Wednesday, August 21, 2013 6:32:33 AM
Tank Has Leaked Tons of Contaminated Water at Japan Nuclear Site
Workers raced to stop the leakage at the Fukushima plant, but its operator said much of the water had seeped into the soil.
Pool photo by Noboru Hashimto
By HIROKO TABUCHI
Published: August 20, 2013
TOKYO — Three hundred tons of highly contaminated water has leaked from a storage tank at the ravaged Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant on Japan’s Pacific coast, its operator said Tuesday, prompting regulators to declare a “radiological release incident” for the first time since disaster struck there in 2011 and adding new fears of environmental calamity.
Workers raced to place sandbags around the leaking tank to stem the spread of the water, contaminated by levels of radioactive cesium and strontium many hundreds of times as high as legal safety limits, according to the operator, Tokyo Electric Power, or Tepco. The task was made more urgent by a forecast of heavy rain for the region.
But a Tepco spokesman, Masayuki Ono, acknowledged that much of the contaminated water had seeped into the soil, which would have to be dug up and removed. And he said the tainted water could eventually reach the ocean, adding to the tons of radioactive fluids that have already leaked into the sea from the plant.
The new leak raises disturbing questions about the durability of the nearly 1,000 huge tanks Tepco has installed about 500 yards from the site’s shoreline. The tanks are meant to store the vast amounts of contaminated liquid created as workers cool the complex’s three damaged reactors by pumping water into their cores, along with groundwater recovered after it poured into the reactors’ breached basements.
Hints of the latest leak began to emerge on Monday, when workers discovered puddles of radioactive water near a tank. Further checks revealed that the 1,000-ton vessel, thought to be nearly full, contained only 700 tons, with the remainder having almost certainly leaked out.
Mr. Ono said that Tepco had assumed the tanks would last at least five years. But the tank that leaked could have been in place no more than two, and workers previously found smaller leaks from similar tanks at least four times. And Hiroshi Miyano, an expert in nuclear system design at Hosei University in Tokyo, said that the tanks would be vulnerable to earthquake or tsunami, with the potential for a huge spill.
A powerful earthquake and tsunami knocked out the Fukushima complex’s cooling systems in March 2011, causing meltdowns at three reactors. The accompanying radiological release was rated at Level 7, the highest on the scale and on par with the 1986 accident at Chernobyl. Japanese regulators said Wednesday that they were preparing to raise the rating for the latest leak to Level 3, indicating a “serious incident,” from an initial reading of Level 1.
Each increase on the scale is meant to represent a 10-fold increase in the severity of the leak, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency, which introduced the scale in 1990. Ratings are made by local regulators or sometimes even the plant operators themselves, and not by the I.A.E.A., however.
Tepco has stumbled repeatedly in its handling of the disaster and its efforts to clean up the plant. After its recent admission that contaminated water had reached the open ocean after breaching an underground barrier built to contain it, Japan’s popular prime minister, Shinzo Abe, ordered his government to intervene.
Tepco hopes to clean the water using an elaborate filtering system and start releasing water contaminated at low levels into the ocean. Those plans have been delayed by technical problems and protests from fishermen.
Desperate for options to stem the leaks, Japan’s Nuclear Regulation Authority has suggested surrounding the plant with a huge underground ice wall. That plan has its own drawbacks, however, and would require huge amounts of electricity.
“We are extremely concerned,” Hideka Morimoto, a spokesman for the authority, was quoted by The Associated Press as saying.
At some point, Tepco will have no choice but to start releasing some of the water, said Dr. Miyano, the expert in nuclear system design. The continued problems have heightened public scrutiny of Tepco and have made it harder to build public consensus around any release of water, he said.
“That just makes the problem worse, with no viable solution,” he said.
Makiko Inoue contributed reporting.
© 2013 The New York Times Company
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/21/world/asia/300-tons-of-contaminated-water-leak-from-japanese-nuclear-plant.html
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Japan's Fukushima nuclear crisis deepens, China expresses 'shock'
An aerial view shows Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO)'s tsunami-crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant and its contaminated water storage tanks (bottom) in Fukushima, in this photo taken by Kyodo August 20, 2013.
