content: Except the idea that its "saturated" in leaked radiation is false. The dose reading at the area this photo was taken, supposedly, was 0.5 MICROsieverts. In US equivalents, that's 0.05 millirem. To put that in perspective, if you stood in that spot for a year, you would receive LESS dose than the average american. It is slightly higher than natural background radiation levels for many parts of the world, but not all. In fact, the western united states has a pretty high background level due to higher levels of naturally occurring uranium deposits. There has been radioactive releases from Fukushima, but MOST of it occurred immediately following the tsunami, in the form of hydrogen explosions that damaged units 1-3. The primary nuclides released were I-131 and Cs-137. Both tend to go airborne easily, but I-131 has a half-life of 8 DAYS, and will have mostly decayed by now. Cs-137 has a half-life of around 30 years, and is a bigger concern as it can cause damage to ecosystems it falls out in. However, most of the measurable fallout was in the area immediately around the reactor site, and was contained using a polymer resin spray to keep it from getting kicked up by wind. Cleanup efforts in the areas surrounding the plant has been pretty successful, with most of the soils and debris removed being non-detect or extremely low-level. There is still generation of contaminated water from cooling efforts, but that is being contained in massive tank farms at the site, and upon completion of the evaporation facility, that water will be processed and no longer stored. Cleanup is going to take a long time, its going to be difficult and expensive, and to say there is NO impact to the environment would be disingenuous. However, it absolutely IS "fearmongering" to throw around pictures such as the OP and claim widespread devastating effects of dangerous levels of radiation, when that simply isn't the case.