FUKUSHIMA — Local fishery operators in Fukushima and neighboring prefectures are becoming even more furious and anxious as Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO) started pumping up contaminated groundwater at the crippled Fukushima No. 1 Nuclear Power Plant to prevent the further spread of toxic water into the Pacific Ocean.

It has been more than two years and five months since the outbreak of the crisis at the Fukushima nuclear power station. But fishery workers, who have devoted their efforts to resuming their operations, became even more irate about TEPCO’s belated acknowledgement that contaminated water has been flowing into the ocean, with some of them saying, “Harmful rumors will be aggravated,” and “All our efforts will be for nothing.” So, how long will they have to wait before being able to fish without concerns?

Fishery operators in Fukushima Prefecture still refrain voluntarily from coastal fishing. The Soma-Futaba Fisheries Cooperative Association, which launched fishery operations on a trial basis in June 2012, decided on Aug. 9 to postpone its plan to resume test-fishing in September. Many members of the association expressed their indignation, saying things like, “Harmful rumors will be reinforced.” The association has taken about a year to expand the scope of its test-fishing to a total of 16 fish species for shipment. Association chairman Hiroyuki Sato, 57, said, “It is a matter of the greatest regret for those fishery operators who have continued to make efforts.”

The Iwaki City Fishery Cooperative Association has also decided to postpone its first test-fishing which was originally scheduled to begin in September. Yasuo Yoshida, a 46-year-old member of the association, cautioned the government against considering pumping up ground water and releasing it into the Pacific Ocean before it reaches the premises of crippled reactors and is contaminated with radioactive substances. He said, “Our efforts will be wasted. If the government releases the water into the ocean under its own responsibility, the government should also be responsible enough to take measures against harmful rumors.”

Whitebait was recently being unloaded at the Otsu fishing port in the city of Kitaibaraki, Ibaraki Prefecture, about 80 kilometers south of the damaged Fukushima nuclear power complex. The captain of a fishing boat said, “The trading price is one-tenth of what it was before the (nuclear) accident.” On the problem of contaminated water flowing into the ocean on top of other worries, 63-year-old fisherman Eiji Watanabe said, “I want to tell TEPCO ’Don’t lie to us!’” He said that because he believes that TEPCO had known that the contaminated water was flowing into the ocean for quite some time, he wants to say, “Don’t try to fool us!”

“We want the government to respond in a responsible manner,” said Kunio Shirai, a 67-year-old fisherman who resumed fishing last autumn from the Arahama fishing port in Watari, Miyagi Prefecture, about 70 kilometers north of the Fukushima nuclear power station. As he has a new boat built with the help of a government subsidy after losing his old one to tsunami, he harbors mixed feelings. “We have to wait and see for now,” he said.

Mainichi Shimbun, August 14, 2013
http://mainichi.jp/english/english/newsselect/news/20130814p2a00m0na016000c.html

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 Tepco pumping more groundwater

Tokyo Electric Power Co. said Thursday it started pumping more groundwater from the Fukushima No. 1 power plant with new vacuum pumping equipment to prevent radioactive water from flowing into the Pacific Ocean.

Tepco plans to install 28 pipes underground at 2-meter intervals along the coast. Groundwater is pumped through the 4.6-meter-long pipes. Tepco started to use the first one at around 11:30 a.m. Thursday.

Tepco is expected to finish installing all the pipes Sunday, which will increase the amount of groundwater removed each day to about 70 tons.

The water will be transferred to an underground tunnel connected to the reactor 2 building.

After the government announced an estimate last week that about 300 tons a day of contaminated groundwater may be flowing into the sea, Tepco started collecting groundwater from a well it has created as an emergency measure.

Tepco said Wednesday it estimates that 210 tons of highly radioactive water has accumulated in a cable trench at the nuclear plant.

Kyodo News, Jiji Press, August 15, 2013
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2013/08/15/national/tepco-pumping-more-groundwater/#.UhNWYH9jbRY

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 Workers radioactively contaminated

10 exposed to radiation at Japanese nuke plant

IWAKI, FUKUSHIMA PREF. — Ten workers at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant were exposed Monday to small amounts of radiation while conducting cleanup activities, Tepco said.

Tokyo Electric Power Co. said it is still investigating how the workers were contaminated, but that it may have been from radioactive dust.

It said small amounts of radiation were found on the workers’ faces and hair.