Credit: Reuters/Kyodo
An aerial view shows workers wearing protective suits and masks working atop contaminated water storage tanks at Tokyo Electric Power Co.
Credit: REUTERS/Kyodo
By Kiyoshi Takenaka and James Topham
TOKYO | Wed Aug 21, 2013 6:04am EDT
(Reuters) - Japan's nuclear crisis escalated to its worst level in two years on Wednesday, with its nuclear watchdog saying it feared more tanks were leaking contaminated water and China expressing its shock over the disaster.
Japan's nuclear regulator also said it feared the disaster exceeded the ability of the plant's operator, Tokyo Electric Power Co, to cope "in some respects".
A spokesman for the Nuclear Regulation Authority (NRA) said earlier on Wednesday the agency plans to upgrade the severity of the crisis from a level 1 "anomaly" to a level three "serious incident" on an international scale for radiological releases.
Such a move would be the most serious action taken since the plant was destroyed by an earthquake and tsunami in 2011.
"Any way you look at it, this is deplorable," Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said at a regular news conference on Wednesday. "The government will make every effort to halt the leak of contaminated water as soon as possible."
The plant operator, also known as Tepco, said on Tuesday contaminated water with dangerously high levels of radiation is leaking from a storage tank.
The NRA said it was worried about leakage from other tanks of the same type, which were built hastily to store water washed over melted reactors at the station to keep them cool.
China said it was "shocked" to hear that Fukushima was still leaking contaminated water two years after the disaster and urged Japan to provide information "in a timely, thorough and relevant way".
"We hope that the Japanese side can earnestly take effective steps to put an end to the negative impact of the after-effects of the Fukushima nuclear accident," China's Foreign Ministry said in a statement faxed to Reuters in Beijing.
Water in the latest leak is so contaminated that a person standing close to it for an hour would receive five times the annual recommended limit for nuclear workers in a year.
Tepco has been criticized for its failure to prepare for the disaster and been accused of covering up the extent of the problems at the plant.
"This certainly exceeds Tokyo Electric's ability in some respects," NRA chairman Shunichi Tanaka told a media briefing after a regular meeting of the NRA commission. He had been asked whether the operator could handle the crisis.
"SEVERE CONTAMINATION"
Upgrading the warning to level 3 will mark the first time Japan has issued a warning on the International Nuclear Event Scale (INES) since three reactor meltdowns at the plant after a massive earthquake and tsunami in March 2011.
A maximum INES level 7 was declared at the battered plant after explosions led to a loss of power and cooling two years ago, confirming Fukushima as the worst nuclear accident since Chernobyl a quarter of a century earlier.
Each one-step INES increase represents a tenfold increase in severity, according to a factsheet on the website of the International Atomic Energy Agency. (www.iaea.org/)
The level 3 rating is assigned when there is exposure of more than 10 times the limit for workers, according to the factsheet.
It can also be assigned when there is "severe contamination in an area not expected by design with a low probability of significant public exposure," the factsheet says.
The NRA's impending assessment upgrade came in a document posted on the agency's website on Wednesday, with formal adoption to follow notification to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
"Judging from the amount and the density of the radiation in the contaminated water that leaked ... a level 3 assessment is appropriate," the document said.
The NRA's Tanaka said the regulator has decided to consult with the IAEA about whether it is appropriate to assign a rating to the leakage at the plant. The IAEA has so far not commented on the latest developments.
The leak is so contaminated that a person standing 50 cm (1.6 feet) away that, after 10 hours, a worker in that proximity to the leak would develop radiation sickness with symptoms including nausea and a drop in white blood cells.
(With additional reporting by Kentaro Hamada and Olivier Fabre; Writing by Aaron Sheldrick; Editing by Edmund Klamann and Paul Tait)
Copyright 2013 Thomson Reuters
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/08/21/us-japan-fukushima-severity-idUSBRE97K02B20130821 [with embedded video report, and comments]
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Workers raced to stop the leakage at the Fukushima plant, but its operator said much of the water had seeped into the soil.
