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TEPCO starts diverting Fukushima groundwater to sea

22 Comments
By Kyoko Hasegawa

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On Wednesday, engineers started releasing that water after it satisfied quality tests more rigorous than those put in place by the Japanese government or by the United Nations, TEPCO said in a statement.

After all the lies and concealing of incidents are we supposed to believe this? They are regulating themselves! Unbelievable!

6 ( +10 / -4 )

Got to take your hat off to TEPCO, trust and confidence with total government approval...

2 ( +2 / -0 )

I recommend a total boycott of all seafood in the surrounding areas. The fishers obviously got their padded envelopes to agree to this, but let's see how much they Iike it when the cash is gone. Needless to say, shame on TEPCO, but since they have the support of the government and lemmings here, I say shame on Japan.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

People in Japan have been ridiculing me for years just because I don't eat fish... oh how the tables have turned.

0 ( +4 / -4 )

TEPCO can never be in a winning position and are overwhelmed at the huge task of trying to uncontaminate the radiated water... but the fact is, there is just no more room for storage and must be released. They should not allow any local fisherman in the area.

3 ( +4 / -1 )

They should not allow any local fisherman in the area.

When you say 'the area' you must mean the pacific ocean right?

but the fact is, there is just no more room for storage and must be released.

Or is there is just not enough willingness by TEPCO to spend more money to buy more land and bigger tanks for storage?

-1 ( +3 / -4 )

but the fact is, there is just no more room for storage and must be released.

Please open your mind beyond the politically motivated news stories you are clearly engulfed in. Your government and in turn your media are deceiving you.

0 ( +3 / -3 )

Dead ocean. Dead planet. The Vesuvius of the modern world.

-2 ( +1 / -3 )

Isn't that what they've been doing this whole time anyway?

-2 ( +0 / -2 )

Yes, it is the right decision to divert the natural run off and it should have been done years ago as a priority rather than an afterthought. However, next month will be the rainy season and the rainwater will flood the basement, again, and highly irradiated water run off into the ocean, again!

-1 ( +1 / -2 )

TEPCO's handling of things is either completely lame, due to penny pinching, or way past due, again due to penny pinching. That and and in a dose of severe incompetence and Bob's your uncle.

-2 ( +1 / -3 )

Dear Disillusioned san

Re, However, next month will be the rainy season and the rainwater will flood the basement, again, and highly irradiated water run off into the ocean, again!

The whole object of this latest engineering effort is to reduced the amount of underground water running under or entering the damaged reactor buildings. If they " are able to reduce by up to 80 tons per day" from the "300-400 tons of groundwater (becomes) contaminated beneath the site each day". It is a 20% reduction of contaminated water and that is good, don't you think?

2 ( +3 / -1 )

Something that we all need to remember is that TEPCO would not be doing this without the Japanese goverment approval !!! So, the headlines should read, "Japanese goverment gives the "OK" to dump contaminated radiated water into ocean!!!"

After all the Japanese government government does control the majority stock of TEPCO !

-2 ( +0 / -2 )

Zichi, good point

Its the right decision of TEPCO to try and divert the mountain groundwater before it reaches the atomic plant.

However, if Heda or I had made it... Thumbs down all around.

Modern discourse...meh.

2 ( +2 / -0 )

It is becoming clear that TEPCO is failing. **TEPCO engineering expertise has always been in maintenance of a nuclear energy facility. The long term work is for the experts and this already has ramifications due to radionuclide contamination internationally. Why can't the Japanese Government invite international nuclear experts and personnel in on a partnership?**

0 ( +0 / -0 )

What surprises me is how people think that by TEPCO releasing irradiated water in the ocean, it only affects Japanese fishermen!!! The whole world (land, water and sea) is affected. Japan rubbish was found around American cost a few days after the accident, and this must be the very irradiated water that took it there! The pressure to do right things about this mess should come from world pressure bodies such as greenpeace and other countries that should impose compensation package to TEPCO and japan for messing up the planet with no remorse. And never think the IAEA will improve things as it is formed to promote and its head does not seem enthusiastic to do anything...

-1 ( +1 / -2 )

OK, I have some solid information on Thyroid Cancer rates in Japan by age group, and age group information for Fukushima.

Zichi,

The age group 10-14 year olds is the group with the highest risk of thyroid cancer, and female have a greater risk than males. Tracking down figures is always difficult but the following link provides further figures.

From the paper "Cancer Incidence and Incidence Rates in Japan in 2005", we get that the age range 55-59 is that with the highest number of new thyroid cancers for men and women. However, if you're talking about 'at risk from I-131', I'd agree with you.

The paper gives the following age-specific incidence rates per 100,000 per year for males and females:

0-4 5-9 10-14 15-19 20-24 25-29 30-34

Male 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.5 1.0 1.4 1.6 Female 0.0 0.0 0.1 0.7 3.1 4.9 5.8

Now in 2010, Fukushima Prefecture had:

82,000 0-4s; 92,000 5-9s; 102,000 10-14s; and 101,000 15-19s in 2010 (Info from Statistics Japan)

Notice how many more cases females get! It's a big disease for women. If you divide in half you get a rough male-female ratio. Now we know the new scanners are much more accurate than the normal method of just seeing the doctor about a lump - so let's take each age range before 20, and see how many cases we see if we assume the scanners pick up slow-growing cancers that would have appeared over the next 3 age groups. This means for 0-4 Males we would apply 0.5 (0.0 + 0.0 + 0.0 + 0.5), Females we would apply 0.8 (0.0 + 0.0 + 0.1 + 0.7).

Once you do this for all the Males and Females 0 to 19, you find the expected number of cancers to be 18.59 (Yup, I know there's no such thing as 0.59 of a cancer, but we're looking for ballpark figures here). Now, that's how many we might expect to see per year with the scanner, but it's been 3.2 years since the disaster. If you multiply by 3.2, you get an expected 59.5 cancers.

Now this is just a rough calculation - but this seems to match the reports pretty well.

1 ( +1 / -0 )

All readers back on topic please. The topic is diverting groundwater.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

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