Tepco's Radioactive Water: Japan Must Stop Ocean Dumping

The Washington Post quotes Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco) as stating that they intend to treat thousands of tons of highly radioactive water and store it in drums. The Wall Street Journal, on the same day, runs the headline: "Second Japanese Plant To Dump Tainted Water." The treatment and drum storage would supposedly occur at the Fukushima Daiichi facility and the dumping would be at the Fukushima Daini plant. Both plants are owned and operated by Tepco.

The Center opposes the dumping of the highly radioactive water from the Daini plant into the ocean.  We consider it a criminal act and the United Nations should condemn it and demand that Japan cease and desist immediately.  We are calling for a sarcophagus at the Daiichi site and maybe the highly contaminated water from the Daini site could be entombed there too.

Tepco plans to release 3,000 tons of radioactive water into the ocean from the Fukushima Daini nuclear complex, the sister plant of the stricken Fukushima Daiichi complex.  The Daini plant, located about six miles south of the Daiichi complex, took on seawater when the March 11 tsunami flooded the facility. But while the tsunami knocked out power at the Daiichi plant, causing fuel to melt dangerously inside some of its reactor cores, the Daini plant suffered less flooding and less-debilitating power outages. Fukushima Daini's four reactors, which are newer than the four hard-hit reactors at Daiichi, were brought to a state called cold shutdown one to four days after the quake.

Steel tanks will be used to store radioactive wastewater
 accumulating at the Fukushima Daiichi plant.

After spraying it reactors with ocean water for 2¹/₂ months to cool the melted down reactors, Tepco must remove at least 26 million gallons of radioactive water.  Of course, Tepco is having difficulty securing areas to store the radioactive water — more than 100,000 metric tons of it.  (WSJ, 6/9/2011, Wash Post, 6/9/2011)