Nuke plant begins pumping radioactive water - BusinessWeek

By MARI YAMAGUCHI and YURI KAGEYAMA

TOKYO

The operator of the nuclear plant crippled the Japan began to pump highly radioactive water in the basement of turbine of a reactor building of a storage area fortune - a key step in the stabilization of the complex.

Remove the 25,000 tons of contaminated water that collected in the basement of unit 2 of Fukushima Dai-ichi will help workers access for reactors to restore vital cooling systems which were eliminated on March 11 tsunami which left more than 27 000 people dead or missing.

Step Tuesday was one of the many in a long process to resolve the crisis. Tokyo Electric Power Co. in a roadmap exit over the weekend that would take up to nine months to reach a cold stop plants.

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Precious water: Indians join fight for access to the Lake, Oklahoma

Oklahoma City and rapid growth of the suburbs as Edmond want to see the water flowing through their shower one day. Do the same for the masters of the water of the County of Tarrant, Tex, 200 miles South, which seek to provide new subdivisions around Fort Worth and continuing to access.

Now an another rival has arrived: tribes, Choctaw and Chickasaw, exiled to Southeast Oklahoma 175 years and given land in the region.

Gregory Pyle, Chief of the Choctaw nation, said that his tribe would sue to win a portion of the water if necessary. "All this water was controlled by the Indian tribes in this area" said Mr. Pyle. "It's all the Choctaw and Chickasaw water."

The tribes want the State to recognize as co-owners. The issue has been more and more on the minds of planners in the development of fast cities as they contemplate the prospect of other existing water sources.

By satire, water should also important that the oil in the economic and political life of the country, as the race of parties to appropriate supplies. As drought exacerbated by climate change and population growth expand in Great Plains and the Southwest, Indian water business looms as a largely non-settled - and troubling - factor that can affect the price and availability of water to millions of homes and businesses.

"There are enormous and acquired water rights that are unquantified, said Taiawagi Helton, an expert on Indian law and the law on water of the College of the University of Oklahoma law and a member of the Cherokee tribe."

Transforming theoretical rights of what is widely described as "wet water" under the terms of court long ago decisions may take decades. Each species of other local water users, the Government of the State, the Ministry of the Interior, the local delegation of the Congress and the Federal Court System.

A decision of the Supreme Court 103 years to effectively tribes in Western States at the head of the line in a period of shortage of water, or if a pool of water is oversubscribed. But officials of the Ministry of the Interior want to be certain that there is no losers when the rights of a tribe are recognized.

If the Choctaw and Chickasaw were to acquire rights on water pursuant to the decision of the old Court, say legal experts, it could prompt a new surge of similar rights in all of Oklahoma, who has 39 tribes recognized by the Federal Government. It could also encourage the tribes more in the West to start their reserved rights.

Despite the age of the Supreme Court decision, known as the doctrine of winters, efforts to quantify the rights on the water of the tribes made a crawl until 1980 and 1990. Since then, about three dozen Indian claims were tabulated, especially well from establishments. The Ministry of the Interior now chairs in negotiations of the water with 18 tribes.

A push by the Department and senators in Arizona, Montana and New-Mexico resolved four claims late last year. Yet unlike the tribes whose rights were recently signed into law, the Choctaw and Chickasaw have more reservations, which raises the question of whether water claims should be linked to a specific land grant. The land of the tribes was crumbled to the members of the tribes more than 110 years ago.

Yet, "the water has never been removed," said Stephen Greetham, counsel for the Chickasaw nation.

Where the Choctaw and Chickasaw reserves, their lands covered nearly all of southeastern Oklahoma and is watered by the Kiamichi River, whose tributary, Jackfork Creek, was seized by the dam of Sardis in 1982. Objectives tribes are having an ownership and control over water, to retain as much water as possible in the Lake and to strengthen the recreational industry of southeastern Oklahoma.

And, assuming that water is valuable, they want to share the benefits of selling or renting.

