Nearly everyone is familiar with the nuclear accident at the Fukushima nuclear power plant that followed the tsunami that hit Japan. But how many understand that the dangers and risks may not be passed? Especially for Americans living on the west coast of the United States (where two of my children and my young grandson currently live)? An article on Bill Moyers.com contains some frightening information and ought to have many Americans deeply concerned. Among the issues reviewed are the incompetence and dishonest of the owner of the devastated Fukushima plant to the danger of radiation contamination on the U. S. West Coast. Here are highlights:
All eyes are on the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant as major cleanup efforts are set to begin later this month, in the most significant test of the operator’s ability to manage the threats resulting from one of the biggest nuclear disasters ever. For two years now, the plant’s operator and the Japanese government have struggled to contain an ongoing series of crises at the devastated facility. But the situation has the potential to get worse. Here’s what you need to know.
The Problems
The operator of the Fukushima nuclear plant has come under severe criticism from nuclear energy experts for its handling of the cleanup at the crippled facility, decimated after the March 2011 tsunami.
Many say Tokyo Electric Power Co (Tepco), the Japanese utility company that operates the plant, has been grossly incompetent, deceptive and guilty of downplaying the health impacts resulting from the meltdown.
The Associated Press and Japan Today reported this week that tanks containing radioactive water were leaking or otherwise failing because they were hurriedly erected by inexperienced workers — including one auto mechanic who expressed his concern about the quality of his own work.
Researchers are concerned about the effects of the radioactive water on sea life and those who eat it. Last year, scientists reported that Pacific bluefin tuna migrating from coastal Japan to the waters off Southern California contained radioactive cesium isotopes from the Fukushima plant. The safety of Pacific fish following the disaster is up for debate.
And Fukushima, as well as other nuclear facilities in Japan, lie near 14 active fault lines, which the Japanese Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency (NISA) says the utilities are capable of withstanding. Last month, Canadian environmentalist David Suzuki expressed his fears that further damage to the Fukushima facility could prove catastrophic. “Three out of the four plants were destroyed in the earthquake and in the tsunami. The fourth one has been so badly damaged that the fear is, if there’s another earthquake of a seven or above, that building will go and then all hell breaks loose.”
Should the fourth reactor collapse, Suzuki said, it would be “bye bye Japan,” and “everybody on the west coast of North America should evacuate. Now if that isn’t terrifying, I don’t know what is.”
Later this month, Tepco is expected to begin the delicate task of removing over 1,500 spent fuel rods stored in a building heavily damaged by the March 2011 explosion. The rods are capable of producing radiation at levels 14,000 times greater than what was released when America dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima. It’s a highly dangerous operation that has never been attempted on such a scale before, and a key part of decommissioning the facility, which could cost $50 billion and take 40 years.
Former nuclear engineer Michael Friedlander says Tepco may be playing down the dangers of the operation. “The thing that keeps me up late at night is that they’re getting ready to unload the spent fuel in unit four,” said Friedlander, who spent 13 years operating US nuclear plants. “It has the potential if it doesn’t go well to create a very, very serious accident,” he told Bloomberg News.
The Politics
Both Tepco and the Japanese government have come under criticism for how they handled the disaster. “You have a government that is in total collusion with Tepco, the energy company. They’re lying through their teeth,” said Suzuki.
Of the attempts to stop the water from leaking, Suzuki said, “They don’t know what to do. And the thing we need is to get an international group of experts to go in with complete freedom to do what they suggest. And right now the Japanese government has too much pride to admit that.”
Fact checking Suzuki for Vice, David P. Ball contacted University of British Columbia physicist Marcello Pavan. Asked whether Tepco was indeed “lying through their teeth,” Pavan said, “That is absolutely correct, at least from what I see. Tepco has been minimizing the effects of what is happening. But here we have a large industrial concern lying to the government about an accident related to its business — is that news?”
A study conducted by Australia’s University of New South Wales says radiactive waters will reach the US sometime in early 2014 — and the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation reported earlier this month that radioactive waters from Fukushima had already arrived in Alaska.
Meanwhile, many of the 50,000 workers employed by subcontractors in the cleanup effort are being exposed to dangerous radiation levels while facing low wages and wage theft, reports Reuters. For some, the cost of speaking up was getting fired.
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