SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
New Leak Spurs Radiation Spike at Fukushima
The latest incident underscores the difficulty of safely cleaning up and decommissioning the nuclear plant
Feb 23, 2015
A fresh leak of radioactive water was detected at the damaged Fukushima nuclear plant on Sunday, raising new concerns about ongoing efforts to clean up the site.
Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO), which operates the Fukushima Daiichi plant, said sensors attached to a drainage channel that diverts rain and groundwater from the plant into the Pacific Ocean detected contamination levels up to 70 times greater than the already-high radiation levels previously documented at the facility.
According to Agence France-Presse, "the levels of beta ray-emitting substances, such as strontium-90, measured 5,050 to 7,230 becquerels per liter of water between 10:20 a.m. and 10:50 a.m. Tepco requires radioactivity levels of groundwater at the plant discharged into the sea to remain below 5 becquerels."
"The latest incident, one of several that have plagued the plant in recent months, reflects the difficulty in controlling and decommissioning the plant, which went through meltdowns and explosions after being battered by a giant tsunami in March 2011, sparking the world's worst nuclear disaster in a generation," AFP adds. "TEPCO has not been able to effectively deal with an increasing amount of contaminated water, used to cool the crippled reactors and molten fuels inside them and kept in large storage tanks on the plant's vast campus."
A TEPCO representative said its emergency inspections of those tanks storing nuclear wastewater did not find any additional abnormalities and that radiation levels had since been reduced to 10 to 20 times the normal levels. The company remains unclear on how the contamination occurred.
Just last week, the United Nations' International Atomic Energy Agency said Japan has made "significant progress" in cleaning up the site of the 2011 disaster.
An Urgent Message From Our Co-Founder
Dear Common Dreams reader, It’s been nearly 30 years since I co-founded Common Dreams with my late wife, Lina Newhouser. We had the radical notion that journalism should serve the public good, not corporate profits. It was clear to us from the outset what it would take to build such a project. No paid advertisements. No corporate sponsors. No millionaire publisher telling us what to think or do. Many people said we wouldn't last a year, but we proved those doubters wrong. Together with a tremendous team of journalists and dedicated staff, we built an independent media outlet free from the constraints of profits and corporate control. Our mission has always been simple: To inform. To inspire. To ignite change for the common good. Building Common Dreams was not easy. Our survival was never guaranteed. When you take on the most powerful forces—Wall Street greed, fossil fuel industry destruction, Big Tech lobbyists, and uber-rich oligarchs who have spent billions upon billions rigging the economy and democracy in their favor—the only bulwark you have is supporters who believe in your work. But here’s the urgent message from me today. It's never been this bad out there. And it's never been this hard to keep us going. At the very moment Common Dreams is most needed, the threats we face are intensifying. We need your support now more than ever. We don't accept corporate advertising and never will. We don't have a paywall because we don't think people should be blocked from critical news based on their ability to pay. Everything we do is funded by the donations of readers like you. When everyone does the little they can afford, we are strong. But if that support retreats or dries up, so do we. Will you donate now to make sure Common Dreams not only survives but thrives? —Craig Brown, Co-founder |
Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.
Deirdre Fulton
Deirdre Fulton is a former Common Dreams senior editor and staff writer. Previously she worked as an editor and writer for the Portland Phoenix and the Boston Phoenix, where she was honored by the New England Press Association and the Association of Alternative Newsweeklies. A Boston University graduate, Deirdre is a co-founder of the Maine-based Lorem Ipsum Theater Collective and the PortFringe theater festival. She writes young adult fiction in her spare time.
A fresh leak of radioactive water was detected at the damaged Fukushima nuclear plant on Sunday, raising new concerns about ongoing efforts to clean up the site.
Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO), which operates the Fukushima Daiichi plant, said sensors attached to a drainage channel that diverts rain and groundwater from the plant into the Pacific Ocean detected contamination levels up to 70 times greater than the already-high radiation levels previously documented at the facility.
According to Agence France-Presse, "the levels of beta ray-emitting substances, such as strontium-90, measured 5,050 to 7,230 becquerels per liter of water between 10:20 a.m. and 10:50 a.m. Tepco requires radioactivity levels of groundwater at the plant discharged into the sea to remain below 5 becquerels."
"The latest incident, one of several that have plagued the plant in recent months, reflects the difficulty in controlling and decommissioning the plant, which went through meltdowns and explosions after being battered by a giant tsunami in March 2011, sparking the world's worst nuclear disaster in a generation," AFP adds. "TEPCO has not been able to effectively deal with an increasing amount of contaminated water, used to cool the crippled reactors and molten fuels inside them and kept in large storage tanks on the plant's vast campus."
A TEPCO representative said its emergency inspections of those tanks storing nuclear wastewater did not find any additional abnormalities and that radiation levels had since been reduced to 10 to 20 times the normal levels. The company remains unclear on how the contamination occurred.
Just last week, the United Nations' International Atomic Energy Agency said Japan has made "significant progress" in cleaning up the site of the 2011 disaster.
Deirdre Fulton
Deirdre Fulton is a former Common Dreams senior editor and staff writer. Previously she worked as an editor and writer for the Portland Phoenix and the Boston Phoenix, where she was honored by the New England Press Association and the Association of Alternative Newsweeklies. A Boston University graduate, Deirdre is a co-founder of the Maine-based Lorem Ipsum Theater Collective and the PortFringe theater festival. She writes young adult fiction in her spare time.
A fresh leak of radioactive water was detected at the damaged Fukushima nuclear plant on Sunday, raising new concerns about ongoing efforts to clean up the site.
Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO), which operates the Fukushima Daiichi plant, said sensors attached to a drainage channel that diverts rain and groundwater from the plant into the Pacific Ocean detected contamination levels up to 70 times greater than the already-high radiation levels previously documented at the facility.
According to Agence France-Presse, "the levels of beta ray-emitting substances, such as strontium-90, measured 5,050 to 7,230 becquerels per liter of water between 10:20 a.m. and 10:50 a.m. Tepco requires radioactivity levels of groundwater at the plant discharged into the sea to remain below 5 becquerels."
"The latest incident, one of several that have plagued the plant in recent months, reflects the difficulty in controlling and decommissioning the plant, which went through meltdowns and explosions after being battered by a giant tsunami in March 2011, sparking the world's worst nuclear disaster in a generation," AFP adds. "TEPCO has not been able to effectively deal with an increasing amount of contaminated water, used to cool the crippled reactors and molten fuels inside them and kept in large storage tanks on the plant's vast campus."
A TEPCO representative said its emergency inspections of those tanks storing nuclear wastewater did not find any additional abnormalities and that radiation levels had since been reduced to 10 to 20 times the normal levels. The company remains unclear on how the contamination occurred.
Just last week, the United Nations' International Atomic Energy Agency said Japan has made "significant progress" in cleaning up the site of the 2011 disaster.
We've had enough. The 1% own and operate the corporate media. They are doing everything they can to defend the status quo, squash dissent and protect the wealthy and the powerful. The Common Dreams media model is different. We cover the news that matters to the 99%. Our mission? To inform. To inspire. To ignite change for the common good. How? Nonprofit. Independent. Reader-supported. Free to read. Free to republish. Free to share. With no advertising. No paywalls. No selling of your data. Thousands of small donations fund our newsroom and allow us to continue publishing. Can you chip in? We can't do it without you. Thank you.