It’s not just a storage tank, either; radioactive water has been leaking
for more than two years, from the broken reactor buildings into groundwater and the Pacific Ocean.
It’s not just a local Japanese problem: Fukushima is here.
The cautious version, by Antoni Slodkowski and Mari Saito, Reuters, today,
Radioactive water seeping into Pacific from Fukushima is ’emergency,’ official says,
Highly radioactive water
seeping into the ocean from Japan’s crippled Fukushima nuclear plant
is creating an “emergency” that the operator is struggling to contain, an official from the country’s nuclear watchdog said Monday.
This contaminated groundwater has breached an underground barrier, is rising toward the surface and is exceeding legal limits of radioactive discharge, Shinji Kinjo, head of a Nuclear Regulatory Authority task force, told Reuters.
Countermeasures planned by Tokyo Electric Power Co (Tepco) are only a temporary solution, he said.
VOA News, also today, admits leaks have been going on for more than two years
and nobody knows how to stop them,
Fukushima Operator Under Fire for Radioactive Leaks,
Rianne Teule, a nuclear campaigner for Greenpeace International,
says the issue is a serious environmental concern.
“Most of all it proves TEPCO is incapable of dealing with this
situation and that the Japanese authorities should really step in
and ensure that proper action is taken to stop the leaks,” said
Teule.
But it is not clear what other actions TEPCO could take at this
point. Former Nuclear power plant designer Masashi Goto worked on
several projects with TEPCO.
“The situation is already beyond what Tepco can handle,” said Goto.
“If Continue reading →
“I wouldn’t tell anyone what’s safe to eat or what’s not safe to eat,” Madigan told Reuters. “It’s become clear that some people feel that any amount of radioactivity, in their minds, is bad and they’d like to avoid it. But compared to what’s there naturally […] and what’s established as safety limits, it’s not a large amount at all.”
The White House has given final approval for dramatically raising permissible radioactive levels in drinking water and soil following “radiological incidents,” such as nuclear power-plant accidents and dirty bombs. The final version, slated for Federal Register publication as soon as today, is a win for the nuclear industry which seeks Continue reading
