80 more workers at Fukushima Daiichi

 October 16, 2013

TEPCO to add 80 more to workforce to improve toxic water management

http://mainichi.jp/english/english/newsselect/news/20131016p2g00m0dm035000c.html

TOKYO (Kyodo) -- Tokyo Electric Power Co. on Tuesday told nuclear regulators that it is assigning an addition 80 workers to manage a massive amount of radioactive water accumulating at its crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in order to improve its efforts to deal with the problem.

The additional workforce will include 20 employees from the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear complex in Niigata Prefecture, which TEPCO is seeking to restart to improve its business situation as the utility's business situation has worsened following the 2011 nuclear crisis.

The plan was included in a report the company compiled at the request of the Nuclear Regulation Authority following a series of water leak incidents at the Fukushima plant.

The report said that a lack of information-sharing was seen behind one of the incidents, in which about 430 liters of toxic water spilled from a tank after workers tried to inject more water into the nearly full container set up on uneven ground.

According to TEPCO, the number of people it has added to the workforce for water management from mid-September will total about 200.

Radioactive water is increasing daily at the Fukushima plant, hit by a huge earthquake and tsunami in March 2011, because groundwater is seeping into reactor buildings and mixing with water that is used to cool the three crippled reactors.

Such contaminated water is kept in some 1,000 tanks set up at the site, and TEPCO is struggling to prevent leaks from the storage tanks.