Ron Renkoski

Soil scientist suggests how we can help the dirt—and people of Japan

Send Soil Saving Street Sweepers to Fukushima and Miyagi

Help salvage Fukushima’s future. Let’s start testing several models of commercial street and curb cleaning vacuum machines  to determine which perform best at removing the Iodine, Celsium and Strontium fallout from the surface of rice paddy soils. Rotary snow sweepers with horizontal axis  just scatter the fallout. Test some with steel wire bristles and vertical or nearly vertical axis of rotation, which push the fallout laden dust particles and litter inside where it will be vacuumed up. Retrofit the best sweepers with radio remote control system perfected for human killing drone aircraft and/or precision agriculture. We must get that highly soluble  Cesium-137 swept and vacuumed off the surface of food growing soils in Fukushima before rains leach it deeper into those soils or erode it into streams.

Save the most productive soils first. Soils sampled 13 years after Chernobyl when blown up, show the maximum concentration of Cesium-137 at the 25 to 35 cm (10 – 14 inches) depth. We are much too late to save the breadbasket in the Ukraine; let’s do it right this time in Fukushima. Sample soils and analyze by one-millimeter layers to determine whether to remove 3mm or 10mm of contaminated topsoil. Initially vacuum off only the topmost 1mm of soil surface. Re-measure the Gamma Ray emissions, then brush and vacuum off a few more millimeters, repeatedly measure the Gamma Rays emitted from the remaining topsoil and re-sweep until 90+ % reduction of Gamma Rays compared to non-vacuumed soil in same rice paddy. Do it during spring, 2011 while most radioactive isotopes are still concentrated at the very surface.

Segregate soil ruined by fallout in landfills with compacted clay and flexible rubber membranes on bottom, top and side slopes. Site all landfills in Fukushima and Miyagi at least 30 meters (100 feet) above current sea level to reduce future tsunami damage. The official isolation duration for isotope’s safe decay is ten half-lives – 302 years for Cesium-137. Surround such nuclear landfills with multilingual signs warning: “Do not open before December 2525!"

Links showing examples of street sweepers and soil science research relevant to this urgent mission:

http://www.alibaba.com/showroom/vacuum-street-sweeper.html

http://www.steppequipment.com/street-sweepers.php   (2 microns)

http://www.allianzsweeper.com/en/products/litter-collection/ln50.html   (2 microns)

https://www.soils.org/publications/jeq/articles/31/6/1930  (van der Perk Assess. Cs-137)

http://researchmagazine.uga.edu/92f/nuclear2.html

http://www.wentz.net/radiate/chernobyl2/chernobyl/radioactivity.html#s08113-1

https://www.soils.org/publications/jeq/articles/34/4/1302  (Hrachowitz 137Cs Chernobyl)

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10718297

http://chemistry.about.com/od/solutionsmixtures/a/solubility-rules.htm

Ron Renkoski, 4142 Alvarez Ave, Blooming Grove, WI 53714 USA  rrenkoski@sbcglobal.net

 

 

 

 

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