Radioactivity Continues to Spill into the Environment from Japan's Nuclear Plant

Search for Radiation Leak Turns Desperate in Japan

April 4, 2011

AP - Workers used a milky bathwater dye Monday as they frantically tried to trace the path of radioactive water seeping into the ocean from Japan's tsunami-damaged nuclear plant.

The crack in a maintenance pit discovered over the weekend was the latest confirmation that radioactivity continues to spill into the environment. The leak is a symptom of the primary difficulty at the Fukushima Dai-ichi complex: Radioactive water is pooling around the plant and preventing workers from powering up cooling systems needed to stabilize dangerously vulnerable fuel rods.

The plant operators also deliberately dumped 10,000 tons of tainted water — measuring about 500 times above the legal limit for radiactivity — into the ocean Monday to make space at a storage site for water that is even more highly radiactive.

Engineers have turned to a host of improvised and sometimes bizarre methods to tame the nuclear plant after it was crippled in Japan's magnitude 9.0 quake and tsunami on March 11.

Efforts over the weekend to clog the leak with a special polymer, sawdust and even shredded newspapers failed to halt the flow at a cracked concrete maintenance pit near the shoreline. The water in that leak contains radioactive iodine at rates 10,000 times the legal limit.

Suspecting they might be targeting the wrong channel to the pit, workers tried to confirm the leak's pathway by dumping several pounds (kilograms) of salts used to give bathwater a milky hue into the system, plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co. said Monday.

"There could be other possible passages that the water may be traveling. We must watch carefully and contain it as quickly as possible," said Hidehiko Nishiyama, a spokesman for the Nuclear Safety and Industrial Agency.

Radioactive water has pooled throughout the plant because the operator has been forced to rely on makeshift ways of pumping water into the reactors — and allowing it to gush out wherever it can — to bring down temperatures and pressure in the cores.

Government officials conceded Sunday that it will likely be several months before the cooling systems are completely restored. And even after that happens, there will be years of work ahead to clean up the area around the complex and figure out what to do with it.

The makeshift system makes it difficult to contain the radiation leaks, but it is aimed a preventing fuel rods from going into a full meltdown that would release even more radiactivity into the environment.

"We must keep putting water into the reactors to cool to prevent further fuel damage, even though we know that there is a side effect, which is the leakage," Nishiyama said. "We want to get rid of the stagnant water and decontaminate the place so that we can return to our primary task to restore the sustainable cooling capacity as quickly as possible."

To that end, the plant's operator, Tokyo Electric Power Co., said it jettisoned the 10,000 tons of water Monday, clearing space in a waste-storage facility. The government decided to allow the step as "an unavoidable emergency measure," Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano said.

An additional 1,500 tons will be dumped from a trench under the plant's units 5 and 6. That water is threatening to interfere with the workings at those units, whose reactors are under control.

Radioactivity is quickly diluted in the ocean, and Edano said the dump should not affect the safety of seafood in the area.

The crisis has unfolded as Japan deals with the aftermath of twin natural disasters that decimated large swaths of its northeastern coast. Up to 25,000 people are believed to have died in the disaster, and tens of thousands lost their homes. Thousands more were forced to flee a 12-mile (20-kilometer) radius around the plant because of the radiation.

The 8-inch-long (20-centimeter-long) crack was discovered in the maintenance pit over the weekend. It is sending radioactive water into area that is normally blocked off by a seawall, but a crack was also discovered in that outer barrier Monday.

Though it later authorized the dumping of slightly radioactive water, the government said Monday it was growing concerned about the sheer volume of contaminated materials spilling into the Pacific. It is not clear how much water has leaked from the pit so far.

"Even if they say the contamination will be diluted in the ocean, the longer this continues, the more radioactive particles will be released and the greater the impact on the ocean," Edano said. "We are strongly urging TEPCO that they have to take immediate action to deal with this."

The crisis has sparked protests in Japan and raised questions around the world about the safety of nuclear power. The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency told delegates at a nuclear safety conference Monday that the industry cannot afford to ignore these concerns.

"We cannot take a 'business as usual' approach," Yukiya Amano said.