This perspective is disturbing for sites that could be faced with shortages of water, like the Oklahoma City and suburbs as Edmond, which the municipal Council has already voted to issue $ 102.5 million in bonds to help the Sardis Lake 110 miles to the North, to new homes faucets. It is even more disturbing in the Southwest, where the irrigated agriculture and industries consume available water.

Daniel McCool, Director of the programme of environmental studies at the University of Utah, has warned that more widely tribes are seeking to assert their rights, the risk that the federal courts - the Supreme Court in particular - will be crop or even lose sense of earlier decisions establishing the rights of the Indians. "This is the case-law and jurisprudence can be changed," said Professor McCool.

Political repression against the rights of the Indians could come from other local users who fear for their livelihoods, said Chris Kenney, a former Federal bargaining of rights of water now living in Oklahoma.

"You need local populations who used the water for many, many years," said Mr. Kenney. "In many cases they run a huge risk."

A fair settlement, approved by Congress and signed by President Obama gave the water to a Colorado River tributary of the Navajo tribe. Two cities New-Mexico, Bloomfield and Aztec, continue to reverse.

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Humala, Fujimori appears headed to runoff water - to the Peru CNN International

A woman with her votes Sunday in Lima toddler, Peru.They are top vote-getters in electionCenter-right candidates appear to have cannibalized votesAnalysts disagree on who has the upper hand in the second roundA runoff election will be held in June

(CNN) - Peruvian polls appeared anything but Monday confirmed preliminary official account showed that with almost 90% of presidential ballots counted, the country was headed for a run-off between nationalist Ollanta Humala and former member of Congress Keiko Fujimori.

Pedro Pablo Kuczynski, economist who came in third, was not admitted as of Monday afternoon, but admitted that the runoff would "probably" be between Humala and Fujimori.

With nearly 90% of the votes counted, Humala had 31.37% of the vote, compared to that of Fujimori 23.22% and 19.23% of Kuczynski.

Humala Fujimori runoff is one that many voters in the middle and upper classes may be poorly have Stomacher.

For many, "this sounds like a terrible choice," said Julio Carrion, Professor of political science and international relations at the Peruvian University of Delaware.

Before the vote, polls which asked voters which they wanted not for President were led by Humala and Fujimori, carrion said.

Peruvian writer and Nobel laureate Mario Vargas Llosa has characterized the choice between them as a choice between cancer and AIDS, State press reports.

The President of left Humala appeared a threat to economic policies on the market, adopted by the country for decades. And Fujimori was concerned about people with catches of position that would forgive his father, former President Alberto Fujimori, who is serving a sentence of 25 years for violations of human rights. The two candidates have softened or backtracked on these posts controversial since then.

Particularly remarkable in this election was that apparent third-, fourth and fifth place finishers - Kuczynski, former President Alejandro Toledo and former Mayor of Lima Luis Castaneda - had virtually indistinguishable positions of centre-right, carrion said. Combined, the three represent 45% of the votes cast in the election.

Fujimori and Humala is top of the page because that middle-of-the-pack candidates cannibalized each other, said.

45% In the middle to become the field of battle for Humala and Fujimori heading, in the second round he said.

Humala, who lost in the second round of the 2006 elections, will be poorly to convince people that it is not an ally of Hugo Chavez that his critics to be. Humala stated that it has evolved, and its choice of advisers shows that its moderation may be sincere, said carrion.

Still, "Fujimori will have a time easier to convince people to vote for it," he said.

Concerns about Fujimori, who at 19 years, was first lady the nation, including whether it will have an authoritarian trend like his father and allow corruption and have dealings with unsavory characters, as he has done.

In addition to these concerns, political Fujimori are not unlike those averages three candidates, said carrion.

But, according to an analysis by the Eurasia Group, Humala who have the upper hand in the second round.

Humala will benefit from a strong desire for change, among voters analyst de group Eurasia Erasto Almeida wrote.

"First of all, he would make a more persuasive case that it represents"change"who want to most Peruvians," he wrote. "" "". Second, most voters have a negative reminder of the Government of the father (that of Fujimori). ?

