Workers scored a major victory Wednesday in their battle to prevail in the week long crisis in the Fukishima Daiichi nuclear facility, but a top Japanese official warned that the fight was far from over.
At dawn, authorities with the Tokyo Electric Power Company noticed that the water is flowing into the Pacific Ocean from the turbine building of the No. 2 reactor, one of the six by the tool in its factory ..
Radiation levels in the water tested 7.5 million times the legal limit on Saturday. On Tuesday it was still 5 million times above the norm.
A first attempt to pour concrete to fill the 8-centimeter (20 inches) to crack, so the water gushed, failed. And there were no immediate indications that Sunday injection of a silica-based polymer called “liquid glass” or worked – until Wednesday morning.
The apparent success in connecting the cracked concrete shaft means that from Wednesday afternoon, there were no known major radiation in air, water or soil.
Still, Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano soon afterwards told reporters that the crisis – which was characterized by leaks, explosions and excuses since March 11 earthquake and tsunami knockout of the systems used to plant nuclear fuel cool – yet over.
Hidehiko Nishiyama, an official with the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency of Japan, said Wednesday that the authorities are aware that other problems could arise, especially if excess water is still the No. 2 unit’s turbine building basement to flood.
“(We) are aware that surface water can lead to more leaks somewhere else,” he said.
Meanwhile, the same official said that almost all of the approximately 10,000 tons of radioactive water from the wastewater treatment facility plant was dumped into the Pacific Ocean as of noon Wednesday.
This was done to the building space for much more radioactive waste water pumped from in and around the No. 2 unit network.
Edano explained that a trade-off, the authorities argue that dumping water on the whole, had 1 / 200 000ths the amount of radiation was “inevitable” and a way to minimize damage to the environment.
Edano admitted that the authorities are not good enough job explaining the plan to do – began Monday and announced – to a total of 11,500 tons (including some in and around the Nos. 5 and 6 units) in the Pacific throw.
Officials in nearby countries, like Japan itself, “pointed out that we have not been fully reporting,” he said Wednesday.
“We have reported (more information) to people who may be involved in particular to the neighborhood”, Edano said, amid reports of South Korean media that officials in Seoul were among those upset.
“It was a measure to prevent more serious marine pollution, but we had to explain the reasoning better.”
Local fishermen were among those upset by the deliberate release of toxic substances into the sea, possibly adding to the level of radiation measured several hundred thousand times the legal limit on monitoring messages for a few yards from the nuclear facility.
Members of fishery products Japan Association expressed their anger at a Wednesday meeting with Tokyo Electric officials. The fishing industry trade group officials claimed they felt completely ignored when they asked the utility not to dump radioactive water into the sea – only to find out, hours later, the trial began.
Moreover, the association called for Tokyo Electric previously by the company claims that nuclear power is safe and that such accidents never happen.
Fishermen Fear is intensified with the discovery, announced Tuesday by abnormally high levels of radioactive iodine “in a sample of fresh fish.” This led the Japanese authorities radiation seafood to settle for the first time.
Edano on Wednesday acknowledged the difficulties facing the fishing industry and the need to inform them of important developments affecting the safety and quality of the fish could affect.
The Japanese government is considering “interim damages” to a more direct impetus to the fishermen, ahead of a more definitive payment plan that can be adopted in the future.
Some farmers also expected to receive payments after the imposition of restrictions on certain products and milk due to radiation concerns tied to the nuclear crisis.
These notwithstanding, experts said the release of radiation in sea water – given the current plan, especially if no further leakage of the most toxic substances – probably not long term health risks to humans or marine life. It also helps that most of the radiation detected iodine-131, which is half of the radiation loses every eight days.
The dump of the 11,500 tons of radioactive water equates to approximately five swimming pools full, compared with “about 300 trillion pool of water, the Pacific to fill,” said Timothy Jorgensen, chairman of the radiation safety committee at Georgetown University Medical Center .
“So hopefully the churning of the ocean and the flow will quickly spread this so that it gets very dilute concentrations relatively quickly.”
After a tumultuous first few weeks, and utility officials have recently described conditions in reactors of the plant and spent fuel pools as generally stable. Levels of radiation in the air nearby and further away, now declining.
Still the existence of a significant amount of radioactive water accumulated around the facility suggests that there may be other vulnerabilities – and other problems. Moreover, there is still a major issue in the workers still need to inject massive amounts of water to nuclear fuel cool.
Michael Friedlander, a former senior U.S. nuclear engineer, told CNN’s “AC 360″ that the government will continue to address problems related to excess radioactive water have – and need to dump a number – as long as they draw huge amounts in order to prevent fuel rods from overheating in reactors’ cores and spent fuel pools.
“This is not a one-time deal,” said Friedlander dumping of radioactive water into the ocean. “This problem of water and water management will plague them until they can get (running) long-term core cooling.”
source:cnn
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