Three Mile Island: The People’s Testament
Article by Aileen M. Smith, written in March 1989 for the 10th anniversary of the TMI accident.

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Interviews of people’s experiences during and after the Three Mile
Island accident of March 28, 1979.

The TMI accident was the most significant accident in the history of US commercial nuclear power, a partial core meltdown at the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant in Pennsylvania (USA) near Harrisburg.

Aomori City, Japan
June 7–8, 2008

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Rokkasho, a massive commercial reprocessing plant for radioactive spent fuel, is about to start commercial operation this summer in Aomori Prefecture, northern Japan, in spite of recent front-page headlines in Japanese newspapers reporting the discovery of an active earthquake fault directly under the plant site.

Rokkasho is part of Japan’s national nuclear fuel cycle program, which has nuclear cooperation agreements with the USA and Euratom, and, through the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership (GNEP), with Canada, Italy, and the U.K. as well.

On May 21st we delivered an appeal to the G8 environment ministers concerning the massive quantities of radioactive releases from Rokkasho into the Pacific Ocean. (These releases would be absolutely illegal under the London Convention if disposal took place from a ship at sea.)

We appeal to you, the G8 energy ministers, to reject Japanese endeavors to promote nuclear fuel cycle cooperation among G8 countries for the following reasons: it is very poor energy policy, it contaminates the environment, it will waste public resources of the countries involved, and it severely obstructs vital work at hand: the fight against global warming.

Japan’s nuclear fuel cycle (plutonium) program has been under development for over half a century. It is not producing a single kilowatt of electricity today. Commercialization of the fast breeder reactor has been delayed 8 times and is now planned “by 2050”. 1 Because of this the plutonium extracted at Rokkasho will be stockpiled on site. Shunsuke Kondo, head of Japan’s Atomic Energy Commission admits that “tens of tons of plutonium” will accumulate at Rokkasho over the next several years. 2

The Japanese government may not be informing G8 energy ministers that there is a great deal of opposition in Japan to legalization of the wanton radioactive pollution from Rokkasho and to development of the fast breeder reactor. 3

Cities, towns, and villages in northern Japan have petitioned the national government to pass a law making it illegal for radioactive materials to be released from Rokkasho into the marine environment. A petition organized by consumer organizations, food cooperatives and fishery unions demanding a ban on radioactive releases from Rokkasho, signed by more than 810,000 people, was submitted to the Japanese government in February. More than one-third of the adult population of Fukui prefecture, where Japan’s prototype fast breeder reactor, Monju, is located, has signed a petition asking that the reactor never be operated again. Monju has been shut down since December 1995 due to a sodium leak and fire accident.

On May 25th, in Osaka, citizens and consumer organizations from central Japan (Hyogo, Osaka, Kyoto, Shiga, Nara, and Wakayama prefectures) held a public meeting to demand that Rokkasho be prevented from operating. Japanese citizens want to protect northern Japan’s agricultural and marine products of from radioactive contamination. We represent the network that emerged from this meeting.

References:

1 Japan Atomic Energy Commission , “Framework for Nuclear Energy Policy”

2 If Rokkasho operates as planned, 7 tons of plutonium will be extracted annually.

3 To date about 1 trillion yen (more than $9 billion U.S.) of taxpayer and ratepayer money has been spent on the fast breeder reactor development program.

the reprocessing option and operating the Rokkasho reprocessing plant will cost at least 19 trillion yen (about $180 billion U.S.), far more than disposing without reprocessing.

Presentation given to Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Japan as part of a press briefing titled, “The G8 and Japan: More Hot Air Over Global Warming?”
May 29, 2008

Global Warming: Nuclear Power Is Not the Answer, Aileen Mioko Smith, Green Action
Download PowerPoint version (1.4 MB)
Download PDF version (1.5 MB)

Appeal from Citizens and Consumer Organizations in Central Japan to the G8 Environment Ministers Meeting
Kobe, Japan, May 24-26, 2008

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Rokkasho, a massive commercial reprocessing plant for radioactive spent fuel, is about to start commercial operation this summer in Aomori Prefecture, northern Japan.

