Additional tanks still needed

September 29, 2015

TEPCO to install additional storage tanks for contaminated water at Fukushima plant

http://mainichi.jp/english/english/newsselect/news/20150929p2a00m0na011000c.html

Storage tanks for radioactively contaminated water at the stricken Fukushima No. 1 Nuclear Power Plant will be increased by 14,000 metric tons in volume by April next year, the government and Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO) announced on Sept. 28.

The planned installation is aimed at preparing for additional tainted water in case impermeable walls currently under construction at the plant turn out to be less effective than expected. The walls are meant to prevent an influx of groundwater into nuclear reactor buildings by freezing underground soil surrounding those buildings.

Currently, there are underground water storage tanks and other tanks with a combined capacity of some 950,000 metric tons. As of Sept. 24, contaminated water had taken up some 700,000 tons of the capacity, leaving around 250,000 tons worth of room. TEPCO is planning to install 20 additional tanks with a capacity of 700 tons each at two vacant lots on the plant's premises.

A daily amount of roughly 300 tons of contaminated water has been accumulating at the plant due to the inflow of groundwater into reactor buildings. In order to keep the amounts down, the government and TEPCO have been building the impermeable walls. Earlier this month, TEPCO started releasing into the ocean treated underground water, which had been pulled up from wells around the reactor buildings.

Because the effects of such measures are "still unforeseeable," according to an official at the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, the government and TEPCO decided to introduce additional tanks.