Japan Speaking Tour - #12 Kobe

By Pat Elder
October 7, 2024

People jammed into a Kobe, Japan community center on August 22, 2024, to hear our presentations on the deadly PFAS contamination in their town. They were agape 15 minutes into the program.  A slow terror came over them.   

Kobe is the finest of Japanese cities. It is clean and orderly like all cities in Japan, just more so here. It’s efficient. It works, and the people are kind and civil. There’s hope here, as the city comes to terms with these deadly industrial contaminants.

Because America is so terribly corrupt, and corporate money (chemical dollars in this case) controls Congress, we have barely begun to meet the existential threat posed by PFAS chemicals. If this sounds like hyperbole to you, please study the issue. Per-and poly fluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) cause cancer. They accumulate in our bodies, and they never go away. The Japanese suffer a kind of national numbness when it comes to this problem, the way they respond to the political currents engulfing them, but it is this great nation that will eventually contribute mightily to solving this crisis. 

Japan is 5-10 years behind much of the developed world on PFAS. The Japanese media has done a miserable job explaining the threat to the Japanese people. They parrot the official line and it’s easy to see through it.  They repeat a few lines ad nauseum. These chemicals may or may not pose harm. There’s a lot we don’t know about PFAS. We need more studies to formulate policy. blah blah.

Even so, the country is likely to catch up in a hurry, as its amazing history suggests. This industrial giant is awakening, with promising resolve. Last night people were dumbfounded when they listened to Prefectural Assemblyman Maki Maruo and us address different aspects of the contamination. Maruo talked about the poisoned drinking water. Rachel and I addressed the poisoned rivers and fish. 

During our tour in Japan, we mostly attracted the attention of academics, scientists, and peace activists as we focused on the unconscionable and reprehensible chemical death spewed on this beautiful land and its innocent people by the imperial forces of the United States. The air, soil, drinking water, rivers - and all biota, including humans, are impacted. 

Kobe is different because they’re blessed with an astute political leader like Assemblyman Maruo who has been fearlessly speaking truth to power. Here, the culprits are industrial actors like Seishin Kaihatsu, a civil engineering firm based in nearby Atsugi City, Kanagawa Prefecture. "Preparing a safe and secure environment for the local community” is their motto.

Mauro tested an area in the Akashi River draining from the firm’s activities. He identified 100,000 parts per trillion (ppt) of PFOA in the river. This is one of the highest recorded releases of PFOA is surface water anywhere on earth. Japan has a voluntary advisory that says the combined total of PFOS and PFOA should be kept under 50 ppt in drinking water and surface waters like the Akashi River.  Until last year, the US EPA advised states that PFOA ought to be kept under .004 ppt in drinking water. Now it is the law in the U.S. that it must be kept under 4 ppt in drinking water. The U.S. does not regulate PFOA or any PFAS in surface water.

Maruo was forceful with his words. “This is a great crime against humanity.  Perhaps the company does not understand the consequences of its actions. It is the responsibility of the Ministry of the Environment to protect the Japanese people and the environment. Both entities are responsible for endangering human health.”  Maruo is sincerely worried about the health of the people he represents. Imagine that! If only Congressman Hoyer and Senators Cardin and Van Hollen in Maryland could be half as concerned. 

A Japan Minister of the Environment spokesperson responded to Maruo’s findings, “Since there are no legal regulations, we will ask businesses that are thought to be the source of the pollution to take voluntary action if high values are found.” There will come a time when most people in this great nation will see this reaction by their government as criminal negligence.

PFOS, we have seen, contaminates the rivers and bioaccumulates in fish.  PFOA bioaccumulates in air-breathing species, including humans, according to the EPA. The chemicals adhere to the sediment and the riverbanks. When the level of the water drops, the chemicals dry out and are lifted by the wind to settle in our lungs and in our homes as dust. PFOA also bioaccumulates in crustaceans like crabs, clams, and oysters. 