The radioactive releases from Rokkasho into the Pacific Ocean would be illegal under the London Convention if disposal took place from a ship at sea. But a loophole in international law allows what would be illegal at sea, in the case of a land-based pipe extending into the ocean.

Aerial releases of radioactive gases (krypton) from Rokkasho will also circulate around the world.

The Japanese government is allowing Rokkasho to release 1.8 x 10ˆ16 becquerels of radioactive waste — equivalent to the lethal dose for 47,000 human beings — annually into the Pacific Ocean from a pipe extending 3 kilometers from land into the sea. The Japanese government’s argument to legally sanction this environmental pollution is that the radioactive material will “dilute” sufficiently in the Pacific Ocean.

In the case of the Rokkasho reprocessing plant, the Japanese government has eliminated the regulatory requirement placed on nuclear facilities in Japan that limits the concentration of radioactive materials that can be legally released into the marine environment.

The Japanese government may not be informing G8 environment ministers that there is a great deal of opposition in Japan to legalization of this wanton radioactive pollution.

Cities, towns, and villages in northern Japan have petitioned the national government to pass a law making it illegal for radioactive materials to be released from Rokkasho into the marine environment. A petition organized by consumer organizations, food cooperatives and fishery unions demanding a ban on radioactive releases from Rokkasho, signed by more than 810,000 people, was submitted to the Japanese government in February. Questionnaires to large supermarket chains by consumer and citizen organizations have already shown that some large supermarket chains do not want to purchase agricultural and marine products from northern Japan if and when they become contaminated with radioactive materials from Rokkasho.

Government demands to halt radioactive emissions into the marine environment are already well-established internationally. Twelve nations in Europe have condemned these emissions from reprocessing plants in the UK and France and are demanding that emissions be eliminated by 2020 under the OSPAR Convention.

On May 25th, in Osaka, citizens and consumer organizations from central Japan (Hyogo, Osaka, Kyoto, Shiga, Nara, and Wakayama prefectures) are holding a public meeting to demand that Rokkasho be prevented from operating. Japanese citizens want to protect agricultural and marine products of northern Japan from radioactive contamination.

Notes:

London Convention: “Convention on the Prevention of Marine Pollution by Dumping of Wastes and Other Matter, 1972.” International Maritime Organization (IMO), UN. The 1993 amendments adoption in 12 November 1993 which entered into force on 20 February 1994 bans the dumping into sea of low-level radioactive wastes.

OSPAR: The Convention for the Protection of the Marine Environment of the North-East Atlantic. The convention is the current instrument guiding international cooperation on the protection of the marine environment of the North-East Atlantic.

On 29 June 2000, a legally-binding decision adopted by OSPAR says “that the current authorisations for discharges or releases of radioactive substances from nuclear reprocessing facilities shall be reviewed as a matter of priority… with a view to… implementing the non-reprocessing option (for example, dry storage) for spent nuclear fuel management at appropriate facilities.”

NGO briefing to media organizations covering the Japanese Nuclear Industry’s International Symposium on Nuclear Power Plant Seismic Safety, February 26th-27th (Kashiwazaki City, Niigata Prefecture, Japan)

Green Action has compiled a media briefing from publicly available documents issued in English and Japanese by scientists and engineers, Kashiwazaki and Kariwa residents and legislators, and NGOs in Japan calling for closure of Tokyo Electric’s Kashiwazaki-Kariwa Nuclear Power Plant.

Read the facts the Japanese nuclear industry may not reveal to the international community.

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“Japanese Nuclear Power Industry Covers Up Its Dirty Laundry: Will the International Community Have Wool Pulled Over its Eyes?”

On February 26th–27th in Kashiwazaki City, Niigata Prefecture, the Japan Industrial Atomic Forum (JAIF) is co-hosting “The International Symposium on Seismic Safety of Nuclear Power Plants and Lessons Learned from the Niigataken Chuetsu-oki Earthquake.”

