» TEPCO has no idea yet where to store radioactive rainwater in underground tanks

2013/11/07

TEPCO has yet to figure out what to do with 2,700 tons of radioactive rainwater now stored in two underground tanks at the Fukushima No.1 plant.

The Fukushima prefectural government has accused TEPCO of delaying handling this issue and requested it to quickly transfer the rainwater elsewhere.

A prefecture government officer said“It remains unknown why radioactive water (previously) leaked from some of the underground tanks, and no measures have been taken so far.We have been demanding that (TEPCO) transfer (the contaminated rainwater) as soon as possible.”

When two typhoons pounded the plant in October, radioactive water accumulating within barriers surrounding aboveground storage tanks threatened to spill over.

TEPCO lowered the water levels by releasing the rainwater behind barriers where radioactivity levels were confirmed to be well below provisional safety standards.

Where readings were found to be higher than the safety standards, TEPCO transferred the water to the two underground tanks. It had stopped using its underground storage tanks after water had been found leaking from some in April, but it said heavy rainstorms forced it to bring the underground tanks in which no leaks were detected back in use.

TEPCO had said that reusing the underground storage tanks is just a temporary measure as it intended to transfer the contaminated rainwater to the basements of the No. 2 and No. 3 reactor turbine buildings, where some radioactive water had already accumulated, as quickly as possible.

But it remains unclear how soon that will happen as large amounts of groundwater have been flowing into the basements each day–as well as rainwater transferred there from other locations–filling the sites and making it impossible to store additional radioactive water there.
<Media Report>
TEPCO struggling with disposal of stored contaminated rainwater(Asahi Newspaper)

Tags:leakage, news, radioactive water, reactors, TEPCO

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