Why the entire Pacific fishery could be tainted

Nukewatch Quarterly Winter 2013-2014

By John LaForge 

“If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don’t have to worry about the answers.”

— Thomas Pynchon, Gravity’s Rainbow 

Distracting the public from the 300 tons (80,000 gallons) of highly radioactive water spreading into the Pacific Ocean every day from the triple reactor melt-through at Fukushima-Daiichi, is news of the plan to build an underground “ice wall” to dam up the poisoned water before it leaks to the sea. The project is reportedly a better plan than the failed concrete wall that Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco) first built.

This frozen finger-in-the-dike won’t be completed until 2015, and it may then fail. Even if it were to work as planned, there is a risk of reversing the water flow, forcing highly radioactive water to seep out from the reactor buildings to the aquifer. Meanwhile, nothing is slowing the relentless radioactive contamination of the Pacific — the world’s largest ocean which covers about a third of Earth.

What we’re being distracted from is the threat to the fishery caused by Fukushima’s ongoing radioactive gusher. At least 300 tons of cesium- and strontium-contaminated water is still spewing into the Pacific every day. Tepco admitted in August that this massive carcinogenic hemorrhage has been going on since March 11, 2011. It amounts to about 85 million gallons — 80,000 gallons per day, for 942 days, dumped into the Pacific — and counting.

The radiation dumped by Fukushima into the environment has exceeded that of the 1986 Chernobyl catastrophe, so we may stop calling it the second worst nuclear power disaster in history. Total atmospheric releases from Fukushima so far are between 5.6 and 8.1 times that of Chernobyl, according to the 2013 World Nuclear Industry Status Report. Professor Komei Hosokawa, who wrote the Fukushima section, told London’s Channel 4 News, “The situation is not under control. Almost every day new things happen, and there is no sign that they will control the situation in the next few months or years.”

Tepco estimates about 900 peta-becquerels have spewed from Fukushima, and the 2006 TORCH Report by Ian Fairlie, et al, estimates that Chernobyl dispersed 110 peta-becquerels. The mind-numbing “peta-becquerel” is a quadrillion, or a thousand trillion Becquerels. A Becquerel is one atomic disintegration per second.

Where have all the Becquerels gone? 

Japan has decided that fish contaminated with fewer than 100 Becquerels per kilogram (Bq/kg) of cesium-137 is good enough to eat. Some local officials have set a stricter bar of 50 Bq/kg.

In the US the permissible level of cesium in food is 1,200 Bq/kg. Canada allows 1,000 Bq/kg. The difference is startling. The huge discrepancy allows importation by the US and Canada of what Japan considers highly contaminated fish, vegetables and meat. Rice, fish, beef and other Japanese exports poisoned by nuclear power’s single worst nightmare is doubtless being consumed in the United States.

Gordon Edwards, President of the Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility, told CTVnews that the 1,000 Bq/kg allowance is dangerous. “It has to be recognized that even Health Canada acknowledges that even those levels correspond to an increased cancer risk of eight cancers per 1,000 people exposed over a 70-year period. So these are not safe levels, even by Health Canada’s own standards,” he said.

Cesium-137 and -134 — muscle-seeking isotopes that can cause cancers and other illnesses when ingested or inhaled — were and are being dumped into the atmosphere in huge quantities by Fukushima. An April 12, 2011 warning about food contamination from the Low Level Radiation Campaign in England said, “Vegetables and other foodstuffs showing more than 50 Bq/kg of cesium indicate airborne contamination with other radionuclides. LLRC advises food with more than 50 Bq/kg should not be eaten unless there’s absolutely no choice. We recommend that the Japanese government ask for international food aid supplies to prevent its people eating contaminated food.”

The Seattle Times reported last October that researchers found small amounts of Fukushima’s cesium in albacore tuna caught off the coasts of Washington and Oregon. The albacore warning followed the May 2012 and February 2013 findings of cesium-contamination in Blue fin tuna caught off California.