Fifty-five nuclear power plants operate in seismically active Japan. The Japanese nuclear industry is eager to make it appear as though “business as usual” can continue at Japanese nuclear power plants in spite of the 16 July 2007 Chuetsu-oki Earthquake (6.8 on the Richter scale) that rocked Tokyo Electric’s Kashiwazaki-Kariwa Nuclear Power Plant in Niigata, Japan.

[PDF: 584KB]

Media Release
7 September 2007

Chuetsu-Oki Earthquake – Kashiwazaki-Kariwa Nuclear Power Plant
NGO’s demand the IAEA stop misleading the international community and TEPCO improve transparency

NGOs today demanded that there be greater international accountability from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and that Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) improve its transparency surrounding the impact of the Chuetsu-Oki Earthquake on the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa Nuclear Power Plant.

In a letter to the IAEA and TEPCO, Citizens’ Nuclear Information Center, Green Action, and Greenpeace Japan criticized the IAEA Expert Mission to the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear power plant for making misleading statements about the impact of the earthquake on the plant1. They also criticized Philippe Jamet, head of the Expert Mission, for saying it would take “months or a year” to put the plant back into operation, even though a careful reading of the Expert Mission’s 17 August 2007 report shows that there are strong grounds for believing that the plant can never be operated again.

The groups strongly supported the Expert Mission’s goal of sharing the findings and lessons learned with the international nuclear community. However, they pointed out that there is a major barrier to the achievement of this goal. That is that Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) does not publish most of its reports in English.

The Citizens’ Nuclear Information Center (CNIC) contacted TEPCO to ask if it intended to translate a technical report published on its Japanese web site on 10 August. TEPCO replied it did not. CNIC then took the initiative of translating charts on neutron flux and reactor pressure and publishing them on the following page
http://cnic.jp/english/topics/safety/earthquake/kktechreport10aug07.html

The TEPCO report contains key information that will be useful to anyone with a technical interest in the impact of the Chuetsu-Oki earthquake.

The groups wrote to TEPCO calling on it to publish on its web site full translations of the technical reports relating to the Chuetsu-Oki Earthquake which have been published by TEPCO in Japanese. If TEPCO can provide such information in English to the IAEA, there is no reason why it cannot provide it to a wider audience. Only when sufficient basic data is available in English will the international community be able to independently analyze the findings and the lessons learned.

Contacts

Philip WHITE, International Liaison Officer, Citizens’ Nuclear Information Center (Tokyo, Japan)
Phone: 81-3-3357-3800
Email: cnic@nifty.com

Aileen Mioko SMITH, Director, Green Action (Kyoto, Japan)
Phone: 075-701-7223 / 090-3620-9251
Email: amsmith@gol.com

Jun HOSHIKAWA, Executive Director, Greenpeace Japan (Tokyo, Japan)
Phone: 81-3-5338-9800
Email: jun.hoshikawa@jp.greenpeace.org

---

1. Letters to IAEA and TEPCO dated 7 September, 2007 available on the following web pages:
http://cnic.jp/english/topics/safety/earthquake/kkiaea7sep07.html
http://cnic.jp/english/topics/safety/earthquake/kktepco7sep07.html

[PDF: 28KB]

7 September 2007
Mr. Tsunehisa Katsumata
President
Tokyo Electric Power Company

Request for English Translations

Dear Mr. Katsumata,

We are writing to request full English translations of TEPCO’s reports on the impact of the 16 July 2007 ChuetsuOki Earthquake on the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa Nuclear Power Plant. The limited English information which your company has published on its web site is welcome, but much more is necessary to enable non-English speakers to understand the behavior of the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear power plant during the Chuetsu-Oki Earthquake.

