Japan's government criticizes nuke plant operator (corrected with link)

[Omaha Steve]

Source: AP

By ERIC TALMADGE and MARI YAMAGUCHI

SENDAI, Japan (AP) - Japan's government revealed a series of missteps by the operator of a radiation-leaking nuclear plant on Saturday, including sending workers in without protective footwear in its faltering efforts to control a monumental crisis. The U.S. Navy, meanwhile, rushed to deliver fresh water to replace corrosive saltwater now being used in a desperate bid to cool the plant's overheated reactors.

Government spokesman Yukio Edano urged Tokyo Electric Power Co. to be more transparent, two days after two workers at the tsunami-damaged Fukushima Dai-ichi plant suffered skin burns when they stepped in water that was 10,000 times more radioactive than levels normally found near the reactors.

"We strongly urge TEPCO to provide information to the government more promptly," Edano said.

The Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency, or NISA, said TEPCO was aware there was high radiation in the air at one of the plant's six units several days before the accident. And the two workers injured were wearing boots that only came up to their ankles - hardly high enough to protect their legs, agency spokesman Hidehiko Nishiyama said.


Read more: http://apnews.excite.com/article/20110326/D9M70ER80.html

[proud patriot]

1. shameful

[Citizen Worker]

2. And it's the working class making the sacrifice and paying the price to ensure continuation of the

status quo.

[AndyTiedye]

3. Twas Ever Thus

Even Communism doesn't prevent this, emergency workers were sent to their deaths at Chernobyl too.

[PA Democrat]

6. Many of the workers being sent in to Fukushima work for subcontractors.

They are often poorly trained and poorly paid. The three workers who stepped in the highly radioactive water all worked for a subcontractor.

Furthermore, there is apparently an unspoken pressure on these workers not to turn down work even if it means exposing themselves to radiation above 100 millisieverts because it could mean their employer would lose "future orders" for their services. Employees' loyalty to their employer is still much stronger in Japan than here is the US.

More info on Fukushima workers at the link:

FOCUS: Nuclear plant workers have option to quit but not many doing so

http://english.kyodonews.jp/news/2011/03/81152.html

[patrice]

4. I have read about similar experiences on a lesser scale at hazardous-waste sites around

Oklahoma. The Tulsa World published stories of hospitalized laborers being told to get back into a ditch that was collecting strange seepings from the surrounding soil and another about a guy who died when he went back down into a trench to retrieve his cigarettes.

[cui bono]

5. "They're making this up as they go along."

This is a science experiment and we are the human guinea pigs as Dr. Kaku also said.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MYay80nTf7Y

[jtuck004]

7. "Strongly Urge"? I strongly urge you to snatch these executives up by the collar,

drive them to the site of the plants in an armored truck, let them out, and tell them the plants are now the property of the Japanese government, and see how fast they scurry away.

On second thought, bring a video camera and put that announcement to them on youtube. Other operaters will look at that and think you are serious.

Don't treat them like we treat bankers. Don't give them loans to rebuild so they can pay bonuses to their execs for the good work, please. Contaminating land and food, or economies, are activities which shouldn't be encouraged.

There have been no deaths from radiation, but there may well be people who can't return to their homes in an area over 200 square miles. And there were no search and rescue operations, or even searches, as reported by NHK, for people who may have lain injured and died because of the evacuation zone.

Don't urge. Insist. You deserve it.

And we deserve well-managed nuclear power, not old plants built to just-barely-enough standards serving as storage for old fuel that should have been somewhere else. Because 4 reactors with fuel would have been a lot easier to provide fresh water to without a nuclear housekeeping problem getting in the way.

[StarsInHerHair]

8. never back down from that you're entirely correct

nt