TEPCO will miss deadline of water decontamination

 March 17, 2015

Tepco to miss May deadline to treat 20,000 tons of Fukushima radioactive water

http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2015/03/17/national/tepco-to-miss-may-deadline-to-treat-20000-tons-of-fukushima-radioactive-water/#.VQg1fuF1Cos

JIJI

NARAHA, FUKUSHIMA PREF. – Tokyo Electric Power Co. said some 20,000 tons of radioactive water at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant will be left untreated as of May, missing its cleanup target.

Tepco cited the presence of relatively high levels of seawater-derived substances, including magnesium, and therefore it will take several more months to treat that portion of the contaminated water. The affected water represents 3 percent of the 600,000 tons of tainted water stored at the plant.

The rest of the contaminated water is expected to be treated by that month using either the Advanced Liquid Processing System, or ALPS, which can drastically reduce levels of 62 radioactive substances, or another system capable of removing strontium-90, a radioactive isotope that is particularly harmful for human health.

Tepco presented the estimates at a meeting Monday with the government held in Naraha, Fukushima Prefecture.

The plant operator initially targeted completion of the treatment of all radioactive water by the end of this month, but it pushed back the deadline to May due to a lower than anticipated running rate of the ALPS system.

Tepco will show later how long the water cleanup work will be prolonged, a senior company official told reporters after the meeting.

Also at the meeting, Tepco said it will likely be able to start freezing soil around the four shattered reactor buildings in April. The utility hopes to form an underground ice wall to block the inflow of groundwater into the facilities’ basements and thus stem the volume of radioactive water that it needs to take care of.

The soil freezing had been initially planned to start this month, but preliminary work was suspended for about a month amid safety checks following the death in January of a plant worker in an accident.

March 16, 2015

TEPCO delays making ice walls

http://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/english/news/20150317_02.html

Mar. 16, 2015 - Updated 23:48 UTC+1

Tokyo Electric Power Company has postponed a project designed to keep groundwater out of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, where it is trying to reduce the buildup of contaminated water at the site.

The company was planning to freeze soil around the crippled reactor buildings in order to create an underground wall of ice a kilometer and a half long.

The work was slated to start this month, but was postponed by one month following the accidental deaths of workers in January.

Work has scheduled to begin to freeze soil in one section, between the plant and a hill.

But TEPCO says it has not yet asked the nuclear regulator for permission to freeze another section between the plant and the sea, and it is unclear when the full frozen wall will be completed.

The buildup of radioactive water is another problem the utility is facing. TEPCO said it would process 600,000 tons of tainted water by the end of May. Now it says that 20,000 tons, including much amount of seawater, will not be finished by that time.