I'm not saying you guys who seem to work in some capacity in the nuclear arena don't know what you are talking about, but I am going to believe the New York Times. In fact this article confirms what you are saying that they police each other, however the Tokyo Electric Power Company has made at least a few mistakes in the last 2 years of cleaning up.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/05/world ... d=pl-share
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/08/world ... leaks.html
The New York Times
October 4, 2013
Company Is Scolded for Mistakes at Fukushima
By MARTIN FACKLER
TOKYO — In an unusually public scolding, Japan’s nuclear watchdog agency criticized the operator of the crippled Fukushima nuclear plant on Friday for making mistakes that allowed radioactive water to leak into the Pacific Ocean, and ordered it to fix the problems quickly.
The agency, the Nuclear Regulation Authority, summoned the president of the operator, the Tokyo Electric Power Company, to explain the accidents and spills that have plagued the cleanup of the Fukushima Daiichi plant since it suffered a triple meltdown two years ago. In the most recent mishap, workers spilled 114 gallons of contaminated water this week while trying to fill an already overflowing tank, said the company, known as Tepco. It said some of the water might have run into the ocean.
In a public hearing, an official at the regulatory agency, Katsuhiko Ikeda, dressed down Tepco’s president, saying the problems raised serious questions about the company’s ability to operate its other nuclear plants, like the huge Kashiwazaki-Kariwa facility, which Tepco wants to restart.
“That these leaks occurred due to human error is very regrettable,” Mr. Ikeda told the president, Naomi Hirose. “The failure to make rudimentary checks reflects a clear deterioration in the ability to manage the site.”
Mr. Ikeda said Tepco should consider emergency measures like bringing in workers from its other nuclear plants to help improve the cleanup.
Such blunt and direct criticism is rare in confrontation-averse Japan.
Bowing toward his antagonist, Mr. Hirose apologized, saying his company would try to end the problems by “deploying people, materials, money, everything we can to respond.”
Tepco has struggled to handle the technically complex task of stabilizing the stricken plant, and beginning the process of cleaning up the melted nuclear fuel. In particular, it has scrambled to build enough tanks to hold millions of gallons of radioactive water produced by groundwater that has flowed into the cracked reactor buildings, and must be removed before it overwhelms makeshift systems for cooling the damaged reactor cores.
One of the biggest recent spills came in August, when Tepco discovered that 80,000 gallons of water laced with radioactive strontium and cesium had leaked out of one of the huge tanks, with some reaching the Pacific.
The repeated problems at the plant, which have also included blackouts and failed efforts to stop the flow of contaminated groundwater into the sea, prompted Japan’s prime minister, Shinzo Abe, to order the national government to take a more direct role in running the cleanup.
Critics have faulted the government for leaving the plant in the hands of the same operator that many blame for failing to sufficiently fortify it before the earthquake and tsunami that struck in March 2011, knocking out vital reactor cooling systems.
