Triple Reactor Disaster: Fukushima Five Years On

Triple Reactor Disaster: Fukushima Five Years On
Five years into the Fukushima-Daiichi triple reactor
meltdowns and radiation disaster, officials from the Tokyo
Electric Power Co., its owners, have said leaks from the
six-reactor complex with “at least” two trillion Becquerels
of radioactivity entered the Pacific between August 2013
and May 2014. Relentless drainage of contaminated water from the site is estimated to be about 300 tons a day
and has continued for 60 months. “[W]e should be carefully monitoring the oceans after what is certainly the largest accidental release of radioactive contaminants to the
oceans in history,” researcher Ken Buesseler, of the Woods
Hole Oceanographic Institute, said Sept. 27.
However, Japan isn’t even monitoring seawater near
Fukushima, according to The Ecologist. (“Japanese government and IAEA ignore radiation risks to coastal population,” Sept. 28.)
The Quarterly, in nearly every issue since the crisis
began, has followed the deluge of accidents, leaks, faulty
cleanup efforts, and widespread contamination of workers,
citizens, food and water.* Our effort to inform our readers
is in part a response to the lack of mainstream US news
coverage of the disaster. It is also a reminder of the daily
potential for catastrophic radiation releases in the United
States stemming from the 23 Fukushima-clone GE Mark I
reactors in this country.
Japanese media coverage of the catastrophe, along
with analysis by independent scientists and researchers is
mostly available online. We have relied on them extensively, along with several recent books, to analyse and report on Japan’s ongoing disaster response, water, soil and
food contamination, cancer studies, lawsuits by US sailors, Japanese evacuees and others, and the government’s
and industry’s ever-changing decommissioning and waste
managment plans.
As Japan Times reported last October, “Extremely high
radiation levels [inside the three destroyed reactors] and the
inability to grasp the details about melted nuclear fuel make
it impossible for [Tepco] to chart the course of its planned
decommissioning of the reactors.”
Greenpeace to study disaster’s effect on Pacific
On February 26, Greenpeace International launched a
major investigation into Fukushima’s effects on the Pacific
Ocean. The gusher of radioactively contaminated water
into the Pacific has continued unabated for five years.
In a press release, Greenpeace said its investigation
will be conducted aboard a Japanese research vessel using a Remotely Operated Vehicle (ROV) with a sensitive
gamma radiation “Spectrometer” and sediment sampler.
Former Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan, who
headed the government when the disaster began, joined
the crew of Greenpeace’s Flagship, the Rainbow Warrior,
on the opening day of the study, and called for a total phase
out of nuclear power.
“I once believed Japan’s advanced technology would
prevent a nuclear accident like Chernobyl from happening
in Japan,” Kan said. “But it did not, and I was faced with
the very real crisis of having to evacuate 50 million people
[from Tokyo and surrounds]… Instead, we should shift to
safer and cheaper renewable energy with potential business opportunities for our future generations.”
In the press release, Greenpeace noted that “In addition to the initial release of liquid nuclear waste during
the first weeks of the accident, and the daily releases ever
since, contamination has also flowed from the land itself,
particularly nearby forests and mountains of Fukushima,
and are expected to continue to contaminate the Pacific
Ocean for at least the next 300 years.”
Shaun Burnie, Senior Nuclear Specialist with Greenpeace Germany said, “There is an urgent need to understand the impact this contamination is having on the ocean,
how radioactivity is both dispersing and concentrating and
its implications. Tepco ... has no credible solution to the
water crisis they created and is failing to prevent further
contamination of the Pacific Ocean.”
Because of the unprecedented complexity of the disaster, the new “Remote Technology Development Center” is
starting from scratch. The daily Asahi Shimbun reported
that “Experts hope…the facility will lead to a reduction in
the number of failures of devices deployed.” All the robots
sent inside to try and locate the melted fuel have been destroyed by the thermal heat and harsh radiation.
Naohiro Masuda, Tepco’s chief of decontamination
and decommissioning, told the Associated Press Dec. 18,
“This is something that’s never been experienced. A textbook doesn’t exist for something like this.”
