Wastewater disposal, the awesome task

January 23, 2015

Treating wastewater making slow progress

http://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/english/news/20150123_30.html

Jan. 23, 2015 - Updated 08:44 UTC+1

The amount of highly radioactive water at the plant increases by about 350 tons per day. The water mostly flows in from nearby mountains, and is pumped up and stored in tanks.

As of January 15th, around 280,000 tons were stored in 1,000 tanks. The plant has little room for more.

In August 2013, about 300 tons of contaminated water leaked from one of the tanks. The firm later made the promise to treat the water by March.

But the main water processing system, called ALPS, stopped operating many times due to trouble. The company remodeled it and installed another system that only removes strontium from the water.

The firm considers water processed when strontium is removed.

But even this less ambitious goal required the operator to treat 4,000 tons of water per day to meet the deadline.

Processed water still contains radioactive substances and must be stored in tanks.

The firm has not decided how to dispose of the water