Moving to higher grounds

April 16, 2013

Radioactive water set to be shifted to aboveground tanks soon: TEPCO

http://mainichi.jp/english/english/newsselect/news/20130416p2a00m0na014000c.html

Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO) has announced that the transfer of radiation-tainted water in underground reservoirs to aboveground tanks at the Fukushima No. 1 Nuclear Power Plant is to start on April 16 at the earliest -- a couple of days behind the initial schedule.

The measures come following a string of leakages of radioactive water from the No. 1 through No. 3 cisterns out of seven underground reservoirs at the crippled nuclear plant. The No. 4 and No. 6 cisterns -- whose structures are the same as those of the leaking reservoirs -- also contain tainted water.

The transfer of tainted water -- which had originally been scheduled to start on April 14 -- will begin as soon as the method's safety is confirmed during final checks on April 16.

TEPCO explained on April 15 that the planned water transfer was delayed due to a leakage of contaminated water from pipes during work to transfer water from the No. 3 cistern to the No. 6 cistern underground on April 11, which required "unexpected inspections."

"Even though the start (of the water transfer) was delayed, it won't affect the planned completion of the transfer (in June)," said TEPCO spokesman Masayuki Ono.

Regarding the reason why a power outage took place on April 5 during work to set up metal wire to ward off small animals from a power supply system for the spent nuclear fuel pool of the No. 3 reactor, which suspended the cooling system for about three hours, TEPCO explained that a piece of wire sticking out from the metal wire touched the terminal of a switchboard, shorting out and charring both the wire and the terminal.

"The fact that power had not been turned off before the work is partly to blame. We will strive to prevent a recurrence," TEPCO said.

The metal wire was set up following another earlier power outage in March believed to have been triggered by a rat that touched a switchboard, disabling cooling systems for spent fuel pools at the nuclear complex.

TEPCO moves irradiated water to ground tanks

http://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/english/news/20130416_33.html

The operator of the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant has begun moving contaminated water from leaking underground storage pools to tanks above ground.

Tokyo Electric Power Company, or TEPCO, plans to move most of the contaminated water to tanks above ground after a series of leaks were found in some of the 7 underground storage pools.

On Tuesday, TEPCO began transferring about 20 tons of water per hour from the No. 2 pool to a tank more than 400 meters to the southeast. The No. 2 pool is the first of those where leaks were found.

More than 23,000 tons of contaminated water is scheduled to be transferred by early June.

Priority will be on the No. 1 and 2 pools, as they are thought to be leaking the most.

TEPCO says because the pipes being used to move the water will cover a long distance it will step up monitoring activities to ensure no water escapes.

The underground pools will continue to leak during the operation. The firm plans to pump the contaminated water that leaks back into the pools, to minimize effects on the environment.

TEPCO plans to quickly install more tanks, as contaminated water at the plant is continuing to increase by about 400 tons per day. This will not fundamentally solve the problem and the firm will explore other ways to try to deal with this situation.