Almeida added, "If Humala wins he will try to strike a balance between his desire to increase the role of the State in the economy without compromising macroeconomic stability, something which could be difficult."

Peru can expect a growth of 7% this year, the World Bank and is one of the most dynamic economies in Latin America. The country entered the crisis financial world relatively safe and sound, growth of GDP, job creation and the reduction of poverty, according to the Ministry of economy and Finance of the Peru.

The good news comes with expectations high of Peruvians, who want to see the rewards of this progress in a tangible way. While the economy as a quite Similarly, wages remained depressed during the same period. The country has experienced a significant decline in poverty over a decade, although it still stands to about 35%.

The two top vote-getters must face each other in a runoff June 5.Mariano Castillo of CNN has contributed to this report.

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Shovel, strain, in addition to the high water of the stack

But now, there is increasing competition.

As Fargo, s.d., confronts his third major flood in three years, residents, businesses and local governments are moving at a number of modern solutions to retain the waters of the Red River.

"I've seen enough sandbags for a life", said Alan Kallmeyer, committed dozens of friends and co-workers of the past two years for a full day of this exhausting masonry, filling and stacking thousands of sandbags around his house on the edge of river.

This year, Mr. Kallmeyer has purchased a device already in use by several of its neighbors, rings of his house with a tube of four feet of water. This aircraft, known as an AquaDam, cost of nearly $ 8,000. But it took a few hours of free implement strain and will be just as easy to disassemble.

Flooding is already the fourth largest on record. The River is expected to Crest this weekend in about 40 feet and remain high for more than three weeks, according to the National Weather Service. But the leaders of the city, said that recent experience, mitigation efforts and ample warning left the well prepared city.

Indeed, Fargo seems bracing to repel an invading army. Once more there are many piles of usual sand and levies in the land. But this year, for the first time, less the city will be protected by sandbags by barriers of alternate, as the lattice in the form of l AquaFence, industrial-size bags of sand walls called TrapBags and the earth filled with wire cages of Hesco bastions.

"It is pretty new to have as many products," said Tim Bertschi, an engineer of the Army Corps of Engineers flood.

Mr. Bertschi said that the Federal Government should observe closely to see how well these systems has worked in the coming days.

"It is a test of real life." This is not lab stuff, "he says. "But it would only be there if they didn't think it worked."

The city used approximately 3 million sandbags in 2009, the year of its worst recorded floods. Last year, the fifth worst, filled and stacked City $ 1.5 million. But now, even if an army of volunteers began work earlier than usual to Fargo "of sandbags Central" and filled almost $ 3 million, the city has used only about 500 000 bags of sand.

The city decided that reduce the need for volunteers worth the additional expense of new systems, which could be implemented quickly by small teams of trained workers.

"People are tired, really tired, the use of sand bags,"stated Dennis Walaker, the Mayor of Fargo.""

In total, he y 3.4 kilometres of sand bags, down 5.5 kilometres last year. Alternatives will be extended to more than 4 km, up to a tenth of a mile last year.

"We are doing our best to try to get to the point where we can eliminate bags of sand," said April Walker, an engineer who is in charge of the fight against the floods to the city. "We are not at this stage yet."

Everett Waid, the inventor based in Florida of TrapBags, said that he has sold more than 1 million the to the city of Fargo and the County of Cass just after showing his product at the Expo of Fargo flood.

Helge Kroegenes, President of AquaFence, Norway, said Fargo that such an order big that he could complete only a quarter of this.

And David Doolaege, the California inventor of AquaDam, said he spent several weeks travelling around the Fargo area deliver its devices to more than 50 private houses.

The three men, not surprisingly, were little cwos humble tool they trying to replace, and describes the sandbags as messy, cumbersome and prone to leaks and requiring an unsustainable amount of hand of gross work.

"Cave is that", said Mr. Doolaege. "They put some dirt in a buckskin and blocked their cave." It was the first bag of sand. And it is always the same premise - fill a container and their stack. ?