Pool photo by Noboru Hashimto
By HIROKO TABUCHI
Published: August 20, 2013
TOKYO — Three hundred tons of highly contaminated water has leaked from a storage tank at the ravaged Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant on Japan’s Pacific coast, its operator said Tuesday, prompting regulators to declare a “radiological release incident” for the first time since disaster struck there in 2011 and adding new fears of environmental calamity.
Workers raced to place sandbags around the leaking tank to stem the spread of the water, contaminated by levels of radioactive cesium and strontium many hundreds of times as high as legal safety limits, according to the operator, Tokyo Electric Power, or Tepco. The task was made more urgent by a forecast of heavy rain for the region.
But a Tepco spokesman, Masayuki Ono, acknowledged that much of the contaminated water had seeped into the soil, which would have to be dug up and removed. And he said the tainted water could eventually reach the ocean, adding to the tons of radioactive fluids that have already leaked into the sea from the plant.
The new leak raises disturbing questions about the durability of the nearly 1,000 huge tanks Tepco has installed about 500 yards from the site’s shoreline. The tanks are meant to store the vast amounts of contaminated liquid created as workers cool the complex’s three damaged reactors by pumping water into their cores, along with groundwater recovered after it poured into the reactors’ breached basements.
Hints of the latest leak began to emerge on Monday, when workers discovered puddles of radioactive water near a tank. Further checks revealed that the 1,000-ton vessel, thought to be nearly full, contained only 700 tons, with the remainder having almost certainly leaked out.
Mr. Ono said that Tepco had assumed the tanks would last at least five years. But the tank that leaked could have been in place no more than two, and workers previously found smaller leaks from similar tanks at least four times. And Hiroshi Miyano, an expert in nuclear system design at Hosei University in Tokyo, said that the tanks would be vulnerable to earthquake or tsunami, with the potential for a huge spill.
A powerful earthquake and tsunami knocked out the Fukushima complex’s cooling systems in March 2011, causing meltdowns at three reactors. The accompanying radiological release was rated at Level 7, the highest on the scale and on par with the 1986 accident at Chernobyl. Japanese regulators said Wednesday that they were preparing to raise the rating for the latest leak to Level 3, indicating a “serious incident,” from an initial reading of Level 1.
Each increase on the scale is meant to represent a 10-fold increase in the severity of the leak, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency, which introduced the scale in 1990. Ratings are made by local regulators or sometimes even the plant operators themselves, and not by the I.A.E.A., however.
Tepco has stumbled repeatedly in its handling of the disaster and its efforts to clean up the plant. After its recent admission that contaminated water had reached the open ocean after breaching an underground barrier built to contain it, Japan’s popular prime minister, Shinzo Abe, ordered his government to intervene.
Tepco hopes to clean the water using an elaborate filtering system and start releasing water contaminated at low levels into the ocean. Those plans have been delayed by technical problems and protests from fishermen.
Desperate for options to stem the leaks, Japan’s Nuclear Regulation Authority has suggested surrounding the plant with a huge underground ice wall. That plan has its own drawbacks, however, and would require huge amounts of electricity.
“We are extremely concerned,” Hideka Morimoto, a spokesman for the authority, was quoted by The Associated Press as saying.
At some point, Tepco will have no choice but to start releasing some of the water, said Dr. Miyano, the expert in nuclear system design. The continued problems have heightened public scrutiny of Tepco and have made it harder to build public consensus around any release of water, he said.
“That just makes the problem worse, with no viable solution,” he said.
Makiko Inoue contributed reporting.
© 2013 The New York Times Company
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/21/world/asia/300-tons-of-contaminated-water-leak-from-japanese-nuclear-plant.html
--
Japan's Fukushima nuclear crisis deepens, China expresses 'shock'
An aerial view shows Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO)'s tsunami-crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant and its contaminated water storage tanks (bottom) in Fukushima, in this photo taken by Kyodo August 20, 2013.