It’s been 5 years since Linda Birnbaum, director of the U.S. National Institute for Environmental Health Sciences, said the safety threshold for PFOA in drinking water should be under .1 part per trillion. Birnbaum explained, “If you look at the data, pancreatic tumors are present at very, very low concentrations from PFOA.” It’s not surprising that the incidence, prevalence, and mortality of pancreatic cancer in Japan is the highest in Asia, while Japan is expected to continue seeing large increases in pancreatic cancer cases. 

Chronic kidney disease is also closely linked to PFOA. Studies describing several community-based screening programs suggest that Japan has the highest prevalence of chronic kidney disease anywhere on earth. Pancreatic cancer and kidney disease may be caused by multiple factors, but these findings deserve further scrutiny, especially when Japan is swimming in these carcinogens. Of all the 15,000+ PFAS chemicals, PFOA may be the worst. See the  80 human diseases associated with PFOA, according to the National Institutes of Health. PFOA affects just about every bodily system: heart, breast, liver, brain, kidney, and female and male reproductive systems. 

A 2008 study found PFAS in breast milk in women from Ehime Prefecture, Japan. PFOS was found in 100% of the samples from Japan. PFOA and PFHxS were found in 92% of the samples. Still, Japan does not regulate PFOA in any environmental media. It’s unconscionable, but if the reaction of the folks in Kobe is any indication, things will change rapidly in Japan. They were indignant. It’s a firestorm.

Rachel, Ken’Ichi, and I have discussed this revolution in awareness, attitudes, and action pertaining to PFAS throughout Japan. We’ve been behind some of it, thanks to VFP’s support and the contributions from our supporters, like Art Millholland in Maryland.

Next year

The tour is not going to happen next year unless we raise a lot more money from a lot more people. This trip was exhausting. Last year we rode the trains. This year we drove, and it was pretty tough.  It would be wonderful if we could visit 6-8 cities in a two week period and fly into each or take super fast trains. Japan is a bigger country than you might think. We will ask you for a donation at the beginning of the year. If we don’t raise enough we can have test kits sent to activists in areas where we have not sampled water - and then try to cause a fuss when we publish the results.

The site of the record levels of PFOA is 12 kilometers from the sea, not far from Kobe.

Our thoughts on the trip

Rachel Clark understands both sides of the Pacific as well as anyone. She says we must have a clear understanding of the horrible catastrophe regarding the nuclear accident at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in Ōkuma in 2011. It changed this country forever. She draws parallels to PFAS. “Ongoing decommissioning of the Fukushima nuclear power plant seems to be either impossible or will take forever. It’s like the PFAS. It doesn’t go away, and we don’t know how to handle it,” she said.

Rachel explained, “I don’t think Japan can afford to take on the PFAS issue especially while the government is willing to embrace the proxy war the U.S. hopes Japan will wage against China. All I see is catastrophe.”

Rachel points out that Japan imports more than 60 percent of its food, making war plans suicidal. She said she hopes the Japanese government would follow the lead of Mongolia and declare a nuclear weapons free zone and chose a way to decommission the nuclear power plants they have and replace them with renewable energy sources. “Japan must shred the Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) it has with the U.S. and redefine its relationship with the U.S., before it is too late.” She explained.  She added that Japan must limit defense spending to a fraction of 1 percent of GDP. 

Ken’ichi Narikawa, the former Japanese naval officer who accompanied us throughout the trip and described has 27-year military career, stressed that Japan must forge a foreign policy independent of the U.S. He said, “The media controls the people in this country. We need an educational revolution. Younger people must develop critical thinking skills so they will not be so easily controlled by the corporate media.” Ken’Ichi said he was fortunate to live in a beautiful rural environment surrounded rice paddies. “Food and energy can be produced individually but it will require a revolution,” he explained.

The  Downs Law Group  helps to make this work possible. Their support allows us to research and write about military contamination around the world. They’ve helped us buy hundreds of PFAS kits and they’ve helped pay for flights and hotels. The firm is working to provide legal representation to individuals in the U.S. and abroad with a high likelihood of exposure to a host of contaminants.

The Downs Law Group employs attorneys accredited by the Department of Veterans Affairs to assist those who have served in obtaining VA Compensation and Pension Benefits they are rightly owed.