14 DAY TRIAL // On Wednesday, the Nuclear Regulation Authority (NRA) in Japan announced that the country's Fukushima nuclear plant was leaking contaminated water into its surrounding environment.
What's more, the NRA fears that some of this contaminated water has made it all the way to the Pacific Ocean, thus endangering the wellbeing of this marine environment.
When confronted by the NRS, Tokyo Electric Power Co. (Tepco), i.e. the company in charge of operating the nuclear plant, argued that, if the facility was indeed polluting the environment, the leak probably came from a pit containing highly radioactive water, Japan Times reports.
Tepco admits that this pit was damaged when an earthquake and a tsunami hit the plant in March 2011. The company also says that, at that time, the pit did spill some of its content.
However, it denies having any knowledge of any recent leaks that originate in this part of the nuclear plant, the same source details.
Recent investigations have revealed that groundwater samples collected at the site of the Fukushima nuclear plant contain high levels of cesium, tritium and several other radioactive compounds.
Some of these samples were collected in areas close to the coastline, hence the fact that the NRA is quite convinced that radioactive materials have reached the Pacific Ocean.
Tepco has denied this rumor, but the NRA is having a rather difficult time taking its word for granted and trusting that the company's statements that the situation is well under control are true to facts.
“We must find the cause of the contamination and put the highest priority on implementing countermeasures,” Chairman Shunichi Tanaka argued during a recent meeting of the NRA.
In the aftermath of the Fukushima nuclear disaster, Tepco promised to take steps towards protecting the Pacific Ocean from any potential leaks.
More precisely, the company said that it would build a deeply sunken coastal containment wall that would keep the radioactive groundwater from seeping into the ocean.
Work on this wall should be completed by 2015, yet the NRA urges that Tepco speed things up and finish work on this project as soon as possible.