The Huffington Post said Aug. 28 that out of 170 types of fish tested in the Fukushima area, 42 species were put off limits. CBS News put it a little differently Aug. 20, noting that in the same region only 16 types of fish are considered safe to catch, compared with 150 types before the catastrophe. Japanese public television reported July 11 that sea bass were found with 1,037 Bq/kg, or ten times the allowed contamination. The Tokyo daily Asahi Shimbun noted Aug. 29, 2013 that a greeling had 25,800 Bq/kg cesium, an all-time record in the 2 ½ years since the radiation gusher began. Pacific cod and black sea bream had 3,300 Bq/kg.

Environmental radioactivity bio-accumulates as it climbs the food chain. Smaller species now under Japanese fishing bans — which are eaten by the big tuna — eat species that are smaller yet. So prize fish like tuna, which can live 30 years and are at the top of the food chain, will eventually be poisoned with far more than “trace” amounts of cesium.

Professor Ken Buesseler of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution says the seafloor is a major reservoir for Fukushima’s cesium. “It looks to me like the bottom fish, the fish that are eating, you know, crabs and shellfish, the kinds of things that are particle feeders — they seem to be increasing their accumulation of the cesium isotopes because of their habitat on the seafloor,” he told Science in Oct. 2012. The BBC reported Oct. 25, 2012 that flounder, conger, Pollock, rockfish, skate and the popular US imports cod, sole and halibut — all bottom feeders or demersal — “consistently showed the highest cesium counts.”

Bon appétit! 

— A version of this article was published Oct. 23 by Counterpunch.

Nukewatch Quarterly Winter 2013-2014

By Harvey Wasserman 

Japan’s pro-nuclear Prime Minister has finally asked for global help at Fukushima. It probably hasn’t hurt that more than 100,000 people have signed petitions calling for a global takeover; more than 8,000 have viewed a new YouTube video on it.

Massive quantities of heavily contaminated water are pouring into the Pacific Ocean, dousing workers along the way. Hundreds of huge, flimsy tanks are leaking untold tons of highly radioactive fluids.

At Unit #4, more than 1,300 fuel rods, with more than 400 tons of extremely radioactive material, containing potential cesium fallout comparable to 14,000 Hiroshima bombs, are stranded 100 feet in the air.

All this more than 30 months after the 3/11/2011 earthquake/tsunami led to three melt-downs and at least four explosions.

“Our country needs your knowledge and expertise” he has said to the world community. “We are wide open to receive the most advanced knowledge from overseas to contain the problem.”

But is he serious?

“I am aware of three US companies with state of the art technology that have been to Japan repeatedly and have been rebuffed by the Japanese government,” says Arnie Gundersen, a Vermont-based nuclear engineer focused on Fukushima.

“I have spoken with six Japanese medical doctors who have said that they were told not to discuss radiation induced medical issues with their patients. None will speak out to the press.

“Three American University professors … were afraid to sign the UN petition to Ban Ki-Moon because it would endanger their Japanese colleagues who they are doing research with.” Abe, he says (to paraphrase it politely), might not be entirely forthcoming.

Fukushima-Daiichi is less than 200 miles from Tokyo. Prevailing winds generally blow out to sea — directly towards the United States, where Fukushima’s fallout was measured less than a week after the initial disaster.

But radioactive hot spots have already been found in Tokyo. A worst-case cloud would eventually make Japan an uninhabitable waste-land. What it could do to the Pacific Ocean and the rest of us downwind approaches the unthinkable.

“If you calculate the amount of cesium 137 in the pool” at Unit #4, “the amount is equivalent to 14,000 Hiroshima atomic bombs,” says Hiroaki Koide, Assistant Professor at the Kyoto University Research Reactor Institute.

The Unit #4 fuel assemblies were pulled for routine maintenance just prior to the earthquake/tsunami. An International Atomic Energy Agency document says they were exposed to the open air, did catch fire and did release radiation.

