More Radio Active Leaks at Japans Fukushima

[Cheshire Cat]

While Americans were preoccupied with the antics of our congress and a government shutdown, eleven days ago a typhoon raged over areas of Japan, lives were lost and another frightening disaster took place which was the creation of yet another series of radioactive leaks caused Japan says by the recent storm. 

You may remember that on March 11, 2011 a Tsunami caused a horrific breakdown of nuclear reactors in Japan.  The company who oversaw the reactors kept insisting that they could control the leaks and refused outside help, including help from the U.S.A..  After month's and month's of being told next to nothing by the nuclear contractors Japan's government learned that the problem had overwhelmed the ability of those running the reactors to deal with it.  Massive amounts of radio active materials are still flooding our oceans.  Recently the gov't of Japan has decided to ask for outside help from America and other countries as it seems the individual workers at the plant who were supposed to be working on this are now falling seriously ill from radio active poisoning.  I am struck by the "fever" the world felt when being faced with the use of chemical weapons in Syria and am awestruck by the reality that our oceans are being poisoned by the uncontrolled leaks of Japans reactors.  The degree of this hazard is momentous when one understands that those poisons will make they way around the world and impact all that they touch beginning with the most minute ocean species.  It may be time for Japan's unsafe and aging reactors to go off line.  It could be that while people imagined it would be a nuclear blast that would seriously hurt the world, it may in fact be a silent and deadly incident that remains unchecked that will actually be what devastates the oceans and as a result all of us.



http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/10/21/radioactive-leaks-at-fukushima-caused-by-storm_n_4134291.html

Heavy rain at the Fukushima nuclear plant caused a leak of radioactive water containing a cancer-causing isotope, possibly into the sea, its operator said Monday, as a typhoon approaching Japan threatened further downpours.

It is the latest in a long line of setbacks at the site and further undermines agreements between operator Tokyo Electric Power (TEPCO) and the government, which limit the level of radioactive contamination in water that goes outside the plant.

TEPCO said a barrier intended to contain radioactive overflow was breached in one spot by water contaminated with strontium-90 at 70 times the legal limit for safe disposal.

Strontium-90 is produced during nuclear reactions. It accumulates in bones and remains potent for many years, and it can cause several types of cancer in humans.

The admission came as a team of experts from the UN's nuclear watchdog wrapped up their review of Japan's progress in cleaning up the worst atomic disaster in a generation.

TEPCO has poured thousands of tonnes of water on badly-damaged reactors at Fukushima to keep them cool and prevent them from melting down again.

This huge volume of water has to be stored in large tanks until it is cleaned of the radioactive substances it picks up in the cooling process.


Rain exacerbates the problem because as it hits polluted surfaces, it becomes contaminated, meaning TEPCO needs to scoop it all up for storage and treatment.

While the storage tanks all appeared to have survived the battering from heavy rain on Sunday, the concrete overflow barriers around them were not high enough to contain the rainwater runoff in several places.

Meteorologists say a typhoon that is likely to bring further heavy rain is churning its way slowly towards Japan. Forecasters expect it will hit later in the week.

In August, 300 tonnes of badly-polluted water leaked from a tank. It is now believed to have mixed with groundwater that is on its way to the sea.

Meanwhile, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) was set to issue an assessment of progress Japan has made in dealing with the mess in and around the Fukushima plant.

The mission, which came at Tokyo's request, is a follow-up to an IAEA visit last year.

The international community has urged Japan to be more transparent over the clean-up at Fukushima, where reactors were sent into meltdown by the tsunami of March 2011, affecting a swathe of the country's northeast.

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has insisted the situation is "under control", but doubts persist that the full extent of the problem is being revealed

[Cheshire Cat]

More information from Reuters.


http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/10/21/us-japan-fukushima-strontium-idUSBRE99K01B20131021

(Reuters) - Highly radioactive water overflowed barriers into Japan's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, its operating utility said on Monday, after it underestimated how much rain would fall at the plant and failed to pump it out quickly enough.

The utility, Tokyo Electric Power Co, also known as Tepco, has been battling to contain radioactive water at the nuclear complex, which suffered meltdowns and hydrogen explosions following a devastating earthquake and tsunami in March 2011.

Dealing with hundreds of tonnes of groundwater flowing through the wrecked nuclear plant daily is a constant headache for the utility and for the government, casting doubt on Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's promises that the Fukushima water "situation is under control."

After heavy rain on Sunday, water with high levels of radioactive strontium overflowed containment areas built around some 1,000 tanks storing tonnes of radioactive water at the plant, Tepco said. The radioactive water is a by-product of an improvised cooling system designed to keep the wrecked reactors under control in case of further disaster.

Tepco said it had planned to pump out the accumulating rainwater into empty tanks, check it for radioactivity, and if it was uncontaminated, release into the sea. But the company was overwhelmed by the amount of rainwater.

"Our pumps could not keep up with the rainwater. As a result, it flowed over some containment areas," said Tepco spokesman Yoshikazu Nagai. The company had planned for 30 to 40 millimeters of rainfall on Sunday, but by late afternoon the rainfall already stood at around 100 millimeters, he said.

The ongoing crisis at the Fukushima Daiichi plant, 220 km (130 miles) north of Tokyo, highlight the immensity of the task of containing and controlling radioactive water and eventually decommissioning the plant, processes expected to take decades.

Earlier this year, Tepco lost power to cool spent uranium fuel rods at the plant after a rat shorted wiring at the plant.

In the latest incident, containment areas surrounding 12 of 23 groups of tanks overflowed, with one of them containing Strontium-90 as highly concentrated as 710 Becquerels per liter - 71 times higher than the level set by the company as safe for release.

Strontium-90 is a by-product of the fission of uranium and plutonium in nuclear reactors as well as nuclear weapons, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency says on its website.

Tepco said it will prepare some 30 extra pumps and lay additional 10 kilometers of pipes to prevent overflowing from happening again.

The utility has come under increased scrutiny after it found in August that 300 tonnes of highly radioactive water had leaked from one of the hastily built storage tanks at the Fukushima site. Japan stepped up support for the embattled utility in September, pledging half a billion dollars to help contain contaminated water at Fukushima.

Tepco is seeking permission to restart its only remaining viable plant - Kashiwazaki Kariwa, the world's largest nuclear power station, to cut high fuel costs and restore its finances