Radioactive Discharges into the Pacific from the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant Site

On 8 August, NGOs and Diet members held a meeting with the Japanese government concerning the radioactive discharges into the Pacific Ocean from the Fukushima Daiichi site. The meeting was held in Tokyo at the Upper House Diet Office Building.

The government says it will assign a budget to deal with this problem, but it’s for the next fiscal year, plus, the countermeasures are grossly insufficient.

What was revealed at yesterday’s meeting….

IT’S UNCLEAR WHO’S IN CHARGE AND WHO’S RESPONSIBLE IN THE JAPANESE GOVERNMENT:
It became evident that it’s unclear which government entity is responsible for and in charge of the radioactive water discharge into the Pacific Ocean from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. METI’s Agency for Natural Resources and Energy (ANRE) and the NRA (Nuclear Regulation Authority) are the entities involved, but none of the ANRE and NRA bureaucrats knew who was in charge.

MOST OF NRA’s TIME IS SPENT ON RESTART OF NUCLEAR POWER IN JAPAN RATHER THAN DEALING WITH THE FUKUSHIMA ACCIDENT’S RADIOACTIVE DISCHARGES:
It became evident that the bulk of the time being spent by the Nuclear Regulation Authority/ Nuclear Regulatory Agency is for restarting Japanese nuclear power plants. Compared to that, the time spent on dealing with the Fukushima accident, particularly the problem of the radioactive discharges into the marine environment is minimal. Just for the Ohi Units 3 and 4 nuclear power plant review (Apri 19th through June 24th), the NRA undertook 14 hearings that were public (plus 94 meetings behind closed doors) whereas, depending on how it’s counted, only 2 to 6 hearings for the radioactive marine discharge issue. And, it’s while the Ohi hearings were ongoing that the unmonitored leaks were occurring.

THE GOVERNMENT WAS DEFICIENT IN TRACKING TEPCO’S MONITORING:
The government was not aware that Tepco was not issuing monitoring data for measuring levels of radiation of the underground water discharge into the marine environment at Fukushima Daiichi between December 2012 and May of 2013. When asked why they had not notice the lack of information, they could not answer.

ANRE’s MEETINGS ARE NOT TRANSPARENT
ANRE’s meeting are held behind closed doors. All 3 meetings held by the contaminated water countermeasures committee have been behind closed doors with business contractors.

GOVERNMENT SHOULD HAVE KNOWN GROUNDWATER QUANTITY / INADVISABILITY OF MEASURES TAKEN
Hundreds of tons of groundwater from the environment had to be dealt with daily at the Fukushima Daiichi site before 3.11. (This goes for other nuclear power plants also.) This of course did not change after 3.11. However, measures to take care of the groundwater properly were not undertaken. The government should have known that this would lead to problems. The government also should have known that the subsequent building of a seawall to address discharges into the marine environment would not solve the problem. In other words it would only lead to the water overflowing into the marine environment.

**IMPORTANT: EARTHQUAKE IMPLICATIONS
The source of the radioactive leaks has not been tracked down. It could very well mean the water is coming from cracks created in and along pipes, walls, equipment underground, cracks and breakage that occurred due to the earthquake. If this were the case, it means a generic assessment of the implication of earthquakes on equipment above and below ground must be undertaken for all plants in Japan. Right now the government considers the Fukushima Daiichi accident to have been caused as a result of the tsunami, not the earthquake motion preceding it. If the earthquake caused damage, it has significant implications for restart of nuclear power in Japan.

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The meeting with the Japanese government was organized by Green Action, FoE Japan, Mihama-no-Kai, a network of Fukushima citizens, Fukuro-no-Kai, Greenpeace Japan, the Surfriders Foundation of Japan, etc. The government officials were from the Nuclear Regulatory Agency, METI’s Agency for Natural Resources and Energy (ANRE), and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MoFA).

Japanese URL for the 8 August materials including petition and list of questions to the government:
http://www.greenaction-japan.org/modules/wordpress/index.php?p=663

U-stream of the meeting with the government:
(Starts at 40 minutes into the video)
http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/37010339