But Ken Hellevang, a Professor of engineering at the University of State of the North Dakota, who wrote a training manual on the use of sandbags, said that they are often the best option. They require little training to use; can be implemented in small, uneven or hard to reach places; and can be quickly more stacked higher river levels.

The owner of the warehouse of bags of sand to Fargo, e. John Carlson, said that he refused offers to sell the latest alternatives because it believes they are tested. This year, it sold over two million of old-fashioned bags.

"It is a simple, proven technology that works," he said.

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48 foot wall of water struck nuclear site in the Japan

An image taken video published by TEPCO shows a large wave hit the power plant of Fukushima Daiichi March 11.New: Video shows March 11 tsunami flooding the nuclear plant should now 2 generators of reactorEngineers relief review water levels increase in concentrations of reactor was restarted reactor No. 1 condenserNitrogen

Tokyo (cnn) - a brief video clip published Saturday captures the massive tsunami that paralysed Japan Fukushima Daiichi plant, showing the wall of water that slammed shut at the facility and created an ongoing crisis.

The video shows giant wave generated by the earthquake of March 11 historic crashing on the dike of the plant and engulfing the installation, with a sheet of rising higher than buildings spray this House six reactors. Tokyo Electric Power, the factory owner, told journalists that the wall of water was likely 14 to 15 metres (45 to 48 feet) higher than the normal level of the seas - easily an overwhelming seawall of 5 meters of the plant.

The video was shot from high ground approximately 900 metres south of the plant by a worker who evacuated before the shock of the tsunami, the Tokyo Electric Power Company stated by releasing the clip of six seconds.

Photos published by the society showed broken Windows, scattered papers and ceiling tiles that hang in any annex Office now empty factory. Two workers were killed in the basement of the turbine of the No. 4 reactor plant, when the tsunami hit, and their bodies were found only last week.

The tsunami was knocked unconscious generators and pumps needed to cool the three reactors of plant operations after the earthquake of magnitude 9, leaving engineers struggling to prevent a disaster larger than these units of overheating of radioactive nuclei. In response to the earthquake, Japanese regulators has published more stringent standards for the nuclear plants emergency power Saturday.

Plants must have two diesel generators as backup for each unit of reactor power, said Hidehiko Nishiyama, the chief spokesman for the nuclear and industrial safety agency of Japan. Current regulations require that a generator unit.

Plant workers began to lay the pipes at the level of the ground between the reactor units and processing of radioactive waste where engineers hope pump contaminated water which has been build, Sakae MutoDirector of the division of nuclear energy of the utility, said Saturday.

Workers were slope of hundreds of tons of water per day in reactors in an effort to keep them cool until normal traffic systems can be restored. The No. 2 reactor is supposed to be highly radioactive water leaks, of which some were spill in the Pacific until Wednesday, while the basements flooded in turbine of all plants are three units makes it impossible to restore powersaid officials of the company.

And engineers have been added nitrogen in the envelope of primary containment reactor No. 1, a movement to counter a buildup of flammable hydrogen in the unit. Inert nitrogen displaces oxygen that can fuel an explosion, as the explosion of hydrogen which blew apart buildings surrounding units 1 and 3 in the days following the earthquake.

The accumulation of hydrogen is a symptom of fuel rods damaged in the reactor core. But the Tokyo Electric called the chances of the explosion of an another "extremely low". And new equipment allowed engineers to increase the concentration of nitrogen from 98% to 99% Saturday, Nishiyama said.

Workers returned to the factory of Friday following a replica of magnitude 7.1 late Thursday night that forced them to evacuate for about eight hours, said Japanese authorities. Replica not believe have inflicted further damage to the plant, Tokyo Electric and Agency Security reported Friday.Hiroo Saso and Gen Shimada contributed to this report by CNN.

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Japan: Leak of Radioactive water arrested

Expert speaks water radioactive effectsNEW: drop of water levels of sea suddenly in sea water new trials NEW: nitrogen being injected into unit 1 due to leakage of buildupOne of hydrogen from highly radioactive water, unit No. 2, Ocean Pacific was stoppedBut one official said, "we cannot be optimistic, because we have been able to connect it.

