More than two years after the March 2011 nuclear disaster, Tokyo Electric’s recovery effort has taken a turn for the worse. Japan’s nuclear regulator last week questioned the company’s ability to deal with the crisis, echoing comments earlier in the month by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.
Motegi’s visit to the plant comes a week after a storage tank leaked 300 metric tons of highly radioactive water, which Japan’s nuclear regulator labeled a “serious incident” in its worst assessment of the problems at Fukushima since the earthquake and tsunami of 2011 caused reactors to melt down.
It’s now up to the government to lead management of the contaminated water building up in tanks at the plant at a rate of 400 tons a day, and leaking from underground tunnels into the ocean, Motegi said.
In addition to the leaky tank, Tepco has admitted that irradiated water is flowing into the Pacific Ocean, which the government estimates at 300 tons a day.
The tank that leaked had levels of beta radiation of 80 million becquerels per liter, including strontium, Tepco said on Aug. 20. That’s 8 million times the limit for drinking water under health ministry guidelines.
Unlike the 1,000 ton-capacity tanks that hold most of the plant’s stored water, the smaller tanks aren’t surrounded by protective cement barriers. Last week’s leak reached the soil because a drainage valve on one such barrier was open.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-08-2 ... -woes.html
It amazes me that the company was able to get away with failure for so long before the government stepped in to try to correct the problems.
Mike, Neal - I don't understand the thinking of the plant owners and I'm hoping you can help me here with the cultural aspects of the situation. It seems as if the company was acting on the belief that if they kept really quiet that on one would notice the monumental dangers that still exist for that region.
