Tepco could be forced to dump hundreds of tonnes of contaminated water, specialist says

Mar 11, 2014 09:06 GMT  ·  By
Specialist says contaminated water from Fukushima might have to be released into the Pacific Ocean
   Specialist says contaminated water from Fukushima might have to be released into the Pacific Ocean

Dale Klein, a senior adviser to Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco, for short), claims that the operator of the crippled Fukushima nuclear plant might soon find that it has no choice except dump quite a lot of contaminated water originating from this facility into the Pacific Ocean.

The way Dale Klein, who is a former chairman of the US nuclear regulatory commission, sees things, doing so is preferable to storing contaminated water on site, The Guardian tells us.

Thus, the specialist says that a controlled release of treated water into the nearby ocean would be safer than choosing to keep the potentially dangerous water within the nuclear facility's premises.

“The one issue that keeps me awake at night is TEPCO’s long-term strategy for water management. Storing massive amounts of water on-site is not sustainable.”

“A controlled release is much safer than keeping the water on-site,” the specialist told a group of reporters visiting the nuclear plant.

“TEPCO is making progress on water management but I’m not satisfied yet. It’s frustrating that the company takes four or five steps forward, then two back.”

“And every time you have a leakage it contributes to a lack of trust. There’s room for improvement on all fronts,” Dale Klein went on to argue.

Just for the record, it must be said that the nuclear plant is now home to about 300,000 tonnes of contaminated water that is tucked away in as many as 1,200 tanks.

Interestingly enough, it would appear that, at least for the time being, Tepco has no intention to take Dale Klein's advice.

Instead, it wants to try to keep the situation at the Fukushima nuclear plant under control with the help of so-called underground frozen walls.

Information shared with the public says that these walls would serve to keep contaminated water stemming from the facility's damaged reactors from coming into contact and mixing with groundwater.

By the looks of it, Tepco wishes to first set in place a fairly small underground frozen wall.

Should this structure prove efficient, the company is to invest in a 2-kilometer (roughly 1.24 miles) long frozen wall that would surround all the nuclear reactors on site.

According to Akira Ono, the nuclear plant's manager, dealing with the contaminated water that has accumulated at the facility since March 2011 until present day is currently much more important than moving forward with plans to decommission Fukushima.

“The most pressing issue for us is the contaminated water, rather than decommissioning. Unless we address this issue the public will not be assured and the evacuees will not be able to return home,” Akira Ono reportedly said in a statement.