Tokyo (cnn) - iodine radioactive in seawater around the nuclear Central Fukushima Daiichi fell sharply even before that workers connected to a water leak would be its crippled no. 2 reactor, owner of the factory said Wednesday night.

Stop the highly radioactive water flows into the Pacific Ocean has been a win key for workers who have struggled to keep reactors for the plant damaged by the earthquake of overheating for almost four weeks. But the Tokyo Electric Power Co., and a senior Japanese official warned that the fight is far from over.

Concentrations of iodine 131 had been as high as 7.5 million times standards in water directly behind the factory after the leak was discovered Saturday. They had dropped below 4% of this amount in the 24 hours before the leak had been cut off on Wednesday morning, according to figures released by Tokyo Electric.

The level remained 280 000 times higher than the legal limit, but these concentrations were significantly dropping as the water flowed in the Pacific. Levels of caesium-137 mingle were significantly but remains 61 000 times the legal standard, according to the Tokyo Electric water sampling data.

Samples of checkpoint 20 kilometres (12.5 km) southeast of the plant levels of iodine 131 low levels at 1.5 legal times, with no reading of cesium.

Said Japanese authorities believe that the water leaking was part of 8 metric tons (2,100 gallons) per hour pumping in the No. 2, one of the three reactor that suffered damage to the heart after the severe earthquake that struck the North of the Japan on March 11. The water has been leaks in the basement of the plant of turbine unit, carrying with it the radioactive particles which are the by-product of nuclear reactors.

Until Wednesday, the fluid is cast in the sea of a shaft concrete cracked near the turbine plant water intake. Workers managed to use a polymer nicknamed silica based "liquid glass" seal of the breach on Wednesday morning, but top spokesman for the Japanese Government on the crisis said responsible Government and utilities other problems.

We cannot be optimistic because we have been able to connect it
-Secretary General of the Government of Japan Yukio Edano

"Is it completely stopped?" Y all the other areas where the (radioactive) water is published? "the Secretary General of Government Yukio Edano, the spokesman said. "We cannot be optimistic, because we have been able to plug it."

Hidehiko Nishiyama and nuclear safety agency said Japanese industrial water now "can lead to leaks more somewhere else."

Tokyo Electric started non-flammable pumping of nitrogen into the primary containment reactor No. 1 end vessel Wednesday in what it says, it was a precautionary measure to counter a possible accumulation of hydrogen.

"The possibility of an explosion of hydrogen is extremely low", the company announced Wednesday night. "But more hydrogen may eventually develop in the containment vessel."

The accumulation of hydrogen is a symptom of overheating of the fuel rods and can cause explosions as spectacular explosions which blew the roofs off buildings in reactor No. 1 and no. 3 days after the earthquake on March 11. But the Tokyo Electric said that he did not believe that an explosion was imminent.

The radioactive nuclei of units 1-3 were damaged when the tsunami that followed the earthquake flooded plant, knocking on the power of its cooling systems and deactivation of the emergency generator to restore electricity. Engineers have responded by pumping water in the outside reactors to stave off a feared collapse, but they are now struggling with what to do with thousands of tons of contaminated fluids now.

Since Monday evening, the plant less radioactive discharge around 10,000 tonnes of water in the ocean, in large part to the place in a tank of waste for supercharged coolant leaking reactor No. 2.

"Currently, they are not systems implemented at their disposal for the treatment of liquid waste of FDR, and they are generating waste liquids rad at a rate of approximately 400 000 litres per day," said Michael Friedlander, a plant operator former nuclear power. "Therefore, without a doubt, if they are put in place systems to manage that, they will have to continue dumping water in the ocean.".

Tokyo Electric had released about three-quarters of the water - also from the subdrains below reactors 5 and 6 - by Wednesday evening and had reduced its estimate of what has been the subject of dumping of the treatment facility. But the discharge, the Japanese officials called an emergency measure attracted protests from neighbours of South Korea and angry fishermen in the country.