Since none of the six GE-designed Daiichi reactors has a containment over the fuel pools, that radiation poured directly into the atmosphere. Dozens more designed like these reactors operate in the US and around the world.

Then corrosive sea water was dumped into the pool.

Unit #4 was damaged in the quake, and by an explosion possibly caused by hydrogen leaking in from Unit #3. It shows signs of buckling and of sinking into soil turning to mud by water flowing down from the mountains, and from attempts to cool the cores missing from Units #1, #2 and #3.

Tokyo Electric Power Co. and the Japanese government may try to bring down the Unit #4 rods in November. With cranes operated by computers, that might normally take about 100 days. But this requires manual control. Tepco says they’ll try to do it in a year (half their original estimate) presumably to beat the next earthquake.

But the pool may be damaged and corroded. Loose debris is visible. The rods and assemblies may be warped. Gundersen says they’re embrittled, may be crumbling and removing them will be like trying to pull a cigarette from a crumpled pack.

Some 6,000 additional rods now sit in a common storage pool just 50 meters away. Overall some 11,000 rods are scattered around the site. Vital as it is, bringing Unit #4’s rods safely down is a just a small step toward coping with the overall mess.

Should just one rod fall or ignite, or buildings collapse, or cooling systems fail, radiation levels at the site could well force all humans to leave. Critical electronic equipment could be rendered unworkable. The world might then just stand helpless as the radioactive fires rage.

Gundersen long ago recommended Tepco dig a trench filled with zeolite to protect the site from the water flowing down from the mountains. He was told there was not enough money available to do the job.

Now Prime Minister Abe wants an “ice wall” to run a mile around the site. No such wall that size has ever been built, and this one could not be in place for at least two years.

Gundersen and 16 other experts have filed a list of suggestions with UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon. Thus far there’s been no official response.

Abe’s request for global help with Fukushima’s water problems may be a welcome start.

But the fuel rods at Unit #4 embody our Earth’s most serious immediate crisis.

The team in charge of bringing them down must embody all the best minds our species can muster, along with every ounce of resource we can bring to bear.

The whole world must be watching as this operation begins.

— Harvey Wasserman edits www.nukefree.org, where the nukefree/moveon petition is linked. He is Senior Editor of www.freepress.org. His interviews on Fukushima are at the www.prn.fm, Solartopia Green Power & Wellness Show, and at EON Films.

The earthquake and tsunami that wrecked the Fukushima-Daiichi reactor complex in Japan has led to the toughest radiation disaster cleanup ever. Contaminated water is still poisoning the Pacific Ocean — and it could take over 40 years to complete a partial cleanup. 

Nukewatch Quarterly Winter 2013-2014

By Ian Sample / The Guardian 

Carefully, gently, one-by-one. The removal of nuclear fuel rod assemblies from a badly damaged building at the Fukushima-Daiichi power plant is finally under way. Months in the planning, the job is risky, complex, and crucial. Here begins the first major step in the toughest decommissioning project ever attempted. 

Fukushima is home to six nuclear reactors, three of which were running when the giant [earthquake and] tsunami swept across the site on March 11, 2011. The de-fuelling operation centers on the building for reactor four. Though the reactor was shut down for maintenance when [the 9.0 magnitude quake and] the towering wave struck, all its radioactive fuel, and more from earlier runs, was held in a storage pool on an upper floor of the building. 

Under normal conditions, the storage pool above the reactor was a safe haven. But four days into the crisis a hydrogen explosion tore through the structure and blew the walls and roof off. Moving the radioactive fuel from the wrecked building to a more secure site became a high priority. Some fuel assemblies have already been moved. Workers use a crane to reach down into the pool, lift an assembly from its rack, and then lower it into a waiting cask that sits upright on the pool floor. When a cask is full — each can take 22 fuel assemblies — a second crane hoists it from the pool and places it on a trailer. Filled casks are then transported to a more secure storage facility on the site. 