Credit: Reuters/Kyodo
An aerial view shows workers wearing protective suits and masks working atop contaminated water storage tanks at Tokyo Electric Power Co.
Credit: REUTERS/Kyodo
By Kiyoshi Takenaka and James Topham
TOKYO | Wed Aug 21, 2013 6:04am EDT
(Reuters) - Japan's nuclear crisis escalated to its worst level in two years on Wednesday, with its nuclear watchdog saying it feared more tanks were leaking contaminated water and China expressing its shock over the disaster.
Japan's nuclear regulator also said it feared the disaster exceeded the ability of the plant's operator, Tokyo Electric Power Co, to cope "in some respects".
A spokesman for the Nuclear Regulation Authority (NRA) said earlier on Wednesday the agency plans to upgrade the severity of the crisis from a level 1 "anomaly" to a level three "serious incident" on an international scale for radiological releases.
Such a move would be the most serious action taken since the plant was destroyed by an earthquake and tsunami in 2011.
"Any way you look at it, this is deplorable," Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said at a regular news conference on Wednesday. "The government will make every effort to halt the leak of contaminated water as soon as possible."
The plant operator, also known as Tepco, said on Tuesday contaminated water with dangerously high levels of radiation is leaking from a storage tank.
The NRA said it was worried about leakage from other tanks of the same type, which were built hastily to store water washed over melted reactors at the station to keep them cool.
China said it was "shocked" to hear that Fukushima was still leaking contaminated water two years after the disaster and urged Japan to provide information "in a timely, thorough and relevant way".
"We hope that the Japanese side can earnestly take effective steps to put an end to the negative impact of the after-effects of the Fukushima nuclear accident," China's Foreign Ministry said in a statement faxed to Reuters in Beijing.
Water in the latest leak is so contaminated that a person standing close to it for an hour would receive five times the annual recommended limit for nuclear workers in a year.
Tepco has been criticized for its failure to prepare for the disaster and been accused of covering up the extent of the problems at the plant.
"This certainly exceeds Tokyo Electric's ability in some respects," NRA chairman Shunichi Tanaka told a media briefing after a regular meeting of the NRA commission. He had been asked whether the operator could handle the crisis.
"SEVERE CONTAMINATION"
Upgrading the warning to level 3 will mark the first time Japan has issued a warning on the International Nuclear Event Scale (INES) since three reactor meltdowns at the plant after a massive earthquake and tsunami in March 2011.
A maximum INES level 7 was declared at the battered plant after explosions led to a loss of power and cooling two years ago, confirming Fukushima as the worst nuclear accident since Chernobyl a quarter of a century earlier.
Each one-step INES increase represents a tenfold increase in severity, according to a factsheet on the website of the International Atomic Energy Agency. (www.iaea.org/)
The level 3 rating is assigned when there is exposure of more than 10 times the limit for workers, according to the factsheet.
It can also be assigned when there is "severe contamination in an area not expected by design with a low probability of significant public exposure," the factsheet says.
The NRA's impending assessment upgrade came in a document posted on the agency's website on Wednesday, with formal adoption to follow notification to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
"Judging from the amount and the density of the radiation in the contaminated water that leaked ... a level 3 assessment is appropriate," the document said.
The NRA's Tanaka said the regulator has decided to consult with the IAEA about whether it is appropriate to assign a rating to the leakage at the plant. The IAEA has so far not commented on the latest developments.
The leak is so contaminated that a person standing 50 cm (1.6 feet) away that, after 10 hours, a worker in that proximity to the leak would develop radiation sickness with symptoms including nausea and a drop in white blood cells.
(With additional reporting by Kentaro Hamada and Olivier Fabre; Writing by Aaron Sheldrick; Editing by Edmund Klamann and Paul Tait)
Copyright 2013 Thomson Reuters
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/08/21/us-japan-fukushima-severity-idUSBRE97K02B20130821 [with embedded video report, and comments]
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