The Permanent Crisis at Fukushima

by Justin McKeating

Greenpeace experts examine fish samples on the Rainbow Warrior to monitor radiation levels as the ship sails up the eastern coast of Japan on her way to Fukushima in May 2011.(Credit: Jeremy Sutton-Hibbert / Greenpeace.)Hundreds of tons of radioactively contaminated water leak from the damaged Fukushima nuclear reactors every day. That water has to go somewhere and the operator of the plant is running out of places to store it. So the suggestion has been made that it be dumped in the sea.
At the scene of the Fukushima nuclear disaster they can’t clean anything without getting something else dirty.
The plant’s operator TEPCO has a decontamination system at Fukushima called ALPS (Advanced Liquid Processing System). It takes the contaminated water and filters out most of the radioactivity except for tritium. This “tritiated” water is then stored in tanks.
The problem is that ALPS hasn’t been the most reliable of systems at Fukushima. Of the three systems in use, two had to be shut down for repairs earlier this year when it was found they were being corroded by the very water they were supposed to decontaminate. Last week one of them was found to be leaking hydrochloric and was shut down again.
It’s estimated it will take at least seven years to partially decontaminate the water already being stored.
There are currently something like 1,000 storage tanks on the Fukushima site. Some of the tanks aren’t safe – they were built by illegally hired workers who didn’t do a great job. Some of them leak. A lot.
To make matters worse, a further 400 tons of groundwater run into the destroyed reactors every day where it is also contaminated. Officials from the Japanese government’s industry ministry say TEPCO will run of storage space within two years if the crisis isn’t addressed.
So what’s to be done about Fukushima’s water crisis?
Japan’s nuclear watchdog the Nuclear Regulation Authority (NRA) and the United Nation’s International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) have both suggested in the last few days that the water be dumped in the ocean.
“You cannot keep storing the water forever. We have to make a choice comparing all risks involved,” said NRA chairman Shinichi Tanaka.
“[C]ontrolled discharge is a regular practice in all the nuclear facilities in the world. And what we are trying to say here is to consider this as one of the options to contribute to a good balance of risks and to stabilize the facility for the long term,” said the IAEA’s Juan Carlos Lentijo, who has been in Japan monitoring the Fukushima decommissioning process.
The problem is, TEPCO and the NRA are not to be trusted. They have betrayed people’s trust too many times since the nuclear crisis began.

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http://www.commondreams.org/view/2013/12/16-3