At first they joked, “It's radioactive snow.” No one's laughing now.
One day after the March 11th magnitude 9.0 earthquake rattled Japan, the Seventh Fleet, including the aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan, began a humanitarian mission. Codenamed Operation Tomodachi ( Friends), its aim was to help the Japanese people in their time of need.
Tomodachi was a massive effort involving 24,000 servicemen, 190 aircraft, 24 naval ships, and costing $90 million. Hundreds of tons of food, water, blankets, clothing, and medical supplies were ferried in by helicopters to the stricken nation.
Then the sailors who joked about working in radioactive snow started to feel alarming symptoms. Not just fatigue from working 18-hour days loading and servicing the choppers but headaches, nausea, vomiting, and a strange metallic taste in their mouths. That was the beginning.
Water runoff from Fukushima's three melted-down nuclear reactors was drawn into the desalination equipment of the two dozen naval vessels stationed near the stricken reactors. The salt was removed from the seawater but the radioactive elements in the water remained. The seamen drank, showered, and had their meals prepared with the tainted water.
The number of crewmen reporting to sickbay swelled.
On March 14, the USS Reagan, though 100 miles offshore from Fukushima, detected radiation. “Levels were incredibly dangerous,” said Chief Michael Sebourn, the ship's radiation officer. “At one point the radiation in the air measured 300 times higher than what was considered safe.”
The USS Reagan increased its operating distance and repositioned itself to avoid an airborne radioactive plume. But by that time the fleet and its crew had been exposed for three days to “hot” snow and what was described by the sailors as a “warm fog.”
For the remainder of their two-week mission, members of the Seventh Fleet lived in a radioactive environment. Crewmen who were topside trudged in hot particles to contaminate the interior of their vessels. Entire ships, inside as well as outside, became contaminated.
The desalination machinery continued to function in cleaner waters but the equipment itself was now contaminated, as was the water it produced.
The list of physical and mental complaints grew in the intervening three years to include life-threatening ailments: severe back pain, memory loss, debilitating anxiety, testicular cancer, thyroid cancer, leukemia, and gynecological bleeding. There was no doubt. The sailors were suffering from acute radiation poisoning.
Their only redress was legal action. They decided on a class-action suit, which now includes more than 100 sailors. They have no legal standing to sue the US government, but they can sue the Tokyo Electric Power Company, operators of the four tsunami-wrecked reactors, for not alerting the Navy about the four hundred tons of radioactive water pouring daily into the Pacific.
The disposition of the suit will not be known for months. If the case is decided in their favor, the sailors want the funds to be applied to their medical costs.
Also in limbo is the state of the ships and aircrafts involved in Operation Tomodachi.
The Navy is not forthcoming about the effects of radiation on the Seventh Fleet. So for the time being, reasonable assumptions must substitute for hard news.
One: USS Ronald Reagan was so contaminated that it was refused entry into two ports. It took two months before the ship found a port that would accept it. Meanwhile, the 5,600-man crew continued to live in an irradiated environment.
Assuming the $6 billion vessel can be blasted clean with high pressure water, decontaminating the interior will be far more difficult, time consuming, and expensive. The Reagan will not be operational for quite some time.
If the carrier cannot be satisfactorily decontaminated, it will be decommissioned, permanently deactivated.
Two: The fate of the other 23 ships as well as the helicopters is also not known nor can we depend on the Navy to make it known.
Three: The cost of Operation Tomodachi originally estimated to be $90 million could be in the billions.
Four: Most important: The full impact on the health of the 24,000 sailors may never be completely known, but it can be assumed, and this is the last assumption, that it will grow with the years.
Sincerely,
Bob Scroggins
New Milford, PA