- Japan’s Nuclear Regulatory Authority is inspecting the two operating nukes at Oi station. An NRA-mandated panel comprised of officials from the watchdog group and Kansai Electric Company (Kepco) convened today. Their assessment will be submitted to the Commissioners by the end of June. The panel will use the NRA’s proposed guidelines, to be imposed in July, in order to decide whether or not units #3&4 can be allowed to operate until September. Both plants were restarted last summer to ease an impending summer power shortage and lessen the increasing cost of electricity due to the nuclear moratorium. If either or both units do not meet the impending standards, their operation will be curtailed. One issue that could impede continued operation is the use of a meeting room in a building near the power plant buildings as a temporary emergency command center. The temporary facility is inside a seismic-protected structure. Kepco feels it meets the proposed requirements and will only be used until the permanent facility is finished in 2015. NRA Commissioner Toyoshi Fuketa said he finds the meeting room near the reactors to be a possible problem in case a Fukushima-type explosion destroyed one or more of the nearby reactor buildings. Another issue concerns the geology running under the station’s property. Experts are divided over whether or not any seams are seismic and the NRA wants the issue to be decided. Kepco says their studies indicate the seams are not seismic. (Japan Daily Press; NHK World)
- The home visitation restrictions for the Fukushima no-entry zone have been eased. The relaxed rules are specific to the four communities nearest the F. Daiichi nuclear station; Futaba, Okuma, Tomioka and Namie. The new restrictions say these residents can visit their abandoned homes once per month. Previously, they were allowed to make their visits only three or four times per year. The government says applications for visitation will be introduced on April 24th. (Kyodo News)
- Fear of the possibility of radiation restricts Fukushima evacuee relief. Yamagata Prefecture has refused to take uncontaminated waste soil from a Fukushima temporary housing project because of radiation rumors. The soil in the Aizuwakamatsu project contained 26 micrograms of lead per liter, more than double the health standard of 10 micrograms. In the past, local contractors shipped such material to Yamagata’s disposal treatment facility in Yonezawa, Yamagata; but Fukushima radiation rumors have changed all that. When the Yamagata Prefecture’s government heard of the planned shipment of 150 tons, they put an immediate halt to it. Their reasons? Residents’ radiation rumors. It doesn’t matter that the reconstruction project is more than 100 kilometers from F. Daiichi and some fifty kilometers from the nearest exclusion zone boundary. It doesn’t matter that Yamagata is literally thumbing their nose at disaster evacuees. The Aizuwakamatsu project’s landowner said, “We have explained to the Yamagata Prefectural Government that we will also conduct radiation checks on the soil and asked them to accept it over and over again. We don’t understand why they refuse to accept it.” One Fukushima Prefecture official said, “If other prefectures follow suit that would only encourage harmful rumors about Fukushima to spread.” Akira Imai, professor at Fukushima University, said, “An attempt to protect an area from harmful rumors could result in promoting harmful rumors about Fukushima.” When asked why Yamagata is not accepting the soil, the prefecture’s deputy chief of the environmental counsel gave this convoluted answer, “Unlike debris from the Great East Japan Earthquake in Miyagi and Iwate prefectures, the waste soil (in Aizuwakamatsu) is not something that could hamper reconstruction unless it is taken away right away.” (Japan Daily Press; Mainichi Shimbun)
- NRA officials estimate a worst-case scenario for F. Daiichi waste water reservoir leaks. If all the underground reservoirs failed and dumped their entire contents into the surrounding soils, a constant above-standard release of radioactive Strontium to the sea could last for up to ten years. The Strontium limit for unrestricted release is 30 Becquerels per liter. The NRA team speculates that a peak of 1000 Bq/L could occur seven years after complete cistern failure. The long time of release would be because the reservoirs are located nearly a kilometer from the coastline and the contamination would slowly percolate through the soil before reaching the sea. The other isotope of main concern, Tritium, would never exceed limits over the ten year period. The NRA also pointed out that the dilution factor once the Strontium and Tritium reached the sea would be enormous and probably not harm oceanic flora or fauna. (Sankei Shimbun)
- Tokyo Electric Company (Tepco) says they have discovered more geologic seams running under the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear station property in Niigata Prefecture. Tepco previously found that anomalies running under units #1&2 might fail the seismic regulations expected to be issued in July. Now they say seams running below units #3, 5, 6, & 7 might also fail the impending 400,000 year criterion for seismic activity. The current benchmark for judging a seam as seismic is movement within the last 120,000 years. While none of the anomalies fail the existing 120,000 year criterion, all of the suspect seams appear to have moved between 200,000 and 400,000 years ago. (Jiji Press)
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