Same design as Plant Hatch, which is leaking radioactive tritium into our groundwater. And when contamination gets into the watershed it doesn’t go away; there’s not even an ocean at Hatch or Vogtle for it to disperse into.

Tsuyoshi Inajima and Yuji Okada wrote for Bloomberg News today, Japan Orders Tepco to Build Underground Wall at Fukushima Plant

The Japanese government ordered Tokyo Electric Power Co. to build an underground wall at the crippled Fukushima nuclear plant to prevent groundwater from flowing into basements of reactor buildings.

The government plans to set up a task force with Tokyo Electric, construction companies and plant makers by the end of June to discuss the details, Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry Toshimitsu Motegi said today in Tokyo. He made the remarks at a meeting with Naomi Hirose, the utility’s president, which was open to reporters.

Tepco has struggled with handling of contaminated water at the Fukushima Dai-Ichi nuclear plant after a quake and tsunami in March 2011 caused three meltdowns and radiation leaks. The plant site, 220 kilometers (137 miles) northeast of Tokyo, is running out of space to store radioactive water due to inflowing groundwater, raising concerns the operator will dump it into the ocean.

“Given the seriousness of the contaminated water and public anxiety about the issue, it is essential to have multiple measures,” Motegi said in the meeting. “That’s one of the biggest lessons from the Fukushima disaster.”

Last year Southern Company CEO Thomas A. Fanning said about Fukushima, “We have learned everything we can learn about the unfortunate circumstances that occured there.” This year his tune was pretty much the same. That Southern Company is really good to be able to learn things a year ago that Fukushima’s operator TEPCO is still trying to learn now.

-jsq

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