Edano said Wednesday that the move was "inevitable" and that it would reduce the harm to the environment. But he told journalists, "we must have reported (more information) for people who may be concerned, in particular for neighbouring countries".

"It was a measure to prevent more serious marine contamination, but we need to explain the reasoning better,"he says."

Members of the association of the Japan fishing have expressed their anger in a Wednesday morning meetings with representatives of Tokyo Electric, complaining that they had argued against the first and that he did not say that later that the process will begin. Edano, said the Japanese Government plans "allowance" to give a more immediate impetus to fishermen, advance a more final payment plan which can be established in the future.

Experts have said that probable releases pose risks to health in the long term for human or marine life. It also helps that most of the radiatioactive detected particles are iodine-131, which lost half of its radiation every eight days.

Discharge of emergency amounting to approximately five swimming pools, compared to "about 300 trillion pools" that meet the Pacific Ocean, said Timothy Jorgensen, President of the Security Commission of radiation at Georgetown University Medical Center.

"Hope that the ocean turbulence and currents is quickly dispersed it so that it gets very dilute concentrations relatively quickly."

After a tumultuous weeks, utility and Government officials have described conditions recently in the reactors and spent nuclear fuel as generally stable pools. Levels of radiation airborne in the vicinity and later, at the same time, have been constant decline.

Yet, the existence of large quantities of radioactive water collected around the installation suggests that there may be other leaks - and other problems. Hiroo Saso, Susan Olson and Tsukushi Ikeda contributed to this report by CNN.

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Japan: Leak of Radioactive water arrested

反序列化操作 "translate" 的响应消息的正文时出现错误。读取 XML 数据时，超出最大字符串内容长度配额 (8192) 。通过更改在创建 XML 读取器时所使用的 XmlDictionaryReaderQuotas 对象的 MaxStringContentLength 属性，可增加此配额。 第 1 行，位置为 9130。
Expert talks radioactive water effectsNEW: A top Japan's fishery group claims Tokyo Electric ignored radiation concernsOne leak of highly radioactive water, from unit No.. 2, into the Pacific Ocean has been stoppedBut an official says, "we cannot be optimistic, just because we were able to plug this one" Local fishermen could get short-term payments, on top of long-term compensation

Tokyo (CNN) - Workers scored a key victory Wednesday in their struggle to gain the upper hand in the weeks-long crisis at the Fukishima Daiichi nuclear power facility, though a top Japanese official cautioned that the fight was far from over.

At daybreak, authorities with the Tokyo Electric Power Company noticed that water was no longer gushing into the Pacific Ocean from the turbine building of the No. 2 reactor, one of six operated by the utility at its plant..

Radiation levels in the water tested 7.5 million times the legal limit on Saturday. On Tuesday, it was still 5 million times above the norm.

An initial attempt to for concrete to fill up the 20-centimeter (8-inch) crack, through which this water was gushing, failed. And there were immediate indications that the injection Sunday of no. a silica-based polymer dubbed "liquid glass" worked either - until Wednesday morning.

The apparent success in plugging up the cracked concrete shaft means that, as of Wednesday afternoon, there were no. known major radioactive emissions into the air, water or ground.

Still, Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano soon thereafter told reporters that the crisis - which has been marked by leaks, explosions and apologies since the March 11 earthquake and tsunami knocked out the systems used to cool the plant's nuclear fuel - is not over.

"is it completely stopped?" "Are there any other areas where (radioactive) water is being released?" Edano said. "we cannot be optimistic, just because we were able to plug this one."

We cannot be optimistic just because we were able to plug this one
-Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano

Hidehiko Nishiyama, an official with Japan's nuclear and industrial safety agency, said Wednesday that authorities are aware that other problems could arise, especially as excess water may still be flooding the No. 2 unit's turbine building basement.

"(We) are aware that water build-up may lead to more leakage somewhere else," he said.

Meanwhile, the same official said that almost all of the roughly 10,000 tons of radioactive water from the plant's waste water treatment facility had been dumped into the Pacific Ocean as of noon Wednesday.

This was done to make room in the waste water building for the much more radioactive water that will be pumped from in and around the No.. 2 unit.

