Radiation in seawater may be spreading in Japan

[Omaha Steve]

Source: AP

By SHINO YUASA

TOKYO (AP) - Highly radioactive iodine seeping from Japan's damaged nuclear complex may be making its way into seawater farther north of the plant than previously thought, officials said Monday, adding to radiation concerns as the crisis stretches into a third week.

Mounting problems, including badly miscalculated radiation figures and no place to store dangerously contaminated water, have stymied emergency workers struggling to cool down the overheating plant and avert a disaster with global implications.

The coastal Fukushima Dai-ichi power plant, located 140 miles (220 kilometers) northeast of Tokyo, has been leaking radiation since a magnitude-9.0 quake on March 11 triggered a tsunami that engulfed the complex. The wave knocked out power to the system that cools the dangerously hot nuclear fuel rods.

On Monday, workers resumed the laborious yet urgent task of pumping out the hundreds of tons of radioactive water inside several buildings at the six-unit plant. The water must be removed and safely stored before work can continue to power up the plant's cooling system, nuclear safety officials said.

Read more: http://apnews.excite.com/article/20110328/D9M80FPG3.html

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In this image released by Japan Ground Self-Defense Force via Kyodo News, smoke billows from Unit 3 at the stricken Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant in Okumamachi, Fukushima Prefecture, northeastern Japan, Sunday, March 27, 2011. (AP Photo/Japan Ground Self-Defense Force via Kyodo News) JAPAN OUT, MANDATORY CREDIT, NO LICENSING IN CHINA, HONG KONG, JAPAN, SOUTH KOREA AND FRANCE

[Raschel]

1. TEPCO rules out having an independent monitor oversee the various checks

despite the errors.

Where is the IAEA on this? Have they had anyone inside the plant?

On a disaster of this scope and seriousness I would think that there would be some kind of international oversight.

[suffragette]

2. As far as I can tell, the IAEA has teams in Japan now

but not inside the plant.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=439&topic_id=750991&mesg_id=752750

[avaistheone1]

3. Send in the GE CEO and GE's top management

to clean things up.

After all GE brings good things to life.



:sarcasm:

[aquart]

4. Yes. This requires executive loafers on the ground.

[avaistheone1]

7. There must be some good reason why they are paid the big bucks.

[aquart]

8. No. Actually there isn't.

Penis measurement substitute, maybe.

[franzia99]

30. Oligopoly profits reigning down on them.

[franzia99]

27. GE and TEPCO execs should be required to go into the plant

And do the work that needs to be done to get things under control. Where's the accountability? GE appears to be completely escaping negative consequences for knowingly building an unsafe reactor (according to the scientists who resigned from GE). Instead they're having people who had nothing to do with this risk their lives thanks to GE's and TEPCO's recklessness.

[Hannah Bell]

5. Link? As IAEA, Greenpeace & various others are already in japan & running

independent checks, I think you've misinterpreted something.

[Raschel]

24. No. It's in the article.

[Peace Patriot]

6. Radiation spreading in seawater? Ya think?

I know that the article's title is trying to make a fine distinction between water in one place and water in another adjacent place, but the fact is that water is ... um ... water. Like air is air. It has this inherent quality of liquidity. And there are just too many stupid frigging news articles on this disaster which promote the notion that there is some way to "contain" a meltdown of 6 nuclear reactors with 6 even more dangerous "spent fuel" rod tanks, all jammed together at one site, hit by a 9.0 earthquake and 46 ft tsunami.

This is, of course, THE PROBLEM with nuclear power. There is NO system that can contain its utterly deadly fuel. Its fuel requires CONSTANT watering, and, when all the watering systems at Fukushima, including the backups of the backups, got blown out by the 46 ft tsunami, everything started to melt down, and then the water desperately dumped on these plants to stop the meltdowns, goes where?

All the news articles assume that you can WASH this horrible toxic death trap. WASH it! The problem is that you can't.

[highplainsdem]

9. Highly radioactive water leaks outside Japan's nuclear plant building

Source: The Telegraph

Highly radioactive water leaks outside Japan's nuclear plant building
Japan's stricken nuclear plant hit a further setback on Monday after highly radioactive water was found leaking outside a building.
By Danielle Demetriou, Tokyo 1:32PM BST 28 Mar 2011

The water seeping into a trench outside the Number two reactor at Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant in northeast Japan had a radiation level of more than 1,000 millisieverts per hour.