Citizens’ Nuclear Information Center contacted your company to find out if it intended to translate its 10 August 2007 report1 into English. The report contained key information that would be useful to anyone with a technical interest in the impact of the earthquake. Your company refused to translate the report, so we made a provisional translation of the neutron flux and reactor pressure charts. We have showed them to overseas specialists and uploaded them onto the following web site:
http://cnic.jp/english/topics/safety/earthquake/kktechreport10aug07.html

In addition to a full English translation of the 10 August report, we also call on TEPCO to publish on its web site full translations of the other technical reports relating to the Chuetsu-Oki Earthquake which TEPCO has issued in Japanese, including the reports released on 22 and 23 August 2007.

If TEPCO can provide such information in English to the IAEA, there is no reason why it cannot provide it to a wider audience. Only when sufficient basic data is

available in English will the international community be able to independently analyze the findings and the lessons learned.

Yours sincerely,

Philip White, International Liaison Officer, Citizens’ Nuclear Information Center, Tokyo
Citizens’ Nuclear Information Center
Akebonobashi Co-op 2F-B, 8-5 Sumiyoshi-cho,
Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo, 162-0065, Japan
TEL.03-3357-3800 FAX.03-3357-3801
email: cnic@nifty.com

Aileen Mioko Smith, Director, Green Action, Kyoto
Green Action
Suite 103, 22-75 Tanaka Sekiden-cho
Sakyo-ku, Kyoto 606-8203 Japan
Tel: +81-75-701-7223 Fax: +81-75-702-1952
email: amsmith@gol.com

Jan Beranek, Nuclear Energy Project Leader, Climate & Energy Unit, Greenpeace International
Greenpeace International
Ottho Heldringstraat 5, 1066 AZ Amsterdam
Tel NL office: +31-20-718-2134
email: jan.beranek@int.greenpeace.org

---

1. The 10 August 2007 report referred to is on the following URL:
http://www.tepco.co.jp/cc/press/07081002-j.html

[PDF: 844KB]

7 September 2007
To:
— IAEA Expert Mission to the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa Nuclear Power Station
— Director General Mohamed ElBaradei, International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)

On 6 August 2007, we wrote to you concerning the IAEA Expert Mission to the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear power plant. In particular, we requested that the Expert Mission “not permit its report to be used…to diminish the significance of…the risks posed by earthquakes to nuclear power generation.”

The Expert Mission failed on this count.

It is highly regrettable that, on the basis of less than three days at the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear power plant, without seeing inside the reactors, the Expert Mission’s report issued 17 August, 2007,* made statements which could be expected to mislead the public regarding the significance of the risks posed by earthquakes to nuclear power generation and the possibility of restarting the plant.

Key components of the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa plant have yet to be examined for internal structural damage. The IAEA’s initial report should have therefore been indeed preliminary, stressing what it in fact does admit, that there is “the possibility that the long-term operation of components could be affected by hidden damage from the earthquake.”

Instead, the Expert Mission report and the issues report released by IAEA staff on the same day chose to arbitrarily and subjectively emphasize another view. The Expert Mission report states, “Safety related structures, systems and components of the plant seem to be in a general condition, much better than might be expected for such a strong earthquake, and there is no visible significant damage…” The headline of the issues report declares, “Earthquake damage at Japanese nuclear station less than expected, report says.” Predictably, the media reported accordingly. A careful reading of the Expert Mission report, however, reveals that the true picture is far less rosy.

The head of the Expert Mission, Philippe Jamet, was widely quoted by the media saying it would take “months or a year” to put the plant back into operation. In fact, the report provides no grounds for believing that the plant can be restarted in a year’s time. On the contrary, the abovementioned problem of “hidden damage” and also “the potential existence of active faults underneath the site” both pointed out in the report are strong grounds for believing that the plant can never be operated again.

The investigations of the Expert Mission are ongoing. We recommend that it give serious consideration to a statement made on 21 August, 2007, by the newly formed Group of Concerned Scientists and Engineers Calling for the Closure of the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa Nuclear Power Plant. Their statement contains the following key points:

1.