The ultimate goal of Fukushima reactor dismantling
work is to remove the melted uranium fuel rods. Researchers don’t yet know how to patch up the cracks in wrecked
chambers under the failed reactor, and the new institute is
tasked with inventing a first-ever technique to repair the
leaking container. It needs to be made watertight, because
removal of the melted fuel has to be done under water.
The planners also must invent a system of possible
routes by which to remove the still-unseen melted fuel.
Designers also need to develop methods to reduce the radiation doses that will inevitably be endured by workers.
Two mayors agree to host waste dump sites
After first opposing the central government’s plans, two
local governments in Fukushima Prefecture have agreed to
Tokyo’s proposal for permanent radioactive waste disposal.
The sites, one at an existing facility in the town of Tomioka,
and another at Naraha, have been chosen for disposal of
“designated waste” in exchange for certain economic incentives, including the construction of an industrial park. The
subsidies are reported worth about $81 million.
“Designated waste” is defined as material with between 8,000 and 100,000 Becquerels of radioactivity per
kilogram. Oddly, the Japan Times called this material
“low-level nuclear waste,” while the daily Asahi Shimbun
called the same material “highly radioactive.”
Under the plan, the Tomioka facility, now run by a
private group called Ecotech Clean Center, will be nationalized, and will then bury some 650,000 cubic meters of
the designated waste. This waste, mostly incinerator ash,
sewage sludge and rice straw, is a tiny fraction of the estimated 22 million cubic meters of waste that’s been collected in large black bags and stored outdoors at hundreds
of sites in 11 different prefectures.
Wastes with higher levels of radiation are to be kept
at temporary facilities being built near the doomed Fukushima Daiichi reactor complex. (Japan Times & Asahi
Shumbun, Dec. 3, 2015)
A proposal floated a week later by the Ministry of Industry is to bury high-level radioactive waste under the
seabed. Asahi Shimbun reported December 12 that an expert panel made the recommendation, saying the waste
could be transported by ships.
What was unsafe yesterday called safe today
Following the start of the disaster in 2011, the permissible external radiation exposure limit was dangerously raised
by the government. One milliSievert (mSv) per year was
raised to 20 mSv for residents in areas affected with radioactive fallout. For radiation workers in the nuclear industry
the annual limit was raised from 100 mSv to 250 mSv.
Robert Hunzinker reported in CounterPunch December 14 that the Physicians for Social Responsibility complained that the 20 mSv “allowable dose” means that for
children there’s a 1 in 200 risk of getting cancer; and over
two years the risk increases to 1 in 100.
Cesium found in 5% of Korean and Russian seafood
Criminal charges leveled against reactor executives
An analysis of 150 samples of fish, kelp and sea
mustard sold in discount stores in South Korea found cesium-137 in eight, or 5.3%. The highest rates of contaminated fish in the survey were Russian cod (13%) and Russian pollock (11.5%). In December, South Koreans with
the Citizen’s Radiation Monitoring Center called for a halt
to imports of Japanese seafood.
Japan’s first criminal charges against executives of
Tepco were filed February 29 against three former officials
who are alleged to have refused to take precautionary measures that could have prevented the loss of off-site power
(known as a “station blackout”) and the resulting out-ofcontrol overheating and complete meltdown of reactor
fuel in three units. The three are accused of professional
negligence resulting in death and injury, specifically having ignored research and specific warnings about the inadequate height of the seawall protecting the reactors and
about the improper location of emergency backup diesel
generators which were destroyed by the surging tsunami.
Over 14,000 Japanese citizens filed the lawsuit which
was initially dismissed and then reinstated on appeal.
In October Tepco completed a long seawall dug
into the shore between the ocean and the damaged reactor buildings. Intended to halt the flow of contaminated
groundwater to the Pacific, the dam has cause groundwater
levels to rise. Tepco had planned to dump less contaminated groundwater from newly dug wells into the sea, but has
found the water to be so heavily poisoned with tritium that
sea dumping was not allowed. Now the company is dumping the fast rising groundwater into highly contaminated
reactor buildings—where the water is expected to become
severely contaminated by coming into contact with the
mass of hot melted uranium fuel inside. (Asahi Shimbun,
Dec. 26, 2015)
Starting from scratch
2 more reactors set for restart
Last October, then 4½ years into the unprecedented
self-destruction of three reactors, Japan’s Atomic Energy
Agency announced the opening of an institute to “develop” techniques to inspect and eventually decommission
Fukushima’s three destroyed reactors.