Such a high level can cause temporary radiation sickness including nausea and vomiting and far exceeds the 100 millisievert per hour which is generally regarded the lowest amount at which cancer risks are apparent.

Officials at Tokyo Electric Power Co (TEPCO) are now attempting to locate the source of the leak, which is near the turbine building of the Number 2 reactor and around 180 feet from the sea.

"The trench is located outside the building and the water contains radioactive materials," Hiro Hasegawa, a spokesman for TEPCO, told The Daily Telegraph.

-snip-

Read more: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/japan/8411193/Highly-radioactive-water-leaks-outside-Japans-nuclear-plant-building.html

[OneTenthofOnePercent]

10. Bring some Nestle Hot Cocoa Mix and you could make some hot chocolate that never cools off!

[franzia99]

29. lol

[DeSwiss]

11. K&R n/t

[intaglio]

12. Just a good old K&R n/t

[thereismore]

13. "can cause temporary radiation sickness". Wow, it's only temporary! nt

[ixion]

14. and good for you, too!

[daleo]

25. Later on, you get temporary cancer. n/t

[franzia99]

32. Temporary in that it's not active cancer after you die from it.

[boppers]

33. You have cancer right now. I guarantee it.

There's a reason the human immune system has built in defenses... cancer is more common than the human cold (which, BTW, can also cause cancer).

It's a fundamental part of evolution to have DNA mutations.

[franzia99]

28. They said they'd stop the radioactive discharges by now but have failed to do so

[Botany]

15. Japan Fears Nuclear Reactor Is Leaking Contaminated Water

Source: NY Times

TOKYO — Highly contaminated water is escaping a damaged reactor at the crippled nuclear power plant in Japan and could
soon leak into the ocean, the country’s nuclear regulator warned on Monday.

The discovery raises the danger of further radiation leaks at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station and is a further setback
to efforts to contain the nuclear crisis as workers find themselves in increasingly hazardous conditions.

snip

The nuclear safety agency also reported that radioactive iodine 131 was detected Sunday at a concentration 1,150 times the maximum
allowable level in a seawater sample taken about a mile north of the drainage outlets of reactor units 1 through 4. It also said that the
amount of cesium 137 found in water about 1,000 feet from plant was 20 times the normal level, roughly equal to readings taken a
week ago.

snip

Kyodo also reported that Tokyo Electric said on Monday that plutonium had been detected in soil at five locations at the plant. The company said
that the plutonium was believed to have been discharged from nuclear fuel.

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/29/world/asia/29japan.html?ref=world

---

[xchrom]

16. recommend

[Demeter]

17. Japan KNOWS that It's Leaking Radioactives in the Air, Water and Land

but hopes to keep the wool over its people's eyes, as well as the major ignorant population of the world...

[closeupready]

19. +1.

nt

[LaurenG]

18. They fear it or they know it and they are trying to get the news out as gently as possible?

Crap! I do hope they have a plan to contain and clean it up that doesn't cost human lives to do it.

[Vinnie From Indy]

20. "plutonium had been detected in soil at five locations at the plant"

If plutonium fuel is scattered about the plant, the containment vessel has been violently breached it would seem.

This situation keeps getting more grim and it seems as if the news media is desperately trying to present the unfolding catastrophe as no more urgent than the weather report.

[Botany]

21. Without a doubt the containment vessels have been breeched and the ..

..... radionuclides (cesium 137 & iodine 131) might very well be the by products of some sort of meltdown
or uncontrolled fission reaction(s).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DHfR_wybvw0&feature=related

[Rageneau]

22. Assuming that it's as bad as can be imagined, how bad is that?

Are we talking no more Fukushima, no more Hokkaido, no more Japan, no more Tokyo, no more sushi, no more Pacific Ocean, or what?

[Botany]

23. Nobody knows

:scared:

[franzia99]

26. I hope Japan will be able to recover

I watched a pretty good Chernobyl documentary the other day. The true harm was systematically covered up and it took a long time for the real danger to be revealed. It seems like the same thing is going on here. Japan is such a small land mass and so densely populated I wonder how long it will take for them to recover and to what extent they'll be able to. It's depressing how business and regulatory agencies can completely fail to be responsible regarding public safety.

[avaistheone1]

31. k&r