In light of the “Regulatory Guide for Reviewing Seismic Design of Nuclear Power Reactor Facilities (Seismic Guide),” which was revised by the Japanese Government in September2005, it is clearly inconceivable to continue to operate a nuclear power plant at the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa site. The reason for this is that the basic policy stated in the revised Seismic Guide is that all buildings and structures must be installed on ground having adequate support performance. There can be no doubt now that the ground of the site of the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa Nuclear Power Plant does not fulfill this requirement.

2.

It should be assumed that plastic deformation (permanent strain) remains in many facilities and items of equipment and that in some cases cracks may have formed. In other words, nobody can objectively claim that the seven units are sound.

3.

Earthquake ground motion smaller than that of 16 July 2007 could cause a major accident at this already damaged site. The Kashiwazaki-Kariwa region is located at the center of an area of particularly high crustal activity and has many active faults. It is impossible to say that large earthquakes in this region ended with the 2004 Chuetsu earthquake and the recent Chuetsu-Oki earthquake. Also, over the next several to ten years, large earthquakes could occur as aftershocks of the Chuetsu-Oki earthquake that damaged the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa plant.

The full statement can be found on the following web site:
http://cnic.jp/english/topics/safety/earthquake/kkscientist21aug07.html

The Expert Mission stated that it was willing “to share the findings and lessons learned with the international nuclear community.” We fully support this goal. However, there is a major barrier to its achievement. That is that Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) does not translate most of its reports into English. We are not referring to confidential documents. We are referring to documents which are publicly available in Japanese. The Citizens’ Nuclear Information Center (CNIC) contacted TEPCO to ask if it intended to translate technical information released in Japanese on 10 August, 2007. TEPCO replied that it did not. Therefore, CNIC took the initiative of translating charts on neutron flux and reactor pressure. We have made this information available to the English-speaking world on the following web site:
http://cnic.jp/english/topics/safety/earthquake/kktechreport10aug07.html

This problem is not restricted to TEPCO. It is endemic in the Japanese nuclear industry and Japanese Government bureaucracy. Just a brief look at their English language web sites is enough to prove this point. We believe this is a reflection of the inward-looking nature of the Japanese nuclear industry and the Government’s nuclear authorities and their aversion to and fear of independent international scrutiny. We are calling on them to become more open and to provide more information in English, in particular in relation to the effects of the Chuetsu-Oki Earthquake on the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear power plant. It is in the interests of the IAEA to support our call. Only when sufficient basic data is available in English will the international community be able to independently analyze the findings and the lessons learned.

As the Expert Mission continues its investigation, it too will need English translations of technical information related to the impact of the Chuetsu-Oki Earthquake on the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear power plant. If TEPCO and the Japanese Government can provide such information in English to the IAEA, there is no reason why it cannot provide it to a wider audience.

Yours sincerely,

BAN Hideyuki
Co-Director,
Citizens’ Nuclear Information Center
(Tokyo, Japan)

HOSHIKAWA Jun
Executive Director
Greenpeace Japan
(Tokyo, Japan)

Aileen Mioko SMITH
Director,
Green Action
(Kyoto, Japan)

cc: IAEA Board of Governors

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*Footnote: Mission Report Volume I, “Preliminary Findings and Lessons Learned from the 16 July 2007 Earthquake at Kashiwazaki-Kariwa NPP”, International Atomic Energy Agency, 17 August 2007.

[PDF Version: 1.4MB]

• The IAEA Team of International Experts Investigating the Effects of the Chuetsu Oki Earthquake on the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa Nuclear Power Station in Niigata, Japan
• Director General Mohamed ElBaradei, International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)

From:

• Citizens’ Nuclear Information Center (Tokyo, Japan)
• Greenpeace Japan (Tokyo)
• Green Action (Kyoto)

6 August 2007

To Director General Mohamed ElBaradei and the IAEA Investigation Team:

We hereby respectfully make the following four requests:

