Current Monitoring Readings

March 29, 2012 and April 2

The Government of Japan recently announced plans to revise the limits on radioactive cesium in food and water, effectively reducing the maximum allowable level by a factor of five in most foods and in drinking water by a factor of 20. This decision, which will be effective on April 1, 2012, was made at the recommendation of Japan’s Food Safety Commission, an independent body that reviews food safety risks on behalf of the Government of Japan. A document in English explaining the new limits is available on the Ministry of Health Labor and Welfare website at http://www.mhlw.go.jp/english/topics/2011eq/dl/new_standard.pdf.  (Announcement from American Embassy 3/28/2012).  An article on Japan Today was released April 2.

June 1, 2011

As the situation has greatly stabilized and there is no cause for concern in Niigata, monitoring of local readings for air and water quality will now be suspended. If there is cause for concern, we will restart the monitoring updates for the IUJ community. If you would like to continue watching the Niigata readings on your own, please use the following sites with Google Translate:

Air quality - Sieverts
(how much exposure you get if you stand outside for 1 hour)
(Naturally occurring "background radiation" range in Japan*: 0.016μSv/h to 0.16μSv/h)
http://www.k4.dion.ne.jp/~ngtl-rad/maintenance.html

Water quality
(safe level limits: Radioactive Iodine - 300 Radio cesium - 200)
http://www.pref.niigata.lg.jp/seikatueisei/mizu_rireki.html