Radiation levels inside the devastated reactor cores
remain too high for workers to make inspections.
The Fukui District Court in western Japan has ruled
that the Takahama reactor 3 and 4 may be allowed to restart, in spite of legal efforts by local residents who argued
that an earthquake larger than the reactors’ defenses were
built for could devastate the region much like the Great
East Japan Earthquake that wrecked Fukushima. The reactors were to go back on line in late January 2016.
Nukewatch Quarterly - 2
Sea wall making matters worse
Singapore, European Union to weaken food import rules
The government of Singapore is set to follow the European Union (EU) in weakening food and farm product import
rules that had been imposed following the start of the Fukushima disaster, which sent plumes of radioactive contamination broadly across farm land and into the Pacific Ocean.
The EU had required all Fukushima food to arrive
with radiation inspection certificates. The EU still restricts
rice, mushrooms and some seafood items. Kyodo News
reported that after Japanese diplomatic efforts 14 countries
have ended their import restrictions, but several dozen others have kept them in place.
*A hard copy compilation of Nukewatch Quarterly reports on Fukushima is available for $10. —JL
Would a Treaty Declaring
Nuclear Weapons Illegal Work
if the US Doesn’t Sign On?
By Russ Wellen, Foreign Policy in Focus
It might be news to you, but a treaty banning
nuclear weapons is being negotiated. As the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons
(ICAN) states in its presentation “Ban Nuclear Weapons Now”:
The prohibition of weapons typically
pre-cedes and stimulates their elimintion,
not the other way around.
... Negotiations on a treaty banning
nuclear weapons should be undertaken by
committed nations even without the participation of those armed with nuclear weapons. The alternative is to continue allowing
the nuclear-armed nations to control the
process and perpetuate two-tier systems and
treaty regimes that have no power to compel
disarmament.
At the UN, three in four nations—including all of Latin America, the Caribbean
and Africa—have supported the goal of prohibiting nuclear weapons. They must now
translate this support for the goal of a ban
into action to start negotiations on a treaty.
In December, the UN General Assembly established a working group, backed by 138 nations, to explore measures, presumably the treaty, to make nuclear weapons illegal. Its first meeting began at the end
of January in Geneva. In the Los Alamos Study Group
blog “Forget the Rest,” Executive Director Greg Mello shares a letter he sent to the working group:
The nuclear weapon states believe their
arsenals are fully legitimate—fully supported not just by international law but also
by reason, morality, and their own governments’ responsibilities to prevent war. That
is how they see it. Why should there be good
faith negotiations to get rid of something as
legitimate and important as nuclear weapons (in their view)?
… States can only accomplish this
through law, conventional law, which is to
say by a treaty that prohibits nuclear weapons. By definition, there is no other way.
This work “has to be done by non-nuclear weapon states, not by nuclear weapon states,” which, of
course, “will resist.” Next Mello explains how a ban
treaty could actually result in nuclear-weapon states
signing on. For example:
A growing ban would reach deep into
the human conscience, affecting everything,
including career decisions. It would affect
corporate investments as well as congressional enthusiasm for the industry. I have
spoken with nuclear weapons CEOs who
know it is a “sunset” field with only tenuous
support in the broader Pentagon, despite all
the nuclear cheer-leading we see.
... I believe a ban would also help decrease popular support in the US for war and
war expenditures in general. Why? There is
a tremendous war-weariness in the US, right
alongside our (real, but also orchestrated)
militarism. A growing ban on nuclear weapons would be a powerful signal to political
candidates and organizations that it is politically permissible to turn away from militarism somewhat, that there is something wrong
with the levels of destruction this country has
amassed and brandished so wildly and with
such deadly and chaotic effects.
Whether or not you believe in deterrence, it’s
tough to argue with that.
—Foreign Policy in Focus is a project of the
Institute for Policy Studies.
Spring 2016