• We request that you commission a truly independent international (including Japanese) investigation team with rigorous and objective expertise to look into the effects of the Chuetsu Oki Earthquake on the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa Nuclear Power Station. Given the shifting seismic cycle with a trend toward stronger earthquakes along the Ring of Fire in the Pacific, carrying out the most thorough and precise investigation as possible at this time is not only in the interest of the Japanese people but also in the critical interest of everyone who may come closely under the circles of influence of possible nuclear facilities to be built around the world in the coming years and decades.
• We request that before concluding a report on the post-earthquake safety-status of the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear power plant, the IAEA investigation team makes it a priority to investigate and report on the fundamental problems which caused this state of affairs, including an analysis into the causes of the lapses of judgment by TEPCO and the Japanese government in regard to the seismic survey, the design, and the approval for the plant.
• We request the IAEA report include details concerning
  • Ground deformation within the site
  • Radionuclides released according to isotope, including timeline of when and how much was released
  • Status of the reactor, including fuel, reactor control system, pipes, whether equipment is securely fixed, measurement equipment, and damage such as cracking, etc.
• The IAEA investigation team not permit its report to be used by TEPCO, the nuclear power industry, the Japanese government, or anyone else with a vested interest in promoting nuclear power to diminish the significance of the lapses of judgment that were highlighted by the Chuetsu-Oki Earthquake, or of the risks posed by earthquakes to nuclear power generation.
  Under no circumstances should the IAEA investigation team’s report lead people to believe that the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear power plant can ever be restarted.

* * *

For over three decades since 1974, local residents organizations and scientific experts have been warning that there are active faults concentrated in the region where Tokyo Electric’s Kashiwazaki-Kariwa Nuclear Power Station is sited, even active fault lines existing in very close proximity and directly underneath the nuclear power plants. They have also argued that the geology of the ground on which the plants are built is of very poor quality, and that this region has entered a seismically active period. They have continually warned, therefore, that the occurrence of an earthquake having serious, perhaps even devastating effects on the nuclear power station, is far from unlikely.

Tokyo Electric ignored these warnings, refusing to admit that there were active fault lines in close proximity or directly underneath the nuclear power station site. Instead, in their analysis, they broke up the fault lines and considered only sections, thereby enabling them to underestimate the effects of any potential earthquake, and as a result, make it appear that any seismic activity would be limited in scale. Moreover, they stated publicly that the nuclear power station was not located above an active fault. Tokyo Electric’s home page continues to make these assertions even today.

Since the Chuetsu Oki Earthquake, Tokyo Electric has continually insisted that this earthquake was “unforeseen.” That is certainly not the case. As indicated above, local resident organizations and scientific experts had been pointing out the seismic dangers at this nuclear power station site for decades. Tokyo Electric now says that it will undertake a reassessment of active fault lines in the area. However, any investigation undertaken by Tokyo Electric cannot be trusted. Any investigation it would undertake would lack any credibility whatsoever, especially to the concerned residents of this region.

It is of vital importance that before Tokyo Electric or the national government begins to undertake a reassessment of the seismic situation, a thorough investigation should be undertaken by an independent entity to find out why the seismic dangers of this area were not taken into consideration by Tokyo Electric. There needs to be a very clear explanation as to why Tokyo Electric ignored the arguments brought forward by local resident organizations and experts and why they sectionalized the fault lines and minimized their seismic potential.

The problems lie not only in underestimation of potential seismic movement. The effects of the Chuetsu Oki earthquake on the foundation and equipment of the plant site are suggestive of Tokyo Electric’s underestimation of the effects of seismic movement on these foundations and equipment as well.

In their letter to Niigata Governor Izumida dated 25 July 2007, the local resident organization which had filed petitions consistently since 1974 detailing the seismic concerns of this site wrote, “Our view is that although theoretically a new license could be issued based on new standards, it is absolutely inconceivable to reuse the current facility that was constructed on the basis of an underestimation of seismic activity, and now moreover incorporates equipment and buildings that were damaged by the Chuetsu Oki Earthquake, due to which the possibility of ductile deformations cannot be denied.” We entirely agree.

