The US Navy has warned Japan that a small amount of radiation may have leaked from an American nuclear submarine during its recent visits to two southern ports, officials said Saturday. The US said the amount of radioactivity was negligible, but the news could cause a stir in Japan, where both the US military presence and its nuclear vessels are controversial. Japan's Foreign Minister Masahiko Komura berated his subordinates Saturday for failing to notify him of the radioactive leak, saying he learnt of the incident on television. The communication glitch came the same day that Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda installed a new cabinet to revive sagging public support for his government. “This (Saturday) morning I was watching CNN, and even if I don't understand English that well I saw that something strange was going on,” Komura, who retained the post in the new cabinet, told a news conference. “I therefore contacted (his subordinates) myself,” he said, adding that foreign ministry officials “should have shared the information faster” to enable him to make an announcement quickly. Japan's Foreign Ministry said Saturday that the US Navy told it that the nuclear-powered submarine USS Houston might have leaked radiation during port calls in the southern Japanese ports of Sasebo and Okinawa in March and April. Komura said officials did not notify him because the leak posed no risk for humans or the environment. “But that is not a reason for delay,” he said. Sasebo city official Akihiro Yoshida said government monitoring during the submarine's calls showed no abnormal increase of radioactivity in the area's waters. “Still, we are rather concerned,” Yoshida said. News of the incident comes just weeks ahead of the controversial arrival of the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier USS George Washington to be based in Yokosuka, just south of Tokyo. The carrier's arrival was originally set for August under a Japan-US security alliance, but was delayed until late September because of a fire aboard the vessel in May. The George Washington is relieving the soon-to-be decommissioned USS Kitty Hawk and will be the first US nuclear-powered ship to be stationed permanently in Japan. The George Washington's deployment has already triggered protests, and the fire escalated concerns many Japanese have about nuclear power. Masahiko Goto, a lawyer representing a citizens' group opposing the George Washington's deployment, sharply criticized the US Navy for allegedly withholding information about the submarine leak. “They had discovered the radiation leak weeks ago and did not inform the Japanese government immediately,” Goto said in a statement. “The US Navy's handling of the accident and lack of transparency showed there is no way we can trust them,” he said. Many people in Japan, the only country to have suffered atomic bombings, are sensitive about the military use of nuclear technology and the presence of American forces. The US atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945 killed at least 200,000 people. The Foreign Ministry acknowledged that it was told of the leak by the US Navy on Friday but waited a day to announce it because the amount was negligible. The delay stirred a flurry of criticism. Chief Cabinet Secretary Nobutaka Machimura called the delay “not good,” and Defense Minister Yoshimasa Hayashi said “We'd have liked to hear from the Foreign Ministry earlier.” In Honolulu, US Pacific Fleet spokesman Capt. Scott Gureck said the total amount of radioactivity released into the environment from the USS Houston at each stop was less than one half a microcurie – a negligible amount equivalent to the radioactivity of a 50-pound (22-kilogram) bag of fertilizer. The Navy discovered the leak on July 17 when a gallon of water spilled on a shipyard worker's leg from a valve while the submarine was in dry dock for routine maintenance at Pearl Harbor. An investigation showed water may have been slowly leaking from the valve since March as the Los Angeles-class submarine traveled around the Pacific.