The procedure sounds straightforward enough. But there are 1,533 fuel assemblies in the pool at building four. Each is [15 feet] long, and holds up to 80 individual fuel rods. The team of 36 workers that are responsible for the job will work in six shifts around the clock. The job will take until the end of 2014 — and that is with no glitches. 

But the work at reactor four is only the start. Once the fuel is removed to a safer place, workers will turn their attention to a further 1,573 fuel rod assemblies held in similar pools in the buildings for reactors one, two and three. All were running when the [quake and] tsunami struck; all suffered meltdowns. The radiation in these buildings is still intense, and access inside is limited. 

Though delicate and painstaking, retrieving the fuel rod assemblies from the pools is not the toughest job the workers face. More challenging by far will be digging out the molten cores in the reactors themselves. Some of the fuel burned through its primary containment and is now mixed with cladding, steel and concrete. The mixture will have to be broken up, sealed in steel containers and moved to a nuclear waste storage site. That work will not start until after 2020. 

To fully decommission [disassemble] Fukushima-Daiichi might take 40 years, and no one expects a cakewalk. Independent researchers point to the litany of mishaps that has blighted the cleanup. They doubt the site’s operator Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco) is up to the task, and want a global team of experts to take over. Even high-level advisers signed up by Tepco describe the [disassembling] project as an “unprecedented” challenge. At stake is Tepco’s reputation, the health and livelihoods of local communities and the future direction of the industry worldwide. 

“With the sheer number of things that are going wrong, they should be more openly bringing in help,” says Ken Buesseler, a senior scientist at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute in Massachusetts, who has analyzed seawater for radiation directly offshore from Fukushima. “Tepco is a nuclear power producer, not a cleanup operation. There are people with expertise in decommissioning reactors, and they need to be brought in whether they are Japanese, European or American. Every time they have a problem, they come up with a solution that takes a long time to bring in, and then doesn’t even solve the problem.” 

Tepco does have international advisers. In the wake of criticisms over its handling of the crisis, the company set up an independent Nuclear Reform Monitoring Committee. The Committee is led by Dale Klein, former Chairman of the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). His deputy is Barbara Judge, former head of the UK Atomic Energy Authority. They do not underestimate the long job ahead: this is make-or-break time for Tepco.

Whose story is the most believable? 

Who should the public trust? In nuclear issues it can be hard to know. The engineers with most experience, those best placed to make a dangerous site safe, are industry insiders. Nuclear is their livelihood. But who does not have biases? Are anti-nuclear activists better qualified, more honest? Are academics more independent? University staff who work on nuclear technology are often funded by, or have close links to the industry. Perceived biases can be just as harmful to trust as real ones. 

John Large, a UK-based nuclear consultant, says Tepco needs more outside help. He wants the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to arrange for a team of engineers with hands-on experience to assess the site, and come up with a fresh plan of action. But he concedes there are problems with the idea. Industry engineers will defend the industry, he says. “They need to be told: ‘Forget the fact that you design these reactors. Right now we need your expertise.’” 

Tepco has planned heavily to reduce the danger of another high-profile mishap while it removes fuel from the storage pool at unit four. Engineers have beefed up the cranes that will move the fuel. If a fuel assembly jams in its rack, the crane should stop pulling immediately, to reduce the risk of breakage. A second crane that lifts the cask is designed to hold its load even if power is lost. All these will help. A dropped nuclear fuel assembly will not go critical, but more radiation might escape. That may not be dangerous beyond the site, but it could be the final straw for Tepco’s reputation. 

“We haven’t had a problem of this magnitude before in decommissioning,” says Barbara Judge. “When you’re dealing with decommissioning a reactor where there’s been an accident you have to respond to difficulties. When you’re dealing with decommissioning a reactor that’s reached the end of its productive life, you are being proactive and you can do it in a much more slow and methodical manner.” 