The Niigata Nippo, the newspaper of record in the region has provided day-by-day cover in huge articles since the earthquake, describing the appalling lack of emergency preparedness of Tokyo Electric and clearly illustrating serious systemic problems with Tokyo Electric management. The Niigata Nippo also addresses the serious lack of information disclosure to the region’s public, including interviews with residents who state, “This is a long-standing problem with Tokyo Electric.”

Governor Izumida of Niigata has officially lodged a complaint to the Nuclear Industrial Safety Agency (NISA) of the Japanese government based on the overt inadequacy on the part of the Japanese government of post-earthquake information regarding the plant site. The front page of the Niigata Nippo newspaper reports the governor’s statement that the national government “did not evaluate for us whether we should evacuate (the citizens living in the area of the nuclear power plants)” and criticized the conduct of the Nuclear Industrial Safety Agency, stating that there is “room for improvement.” “Along with the information released from Tokyo Electric, the interested party, the national government who is the administrating authority (in charge of nuclear power) should be expeditiously releasing information to the national citizenry.” (Niigata Nippo newspaper, 21 July 2007).

The Social Democratic Party’s earthquake investigation team has entered the plant site three times and its members have serious concerns about Tokyo Electric refusing to allow inspection of damaged areas they want to hide. Also, upon inspection of areas Tokyo Electric allowed them to see, there was clear evidence of Tokyo Electric rushing to cover up evidence of earthquake damage. These “repairs” are being undertaken before any independent investigation of the damage has been undertaken and are a serious case of suppression of evidence.

There are serious problems with the Japanese government’s nuclear regulatory and licensing system as well, regarding assessment of seismic activity and assurance that nuclear power generation will be undertaken in full safety despite the seismically active nature of this archipelago. Katsuhiko Ishibashi, who was a member of the government-appointed committee to reassess the seismic Guidelines and who resigned in protest at the last session of the committee’s proceedings, pointed out serious problems with the selection of committee members and their lack of independence in a press conference at the Foreign Correspondents Club of Japan on 20 July, to a packed audience representing foreign media.

An independent investigation needs to be undertaken to investigate why the Japanese government could not and did not address the erroneous judgments of Tokyo Electric.

After the Chuetsu Oki Earthquake experts are pointing out the possibility of deformations or distortions of pipe joints and the footings of the reactor pressure vessel. However, Dr. Haruki Madarame, the government-appointed chair of the expert committee to investigate the effects of the earthquake on the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa Nuclear Power Station has publicly stated, in spite of the fact that an in-depth investigation has not even begun, “With the technology we have today, we can do anything if we have the will to do it.” (3 August, Nikkei Newspaper.) Before vital evidence has been examined, he has repeatedly stated, “It’s only natural that about this amount of oscillation (2000 gal) would be recorded. That possibility had already been incorporated into the seismic design.” After being criticized for these remarks, he simply gave excuses, then stated, “I’ll be more careful when making comments in the future.”

Citizens’ Nuclear Information Center has sent a petition to Yasuhisa Komoda, Director-General of NISA (fax dated 31 July 2007) demanding the replacement of Professor Haruki Madarame as committee chair. We stated, “Professor Madarame was quick to state that safety of [the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear power plant] was assured, saying that it is not a major problem if B and C class equipment breaks as a result of shaking in excess of expectations. He has also repeatedly stated that he predicts that the plant will be able to restart in one to two years. We question the academic ethics of someone who makes such a statement before the inside of the reactor containment vessel has even been looked at. When the Committee’s chairperson makes such comments, it is not possible to avoid the criticism that the study and response of the Committee itself will only be perfunctory.”

When inspecting the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa site, and referring to the damage from the earthquake, Kenzo Miya, head of one of the three working groups of the committee chaired by Madarame, stated repeatedly, “This is an opportune experiment,” and, “This may well be a historic event” – a comment that created a great deal of antipathy in the Kashiwazaki and Kariwa area. He has since stepped down from the technical committee of Niigata prefecture but remains head of the working group of the government’s committee.