The operator said Monday it is ordering fencing that is typically used to contain oil spills. The screens are not designed to trap radioactivity but might curtail the flow of water and thus reduce the spread of contamination, said TEPCO manager Teruaki Kobayashi. It was not clear when they would arrive.

All of the plant's reactors were designed by General Electric, and the company's CEO met Sunday with TEPCO's chairman. Jeffrey Immelt told reporters Monday that more than 1,000 engineers from GE and its partner Hitachi are helping to analyze the problems at the plant.

Immelt also offered assistance in dealing with the electricity shortage brought on by damage to Dai-ichi and other power plants. Japan is expecting a shortfall of at least 10 million kilowatts come summer.

Gas turbines are on their way from the U.S. with both long- and short-term capabilities, Immelt said.

11,500 Tons of Radioactive Water Released to Sea By TEPCO, Government Hid Data on High Radiation Levels

April 4, 2011

Before It's News - On Monday Japanese engineers were forced to release radioactive water into the sea while resorting to desperate measures such as using bath salts to try to find the source of the leaks at a crippled nuclear power complex, according to a Reuters and NHK.

Tokyo Electric Power (TEPCO) started releasing 11,500 tons of radioactive wastewater into the ocean on Monday evening. TEPCO says the level of iodine-131 in the wastewater is about 100 times the legal limit. But the plant operator says if people ate fish and seaweed caught near the plant every day for a year, their radiation exposure would be 0.6 millisievert. It adds the annual permissible level for the general public is one millisievert.

Engineers plan to build a giant silt curtain in the ocean to stop the spread of more contamination from the Fukushima Daiichi plant.

The plant operator had to release low-level radioactive seawater that had been used to cool overheated fuel rods after it ran out of storage capacity for more highly contaminated water, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano said.

Credit: NHK

Wastewater will be released to make room for highly contaminated water from the No.2 reactor complex. Radioactive water 100,000 times the normal level in an operating reactor has been found in the turbine building. This is also hampering efforts to cool the damaged reactors.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano says the government approved the operation plan, as removing the water from the No.2 reactor is a more urgent matter.

Edano calls the operation an emergency measure to ensure the safety of the plant. He adds that the government told the utility to monitor radioactivity in the seawater and closely track the environmental impact.

Radioactive water continues to leak from unknown source

Radioactive water continued to flow into the ocean at the damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant on Monday, and its source remains unknown.

Plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Company discovered on Saturday that the contaminated water appeared to be gushing from a crack in a concrete pit near reactor Number 2.

TEPCO first tried to pour concrete into the crack to halt the leak, but the attempt failed. On Sunday, the company injected a mixture of absorbent polymers, sawdust and newspaper to try and clog the flow, but this has yet to absorb the water. On Monday, workers tried to see if they could trace the pathway of the leak by dumping into the system a powder dye designed to turn water a milky white. The colorant was poured into a tunnel leading to the pit, but no white water has appeared so far.

TEPCO now thinks the radioactive water may be coming from another source and is considering different strategies to find out where.

Japanese government withheld information on high radiation

NHK has learned that the Japanese government withheld the release of computer projections indicating high levels of radioactivity in areas more than 30 kilometers from the troubled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.

The estimates were made on March 16th following explosions at the plant by an institute commissioned by the government using a computer system called SPEEDI. The system made its projections on the assumption that radioactive substances had been released for 24 hours from midnight on March 14th, based on the available data.

Credit: NHK

But the government was reluctant to reveal the SPEEDI projections, and did not release them until March 23rd.

The released data showed that higher levels of radioactive substances would flow over areas to the northwest and southwest of the plant.

The estimates showed that the radiation would exceed 100 millisieverts in some areas more than 30 kilometers from the nuclear plant if people remained outdoors for 24 hours between March 12th and 24th. That is 100 times higher than the 1 millisievert-per-year long-term reference level for humans as recommended by the International Commission on Radiological Protection.

The Nuclear Safety Commission says it did not release the projections because the location or the amount of radioactive leakage was not specified at the time.

Professor emeritus Shigenobu Nagataki of Nagasaki University, says the government should release more data about the dangers of possible radiation exposure and draw up evacuation plans and other measures together with residents.