Associated Press, August 12, 2013
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2013/08/12/national/10-exposed-to-radiation-at-japanese-nuke-plant/#.Ug1f439jbRY

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2 more Fukushima workers radioactively contaminated

Radioactivity of up to 13 becquerels per square centimeter was detected on the heads of two workers at the crippled Fukushima No. 1 Nuclear Power Plant on Aug. 19, plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO) announced.

The two workers had been waiting for a bus in front of the plant’s main quake-resistant building. TEPCO is investigating the cause of the contamination. The radioactivity limit set by the government is 40 becquerels per square centimeter.

TEPCO said that at shortly after 10 a.m. on Aug. 19, a dust monitor alarm at the main quake-resistant building sounded, which led to the discovery that the two workers were contaminated.

On Aug. 12, 10 workers were contaminated around the same area.

Officials said there had been no changes in the amount of water being injected into the plant’s damaged reactors or the water temperatures of the fuel pools, and no variations had been registered at monitoring posts.

Mainichi Shimbun, August 19, 2013
http://mainichi.jp/english/english/newsselect/news/20130819p2a00m0na010000c.html

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 Nuclear watchdog orders TEPCO to check trench at Fukushima plant over leaks

The Nuclear Regulation Authority (NRA) instructed Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO) on Aug. 12 to check an underground trench connected to the No. 1 reactor at the Fukushima No. 1 Nuclear Power Plant as highly radioactive substances were detected at the seawall on the east side of the reactor.

The instruction came on the heels of a revelation that groundwater contaminated with radioactive substances from the crippled Fukushima nuclear complex likely flowed into the Pacific Ocean over an underground wall on the east side of the No. 2 reactor. There is a possibility that highly radioactive water left inside the trench for the No. 2 reactor, which is believed to be the “source of contamination,” moved into the trench for the No. 1 reactor. The NRA also decided to conduct an on-the-spot investigation on Aug. 23.

The NRA held its working group meeting on Aug. 12. At the meeting, TEPCO reported that it had detected 34,000 becquerels of tritium per liter in the groundwater sample collected from a newly built observation well on the east side of the No. 1 reactor. The radiation level is quite high as compared with 1,500 to 210 becquerels detected at the seawalls on the east side of the No. 3 and No. 4 reactors. NRA Commissioner Toyoshi Fuketa said, “We have to take seriously the fact that highly radioactive substances were detected in front of the No. 1 reactor as well.”

According to TEPCO, the operator of the crippled Fukushima nuclear power station, water contaminated with low levels of radiation (89 becquerels of radioactive cesium-137) is still remaining in the trench for the No. 1 reactor, but TEPCO conducted its last survey in December last year, and therefore it has not recently checked the radiation levels. The NRA instructed the utility to re-inspect the water in the trench for the No. 1 reactor and drill wells around the trench to monitor radiation levels as it saw the possibility of highly radioactive water moving into the trench for the No. 1 reactor through the trench for the No. 2 reactor.

Mainichi Shimbun, August 13, 2013
http://mainichi.jp/english/english/newsselect/news/20130813p2a00m0na017000c.html

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 Regulators OK plan on safety measures for crippled Fukushima plant

TOKYO (Kyodo) — The Nuclear Regulation Authority on Wednesday approved Tokyo Electric Power Co.’s plan on ways to ensure the safety of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant as the utility moves ahead to decommission the crippled reactors.

The approval of the plan is part of the procedures to tighten regulators’ oversight of the complex, which was hit by a huge earthquake and tsunami on March 11, 2011, and is still leaking radioactive substances into the outside environment.

“The move will enable us to conduct regulations under a legally based authority, so I believe we can regulate the site more properly,” an official of the NRA secretariat told reporters.

NRA Chairman Shunichi Tanaka told the day’s meeting of the NRA commissioners that he wants to reinforce the team in charge of inspecting the plant.

The plan refers to safety measures to be taken when removing nuclear fuel from the spent fuel pool of the Nos. 1 to 4 units and the melted fuel from the Nos. 1 to 3 reactors.

The utility will start extracting in November the fuel inside the spent fuel pool located atop the No. 4 reactor building, which suffered a hydrogen explosion in the early stage of the nuclear crisis.

The NRA expected to approve the plan in February at the earliest, but the schedule was pushed back amid a spate of troubles at the Fukushima plant, including a blackout caused by a rat and leakage of radioactive water from underground tanks.

Kyodo News, August 14, 2013
http://mainichi.jp/english/english/newsselect/news/20130814p2g00m0dm061000c.html

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