The people of Japan, and especially the citizens in the Kashiwazaki and Kariwa area, do not trust this national government committee investigating the effects of the earthquake on the nuclear power station.

Since both Tokyo Electric and the Japanese government cannot be trusted to properly assess why the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa Nuclear Power Station was allowed to be sited in its present location in the first place, and cannot be trusted to accurately and fairly inspect the current situation at the nuclear power station, we cannot emphasize strongly enough the need for independent, objective investigation into these matters.

Yours sincerely,

BAN Hideyuki
Co-Director,
Citizens’ Nuclear Information Center
(Tokyo, Japan)

HOSHIKAWA Jun
Executive Director
Greenpeace Japan
(Tokyo, Japan)

Aileen Mioko SMITH
Director,
Green Action
(Kyoto, Japan)

[97 organizations including Green Action have given their support to this public appeal as of 9am, July 21, 2007.]

—Joint Public Appeal—
We Strongly Urge a Radical Reexamination
of Earthquake Countermeasures for Nuclear Facilities,
Facing Consequences Squarely Whatever the Outcome!

[PDF version: 48KB]
[Japanese site]
English translation
July 21, 2007

To:
— ABE Shinzo, Prime Minister of Japan
— All those in relevant branches of government and in nuclear-related organizations
— The People of Japan

As a result of the Chuetsuoki Earthquake, unforeseen problems continue to arise at the largest nuclear power plant complex in the world, Tokyo Electric’s Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear power station. All seven reactors are currently shut down, but they remain directly threatened by the danger of aftershocks.

This major earthquake revealed dramatically the existence of a previously undetected fault line, and seismic oscillations recorded during the earthquake far exceeded regulatory standards established for earthquake resistance. Consequently, it is clear that the safety of these nuclear power plants cannot be assured, and, faced by the probability of strong after-shocks, large numbers of people in the Kashiwazaki Kariwa area and the greater Chuetsu region are deeply concerned that further problems may develop at this nuclear power plant complex, resulting in a nuclear disaster.

According to the seismic resistance design specifications of the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear power plant, seismic acceleration greater than 300 gal would cause deformations resulting in permanent damage, making equipment unusable. The design was based on the hypothesis that seismic acceleration on site would never exceed 450 gal. This earthquake, however recorded a maximum of 680 gal. Since the government which previously investigated and established these seismic standards has been proven totally wrong, it is now self-evident beyond any doubt that the licenses for these reactors should be revoked.

Last March (2006), the Kanazawa District Court handed down a verdict which placed an injunction on the operation of the Shika nuclear power plant. The earthquake which occurred this week in Niigata has inadvertently confirmed that the Kanazawa verdict was indeed correct. Since the rationale which formed the basis for licensing these nuclear power plants and related facilities has collapsed as a result of this earthquake, the fact that seismic shocks can cause severe damage to such facilities due to previously unrecognized seismic faults cannot be denied. Apartment buildings which were built on the basis of falsified earthquake resistance data are now being torn down because they no longer meet legal requirements. How can nuclear facilities with potentially far more devastating effects be allowed to continue to operate as usual?

For the above reasons, if nuclear power plants or reprocessing plants continue to operate, there is grave danger that nuclear disasters could occur due to these facilities being subjected to earthquakes, resulting in severe damage and massive releases of radioactive materials. We therefore petition the Prime Minister of Japan and all organizations related to the operation of nuclear power plants in Japan to undertake a radical reexamination of earthquake countermeasures and face the consequences squarely whatever the outcome.

We sincerely urge all the people of Japan to share our concern about earthquake resistance measures at nuclear power plants. Please support us in our efforts to prevent nuclear disaster.

Signed:
— The Three Organizations Opposed to the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa Nuclear Power Plants
— Kashiwazaki and Kariwa Regional Coordination Center for the Consideration of Nuclear Power Issues
— Nishiyama and Kariwa Citizens’ Group for the Consideration of Nuclear Power Issues
— Kashiwazaki and Kariwa Citizens’ Network for the Consideration of the Pluthermal (MOX fuel use) Program