmill) has been named Fukushima Mirai, Fukushima Future, and by fiscal 2014 there will be 3 turbines producing 16,000 KWH of electricity, the world's biggest floating sub-station.

A group of farmers from Tomioka have got organised and, working with Kyushu University, have been experimenting for the past year on different crops which can be used to produce bio-ethanol. They've been working on small areas in Tomioka. They may not be able to grow food but at least they can use their skills in growing for some useful purpose and to earn a living.

Meanwhile there's an election campaign going on. Voters go to the polls on 21 July to vote for members of the Upper House. The PM avoids all mention of nuclear power but presses on with getting nuclear plants back into operation. The LDP in Fukushima however have said they want rid of all nuclear plants in this prefecture. They had to - otherwise they wouldn't get any votes ...  I wonder if Mori Masako. Fukushima MP and Minister in charge of consumer affairs and dealing with the falling birthrate, will get in?
That's all for now.
It's getting hot even up here.
Anne

Appeasing the gods

Hi

Today was a special day when even a seasoned old-timer like me felt the magic of being in Japan. A supermarket is to be built on the old factory site which the company vacated nearly two years ago and this morning a ceremony was held to 'placate the gods of the earth' (jichinsai 地鎮祭) and pray for safety during construction.

A striped tent had been erected next to the diggers. One by one we entered, ritually purifying our hands with water. Inside, the ground was covered with finely raked sand and there was Shinto music playing. Bamboo branches formed a frame for the altar which was laden with sake, rice, fruit, vegetables, and even a fish. In front of my seat was a neat cone of sand which three representatives would dig into during the ceremony. But first a loud wail on the part of the presiding Shinto priest resplendent in blue robes, tall black headdress and pointy shoes, to signify that the kami, the spirit of the place, was coming down to be amongst us. (The ceremony finished in the same way as the kami 'ascended'. Hmm. I thought it was the spirit of the place maybe it lives somewhere else ... ) Next there were prayers, unintelligible chanting, but for the name of the supermarket and the name of the construction company sounding out incongruously from time to time. Tiny squares of white paper were scattered like confetti in the four directions. Then the high point: one person from the supermarket, and two people in charge of construction ceremonially, and ever so slightly, broke down the cone of sand with miniature spades and other implements made of wood. Then it was our turn to go to the altar and make our offerings of sasaki branches - two bows, two claps, one bow. And finally a sip of sake for everyone.

I suppose the equivalent in England would be the 'topping out' ceremony. I have to admit I do enjoy things like this and think it's important to mark milestones. And this is a big milestone for us. At last I can say out in the open that local supermarket giant York Benimaru will be building a supermarket on our land. There's a certain sense of satisfaction as the former CEO was my husband's best friend, and gave me a lot of support in the early days. And I think the new development will be good for the area. I was told today they will be looking for 100 new staff. The target date for opening is 29 January next year. 
So it's been a good day. 
All the best. 
Anne

The site in Hohacho, Koriyama (east of the station) today