January 30, 2012

Jan 30, 2012 | Fukushima Accident Updates

  • There have been as many as 14 different leaks from non-radioactive waste water systems at Fukushima Daiichi over the weekend. The problem is the unusually cold weather being experienced in Japan, with night-time temperatures at or below -10oC (~19oF). The low temperatures caused un-insulated piping connections to freeze and crack, then leak when they thaw out during the day. Most leaks came from piping outside the heated buildings which were connected to RPV injection or Spent Fuel Pool cooling systems. TEPCO says there were two measurable leaks from their unit #4 SPF waste water decontamination system, both of which have been repaired. One leak of 30 liters came from a pipe on the desalinization portion of the system, and one drop every 7-8 seconds from a valve on the pipe returning water to the SPF. None of the leaks resulted in decontaminated waste water reaching the sea. TEPCO is insulating the external pipes and flow equipment to keep it from happening again. (JAIF)
  • The Tokyo government says the lack of Fukushima emergency meeting minutes extended beyond the Prime Minister’s task force. Last week, we found that P.M. Kan’s personal task force and the combined government/TEPCO task force both failed to keep records of their meetings for at least two weeks starting on March 11. Now, we find out that 10 of the 15 other emergency-related government teams combatting the on-going accident kept few, if any records of their meetings during the same period. The records of 9 of the 10 suspect teams which were believed to have been kept have been lost. The emergency bodies include the main disaster headquarters, the disaster victim’s assistance team and the nuclear disaster task force. No personal notes whatsoever were kept by these three teams, and sporadically by members of the other six teams. Some ex-post-facto summaries have been compiled, but they are partial at best. Deputy Prime Minister Katsuya Okada has instructed all ministers to submit hindsight summaries of the meetings by the end of February. Kazuhiro Hayakawa, associate professor of administrative law at Omiya Law School said the lack of a written record was “ridiculous” and almost certainly a contravention of the law, adding, “No matter how much of an emergency it was, it is absurd that they did not keep records of the meetings, which were no doubt subject to the Archive Management Law. This failure has deprived us of the possibility of studying what exactly happened.” (Japan Times) Prime Minister Noda has apologized for the mistake made by his predecessor’s regime, reiterating that the Ministers were probably too busy to keep notes and probably not aware of the importance of or legal requirement for record-keeping during an emergency. (NHK World) Noda is clearly trying to protect ex-Prime Minister Kan! Unaware of the importance of record keeping? Unaware of the law? Who does he think he is kidding?
  • In 2006 and 2008, NISA received briefings from the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission on its contingency guideline for handling nuclear plants in case of a terrorist attack. No record of the briefings was kept because of the confidential nature of the subject matter. The NRC recently released the contingency guideline to the public, and it is believed that some of the recommendations contained in it could have prevented the Fukushima accident if they would have been implemented. NISA was told by the NRC that they could keep no notes during the briefing and could not share what they were being told to any “outside” group. As a result, the NISA attendees only shared what they learned with other NISA officials and literally kept all nuclear utilities (like TEPCO) in the dark. The NRC decided to release the guideline information because the Fukushima accident demonstrated sharing the material was necessary. NISA received the publicly-available part of the guideline in August, but has not made it public until pressured by the Press this past week. (Japan Times)
  • Radiophobia continues to paralyze tsunami debris clean-up in the Tohoku region. Nearly 20 million tons of the rubble and accumulated biological wastes from the tsunami remain moldering and largely un-attended because of the fear that it might contain detectable levels of Fukushima isotopes. Might! Cursory scans of randomly-selected rubble piles show no radiation levels above natural background, and the ash contamination from the few tons of rubble that have been incinerated in Tokyo are several times below food-consumption standards! Undaunted, Japan’s radiophobic public unabashedly cries ”wolf”. Widespread worries about potential contamination have resulted in no-one other than Tokyo to help out with the clean-up effort. Now, even the Tokyo operation is at risk. “We received some 4,000 letters of complaint (about this),” Masami Imai, director of the city’s waste department, told the Press, “In more than 85% of them, citizens say they are worried about radioactivity or even say that we should refuse to import this debris. They are afraid that radiation levels are too high.” (Japan Times)
  • Although more than 25 years of study on Chernobyl-area wildlife shows flora and fauna thrive in the low level radiation environment, Tokyo has decided to study the effects of Fukushima on Japanese plants and wildlife themselves. Fukushima Prefecture requested the study to be conducted by the Environment Ministry and the National Institute of Radiological Sciences. The species include Japanese red pine and bristlegrass, rats, frogs, and mussels. Collection of some species has started. Researchers will check plant and animal appearance, chromosomes, and reproductive function for Cesium influence. The Ministry says they will issue a preliminary report in March, 2013. (NHK World)
  • 33 of 59 Fukushima school districts perform their own checks for contamination in school lunches. Testing for Cesium has produced a wide range of district-specific contamination standards, many of which seem to be based on the “detectable is dangerous” myth. The limit on foodstuffs will be restricted to 100 Becquerels per kilogram in April, which will be the most restrictive in the world and based largely on political expediency. The international accident standard is 500 Becquerels. However, neither standard is good enough for some districts which seem to feel that any detectable contamination is unacceptable. For example, the Suagawa municipal government has set the limit at 10 Becquerels, which is the lower level of detection using available technology. However, they seek equipment that can detect as low as 5 Becquerels. Shinobu Iida, 45, a representative of Fukushima Mothers Meeting, said: “If a strict limit of less than 5 Becquerels is introduced, which is the standard for other nations, Fukushima-made agricultural products could be used without fear.” (Yomiuri Shimbun) We want to know what other nations have such a standard, for we have no such information.
  • The Tokyo government says they will subsidize half the cost of new, sensitive detection equipment for Cesium that local governments must buy to meet the new food standards in April. Foodstuffs will be limited to 100 Becquerels per kilogram, baby food and milk to 50 Becquerels, and drinking water to 10 Becquerels. The guideline states that if half of any Cesium standard is detected, that item will need stricter screening. Many locally used technologies are not currently sensitive enough to meet the forthcoming standards. (JAIF)