EM News
EM Events on Ocean Day
9 Jun 2013Last time I discussed the significance of events in which EM Mudballs and Activated EM-1 would be thrown into bodies of water to commemorate Ocean Day on July 15th. There are more and more cases of EM not only cleaning the seas and restoring the ecosystem, but increasing bio-diversity and creating a more abundant ocean.
It is a well-known fact that after a tsunami the oceans become cleaner and more abundant, but after the March 11, 2011 tsunami this effect was dramatically raised in areas where large quantities of EM were used. The revival of the ocean around Kesennuma and Shichigahama, towns greatly damaged by the tsunami, has been remarkable.
In order for the ocean to be clean and abundant, the most vital prerequisite is an efficient functioning of the base of the food chain for organisms. The accepted water quality purification technology up till now has been a system whereby all organic material is removed from the polluted water, the water is then disinfected, and discharged.
As a result, the water is clean but the number of living organisms in it is markedly reduced, and complaints come that people can no longer catch fish or shellfish. This is often the case not only in urban areas along the Setouchi Sea, but also in districts where there are advanced sewage treatment facilities. Areas that have been using EM to clean up the ocean from around 1998 have seen the nearby ocean become much cleaner and abundant. The Mikawa Bay area (in Aichi Prefecture) is an excellent example of this, as the nearby ocean has become much cleaner, with a teeming array of sea life.
Starting in 2000-2001 large amounts of EM have been used in the Ariake Sea to deal with the fading coloration of seaweed, with great success. Since then the amount of marine products has never gone down, setting new records each year. The sea has evolved into a cleaner, more abundant body of water.
The Horikawa River in Nagoya, which I discussed in the last issue, has become dramatically cleaner in three years time with the use of EM, and an abundant ecosystem has been restored. The perfect example is found below, a description of the success achieved in introducing EM into the water in the Nihonbashi River.
The Nihonbashi River, which mainly functions to receive surplus sewage and runoff rainwater, had been seriously ignored, but with the improvement in water quality more excursion boats than last year are able to use the river and this has greatly contributed to the tourist industry locally. It is worth noting that the EM that flows from the Nihonbashi River also cleans the Kanda River and Sumida River, as well as the Tokyo Harbor region. It also cleans the rivers downstream the Furukawa, Megurogawa, Tachiaigawa, Nomigawa, and Ebitorigawa--and has greatly improved the ecosystem of the outermost part of Tokyo Bay.
Beyond the example of Mikawa Bay, ocean regions where EM has been added to the water have seen a dramatic increase in asari clams and all sorts of fish and shellfish, and from several years ago large schools of ayu sweetfish have started to swim upstream. In the Tamagawa River, too, after using EM for two years the number of ayu was 200,000-300,000; in the third year this had doubled, in the fifth year had gone up to 2 million, and last year reached 10 million.
3,000 tons of Activated EM-1 have been added to the water up until now, an amount that exceeds the amount added in fifteen year's time to the Mikawa Bay. Further, the areas where the tides reach from rivers that face Tokyo Harbor, which have previously had terrible odors, are dramatically cleaner now, and even in manmade beaches asari clams can now be found in great quantities.
If Tokyo and Chiba Prefecture accept these facts and use EM to clean not only the Arakawa and Edogawa Rivers, but all rivers sewage treatment plants, we can look forward to new beach recreation and the development of the fisheries industry.
The above were my general comments on the 2012 research report Assessment of the Nihonbashi River Environment, released this January, on the improvement in water quality in the Nihonbashi River.
In this connection, below is a list of the amount of Activated EM-1 and numbers of EM Mudballs used in the Nihonbashi River, Kanda River, and Outer Moat (Sotobori) during the period December, 2006-December, 2012.
| Number of Mudballs thrown in by the Meikyo Preservation Society | 103,500 |
| Number of Mudballs thrown in by the Meikyo Preservation Society clean water in he Nihonbashi River and Kanda River | 257,890 |
| Total number of donated EM Mudballs | 361,390 |
| Nihonbashi River (from July, 2205) | 155,500 |
| Kanda River (from April, 2008) | 50,890 |
| Sotobori (Outer Moat; from July, 2007) | 155,000 |
| Total number of EM Mudballs thrown in | 361,390 |
| Meikyo Preservation Society and the volunteer group recovering clean water in he Nihonbashi River and Kanda River (made in the Horidomebashi plant) | 3,060 t |
| Osaka Fisheries Coop (brought to Nihonbashi) | 10 t |
| NPO Midori no Kai (NPO Green Group in Toride City, Ibaragi) brought to Outer Moat | 26 t |
| Total amount of donated Activated EM-1 | 3,096 t |
| Nihonbashi River (from November, 2006) | 2,564 t |
| Sotobori (Outer Moat) (from July, 2007) | 532 t |
| Total amount | 3,096 t |
The following memo is by Mr. Yutaka Hoshino, head of the investigative research team at the NPO U-Net (United Networks for Earth Environment).
May 25: Inspected clamming at the Keihin Canal, the shore off of Haneda, and the mouth of the Tamagawa River at spring tide (full moon). I had seen this online, but was surprised by the large number of people clamming. The sand continues to improve. Two years ago the sand was slimy, but this year it is clean, allowing one to walk out 20-30 meters offshore wearing sneakers. Foul odors are no longer present, either. There are many shijimi freshwater mussels at the mouth of the Tamagawa River, countless holes dug by fiddler crabs, and the diversity of living creatures is helping restore the ecosystem.
Some people have caught prawns along with shijimi. River prawns and hole mantis crabs are also caught there. Fishermen report increased numbers of gobies.
May 23, 25, 2013: I walked from the tidal flats offshore from Haneda Airport to the mouth of the Ebitorigawa River. During the series of holidays in May the tidal flats were filled with people clamming. I heard that shijimi were few due to overfishing, but some people had baskets full of shijimi. Some people had caught fiddler crabs and prawns as well.
Regarding this startling transformation in Tokyo Bay, newspapers and citizens groups concerned with cleaning the water not only in Tokyo but elsewhere proudly claimed, baselessly, that it was their efforts that had cleaned up the water, a greatly mistaken notion.
The reason why is, as I have already stated, that water purification technology up till now may clean the water, but it is structurally defective because it produces a poor environment in which living creatures cannot multiple. It is also necessary to understand that this sort of technology cannot fundamentally deal with heavy metals and chemical substances.
I have explained in many venues why use of EM will make the seas clean and abundant, but here let me review.
1. EM breaks up dioxin and all sorts of chemical substances and heavy metals and detoxifies them. It has already been ascertained as a fact that EM also eliminates radioactive cesium and strontium.
2. EM changes methane, hydrogen sulfide, and other harmful reduced substances to food, creating amino acids and sugars, food for zooplankton and phytoplankton.
3. EM ferments and breaks down all organic matter, makes amino acids and sugars, makes trace elements soluble, providing all kinds of food for zooplankton and phytoplankton, which constitute the base of the food chain. Because of this, it will dramatically clean up rivers and seas with much sludge and organic matter, allowing great number of fish and shellfish to flourish. We must all remember the basic fact that without abundant quantities of food it is impossible for sea life to greatly multiply.
Therefore, it is no exaggeration to say that this welcome transformation that has occurred in Tokyo Harbor and Tokyo Bay is the result of the use of EM. This is quite apparent if you compare the situation ten years ago, before EM was first used, and the transformation that had taken place since.
Finally, EM is the most widely used microbial material in the fishing industry throughout the world, and I would add that in China over 1,000 academic papers have been published on the application of EM in marine products. These can be found online, and I encourage readers to look for them.
