Flooding at Fukushima Daiichi and Daini

There have been multiple reports of flooding in Northern Japan because of heavy rains and of water "leaks" at Fukushima. I'll post summaries and links at the bottom of this post.

I've not seen anything unusual at Fukushima Daiichi over the last few days. Emissions continue in their ordinary fashion.

Some Webcam watchers think that waves reached reactor building 1. Emissions were quite high from reactor unit 1 several days ago but the last two days have been quieter there.



Emissions from the unit 3 area have been rather routine, although some days are worse than others.

So, the good news is that the reactor buildings at Daiichi appear to be standing, with units 1, 2, and the common spent fuel pool building still bearing their loads of spent fuel

The bad news is that the contaminated water deluge continues to threaten the Pacific:

“Rainwater overflows from Fukushima plant,” NHK September 10, 2015. Accessed September 11, 2015. Available: http://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/english/news/20150911_22.html

The operator of the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant has found that rainwater has intermittently overflowed a drainage channel and spilled directly into the sea.

TEPCO is also intentionally dumping water that has been purportedly decontaminated except for Tritium:

Tepco dumps treated groundwater in sea to tackle toxic water buildup,” Asia Nikkei September 14, 2015 http://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Companies/Tepco-dumps-treated-groundwater-in-sea-to-tackle-toxic-water-buildup

On Monday, TEPCO released some 850 tons of filtered groundwater, which is part of some 4,000 tons pumped up last year on a trial basis and stored in tanks, after confirming that radiation levels are below measurable limits.

Tritium, which cannot be removed through the existing water processing facilities, measured 330 to 600 becquerels per liter, well below the legally allowable limit of 1,500 bq, the utility said, citing analyses conducted by the company and an outside organization.

…But it has yet to find a solution to deal with another highly radioactive 680,000 tonnes of water that was used to cool the reactors during the meltdown, which is still stored on site.

This article also observes that 293 PLASTIC BAGS OF RADIOACTIVE PLANTS AND SOIL collected south of the plant from decontamination efforts were flushed away:

…Torrential flooding this month in an area not far south of the plant added to contamination concerns, flushing away at least 293 plastic bags of plants and soil that had been collected in the clean up ....

Flushed away into the Pacific Ocean, a cradle of life now under unprecedented radiological assault.