Good news is hard to find around Fukushima. In the earliest days of the crisis, a plume of radioactive material blew northwest from the site and settled as a teardrop scar reaching more than [16 miles] across the land. From the coastline, through the towns of Okuma, Futaba and Namie, are huge patches of ground where the additional annual dose of radiation is more than 50 millisieverts. Natural background radiation, from cosmic rays and sources in the air and rock, reaches 2 to 3 millisieverts per year. 

A preliminary IAEA report in October on efforts to clean up the contaminated land … made a handful of gentle suggestions for improvement. Yet the work is far behind schedule in seven of 11 selected towns and villages; the deadline of March 2014 is now unachievable. This month, officials in Japan admitted for the first time that thousands of evacuees from the worst affected areas may never return home. The governing Liberal Democratic Party says a more realistic approach is needed: it wants compensation for the 160,000 people displaced by radioactive [contamination], so they can rebuild their lives elsewhere.

Contaminated water storage problems multiply 

Up on the cliff overlooking the Fukushima [complex] is a bleak reminder of an ongoing battle at the site. This strip of land was once filled with trees, a place for workers to go walking. Tepco has cut the trees down now, to make room for 1,000 huge metal storage tanks. They hold more than 360,000 tons of radioactive water, enough to fill 140 Olympic swimming pools. The volume rises every day. Over the next three years, Tepco wants to add storage for another 270,000 tons of radioactive wastewater. Ultimately, the water must be returned to the Pacific [according to Tepco]. … 

The steady accumulation of contaminated water is in part down to geology. The three reactors that were running when the tsunami struck are kept cool by flushing them with 400 tons of water each day. The process leaves the cooling water laced with radioactive contamination. But Fukushima sits at the bottom of a hill, on land with a high water table. Hundreds of tons of water drain down the hill every day, quietly beneath the surface. When this subterranean flow reaches the [site’s wreckage], it enters the cracked reactor buildings and mixes with the contaminated cooling water. Much is pumped out and passed through a filter made with zeolite clay, which removes dangerous cesium isotopes. But the other radioactive substances remain. This water, around 300 tons a day, is pumped into the storage tanks up on the hill. 

From the start some scientists questioned Tepco’s decision to store contaminated water. Another earthquake could rupture the tanks and see another major radioactive release from the site, they feared. So far, Tepco has been spared that particular disaster, but the concerns are still justified. Smaller accidents have been rife. In August, workers discovered that 300 tons of radioactive water had leaked from one of the tanks. The radiation emanating from the puddle left on the ground was enough to give a bystander the industry’s five-year maximum permissible dose in just one hour. In October, half a ton of contaminated water spilled on to the ground and may have drained to the sea, when tanks overflowed with rainwater. 

“It’s clearly something they need to get a handle on,” Allison Macfarlane, chair of the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission, told the Guardian. “Water is a big issue for them, but they’ve also got to keep the reactor cores cool, and they’ve got to clean it up.” 

Tepco has taken on a US consultant, Lake Barrett, who led the NRC’s cleanup of Three Mile Island, the worst commercial nuclear power accident in [US] history. “It’s certainly confidence-shaking to hear about spills and inadvertent releases from the [wreckage]. Even though the radioactivity levels are quite small, the public certainly doesn’t have trust and confidence in Tepco’s ability to do the more important things like the de-fuelling, and that is a problem for them,” he says. 

In a November report, Tepco said it had set up 15 specialized teams to replace old bolt-fastened tanks with welded ones, install water level gauges, and up the number of patrols that inspect the tanks for leaks. While two thirds of the storage tanks are welded steel vessels, more than 300 are makeshift, added in haste to increase capacity at the site. They are made from steel sheets that are bolted together and sealed with plastic packing. 

Water stored in the tanks is contaminated with a host of radioactive substances. One of the most troubling is strontium-90, which mimics calcium when it gets into the body. The substance concentrates in bones, so even low levels in the environment can build up over time and become harmful. When released into the ocean, strontium works its way into fish bones, which can make catches unfit for consumption. The hazard will last a long time: strontium’s radioactivity takes 30 years to fall by half [— 300 years to decay to other isotopes]. 

