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Is Japan Selling Radioactive Tea?

Submitted by George Washington on 06/10/2011 16:21 -0400

Radioactive
cesium exceeding the legal limit was detected in tea made in a factory
in Shizuoka City, more than 300 kilometers away from the Fukushima
Daiichi nuclear power plant. Shizuoka Prefecture is one of the most
famous tea producing areas in Japan.

A tea distributor in Tokyo
reported to the prefecture that it detected high levels of
radioactivity in the tea shipped from the city. The prefectural
government confirmed the contamination on Thursday, detecting 679
becquerels per kilogram of radioactive cesium. The legal limit is 500
becquerels.

The prefecture ordered the factory to refrain from shipping out the product.

After
the accident at the Fukushima nuclear power plant, radioactive
contamination of tea leaves and processed tea has been found over a wide
area around Tokyo.

But the Japan Times reports today:

Shizuoka
Prefecture told a Tokyo-based mail order company not to say anything on
its website about excessive radioactive material being found in tea
from the prefecture, the retailer said Friday.

After Radishbo-ya
Co. made an inquiry to the Shizuoka Prefectural Government about the
matter Monday, a prefectural official told the company not to disclose
the finding due to fears the message would cause unwarranted harm to
Shizuoka tea growers, adding that the prefecture would confirm the
finding on its own, according to the retailer.

Radishbo-ya, for
its part, sent purchasers of the tea letters informing them about the
radiation and offered to recall the products.

Shizuoka is a famous tea production area.

As Alexander Higgins notes, it is 300 miles by car from Fukushima to Shizuoka:

Of
course, human nature is to try to cover things up, and with Japan's
economy in a tough place, the temptation is even higher. So even if
Shizuoka is now (after-the-fact), admitting radiation problems, many
other districts might not ... at least not in a timely fashion.

It
would be nice to assume that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, EPA
or other agencies are screening imports for radiation.

But given that the FDA previously assured everyone that Japanese fish were safe, that government agencies have largely stopped testing for airborne radiation, and that our agencies are not even really testing seafood in the Gulf for pollution, I am not so hopeful.