Tepco is trying to decontaminate the water with an “advanced liquid processing system” (ALPS). In principle, the technology can strip all radioactive substances from the water, except tritium …which was spread widely through the environment by nuclear bomb tests in the 1950s and 1960s. Tepco claims the system will ultimately decontaminate more than 500 tons of water a day. But that may be optimistic. The equipment has suffered multiple failures. In the latest setback on [Dec. 1], an ALPS unit was shut down when a pipe began to leak acid. Workers wrapped a vinyl bag around the joint to stem the flow while Tepco investigates. 

Even at a rate of 500 tons a day, cleaning the stored water will take many years. But Tepco must get ALPS up and running. The company then needs to arrange disposal of the treated water, and the radioactive material filtered out by the system. The radioactive waste will go into containers and be sent for long-term storage. The tritium-laced water will be released into the Pacific [if Tepco gets its way], but Tepco has yet to get public support for the move. 

“The problem hasn’t gone away,” says Macfarlane. “The water is cleaner, but you still end up with tritium in there, so they’re going to have some tough decisions about what to do.” 

Fukushima is the first nuclear accident to release large amounts of radioactive material directly into the ocean. Radiation levels surged in seawater after the tsunami struck, with concentrations of cesium-137 recorded at 60 million Becquerels per cubic meter near the reactors. ….

Pacific Ocean contamination ongoing 

Tepco estimates that around 300 tons of contaminated groundwater still flow into the Pacific each day. The levels of radioactivity are small compared with the releases in 2011. Buesseler has measured contamination in water, fish and other organisms from a ship off the coast of Fukushima since the accident unfurled. He … says fish and other marine life will concentrate radioactive substances, making them unsuitable for consumption for years. “We’re not talking about levels that cause direct harm when I’m one kilometer offshore,” says Buesseler. “But through the uptake into the seafood and fisheries, you end up having to keep those closed, and that’s a billion dollar industry and a cultural loss for Japan.” 

Buesseler is critical of what he sees as false reassurances from the Japanese government. “They have said some silly things, [like] it’s ‘largely under control.’ That doesn’t really mean anything when you are out on a ship and you are seeing elevated levels of these isotopes. ‘Under control’ is not a good phrase for the situation right now,” he says. 

Tepco’s latest plan to stem the flow of radioactive groundwater into the ocean is to solidify the soil around the site to form an impermeable “icewall.” This should divert groundwater around the site, and stop it mixing with contaminated cooling water. The project will not be cheap. The Japanese government has pledged £300 million [$490 million] to help build the barrier, insisting that the danger of leaks and spills make the wall essential. Ice wall technology has been effective in the construction and mining industries, but has never been tried on the scale planned at Fukushima. Lake Barrett, the US consultant brought in by Tepco, is skeptical of the plan. “I don’t think it’ll make that big a difference. It’s several hundred million dollars, and some of that might be better spent on an integrated water plan,” he says. 

Even if the ice wall works, it could cause fresh problems. Groundwater flowing out to the ocean keeps seawater from seeping inland at Fukushima. Block that flow, or divert it, and saltwater is sure to encroach. Normally, this would not be a problem. But the soil around Fukushima is laden with radioactive cesium. The substance binds to clay in freshwater conditions, but crucially is released again by saltwater. 

“If you stop the fresh water flowing out, that would very likely cause the cesium in the ground to be released. You then have a pulse, of what is currently in some way safely buried, going back into the ocean,” says Buesseler. “It is certainly something they should think about.” 

More mishaps are inevitable at Fukushima. The [complex] is wrecked and [dismantling] will take decades of arduous, complex work. In Japan and in other countries, the crisis has already dented public confidence in nuclear power. That has harmed their economies, says Judge….. 

Judge said, “The straight story is the Japanese didn’t have a nuclear response plan. There were a lot of human errors during what happened at Fukushima. It was old technology, badly maintained. … Those are the facts. They have to be faced and dealt with.”