Edano explained that it was a trade-off, with reasoning that dumping that water authorities, on the whole, had 1: 200, 000ths the amount of radiation, "voir" and was a way to minimize harm to the environment.

Edano conceded that authorities did not a good enough job explaining the plan - announced and begun Monday - to toss a total of 11,500 tons (including some from in and around the Nos. 5 and 6 units) into the Pacific Ocean.

Officials in nearby countries, as well as in Japan itself, "have pointed out that we have not been fully reporting," he said Wednesday.

"we should have reported (more information) to the people who may be concerned, especially to the neighboring countries," Edano said, amid reports from South Korean media that officials in Seoul were among those upset.

"It was a measure to prevent more serious marine contamination, but we needed to explain the reasoning better."

Local fishermen were among those riled by the deliberate release of toxic materials into the sea, potentially adding to levels of radiation measured several hundred-thousand times the legal limit at monitoring posts a few dozen meters from the nuclear facility.

Members of Japan's fishery association voiced their displeasure in a Wednesday morning meeting with Tokyo Electric officials. The fishing industry trade group's officials claimed they felt totally ignored after they asked the utility not to dump radioactive water into the sea – only to find out, hours later, the process began.

Moreover, the association called out Tokyo Electric for the company's previous claims that nuclear power is safe and that such accidents would never happen.

Fishermen's angst has intensified with the discovery, announced Tuesday, of abnormally high levels of radioactive iodine "in one sample of fresh fish." This led Japanese authorities to regulate the radiation in seafood for the first time.

Edano acknowledged on Wednesday the difficulties facing the fishing industry and the need to keep them abreast of major developments that might affect the safety, and quality of seafood.

The Japanese government is considering 'provisional compensation' to give a more immediate boost to fishermen, ahead of a more final payment plan that may be established in the future.

Some farmers, too, are expected to get pay-outs following the imposition of restrictions of certain produce and milk due to radiation concerns tied to the nuclear crisis.

The concerns notwithstanding, experts said the release of radiation in seawater - given the current plan, and particularly if there are no further leaks of the most toxic substances - likely won't pose any long-term health risks to humans or sea life. It also helps that most of the radiation detected is iodine-131, which loses half its radiation every eight days.

The dump of the 11,500 tons of radioactive water equates to about five swimming pools full, compared to "about 300 trillion swimming pools of water" that fill the Pacific Ocean, said Timothy Jorgensen, chairman of the radiation safety committee at Georgetown University Medical Center.

"So debate the churning of the ocean and the currents will quickly disperse this so that it gets to very dilute concentrations relatively quickly."

After a tumultuous first few weeks, utility and government officials have described conditions recently in the plant's reactors and spent nuclear fuel pools as generally stable. Levels of airborne radiation nearby and further away, meanwhile, steadily have been declining.

Still, the existence of significant amounts of collected radioactive water around the facility suggests that there may be other leaks - and other problems. And there's still a big issue in that workers are still injecting massive amounts of water in order to keep nuclear fuel cool.

"Maintaining the cooling by water is almost impossible, and that is just creating more radiation exposure and contaminating more water, the soil and the atmosphere," Tesunari Iida, a former nuclear engineer, said Tuesday.

The Japanese energy industry analyst said it is important that authorities, as soon as possible, look well beyond plugging the latest leak or transferring contaminated water from one place to another. That means figuring out a feasible, effective way to make sure that the nuclear fuel still at the Fukushima Daiichi plant is never a threat again.

"these kind of ad hoc solutions will soon dead end." "We need more complete solutions," said Iida, now a critic of the nuclear power industry. "We need to think about an exit strategy - using a tomb with zinc or tin gold slurry mixed with sand or any other sort of means to cool down and contain the reactors."CNN's Whitney Hurst, Matt Smith and Kyung Lah and journalist Hiroo Saso contributed to this report.

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Japan: Leak of Radioactive water arrested

反序列化操作 "translate" 的响应消息的正文时出现错误。读取 XML 数据时，超出最大字符串内容长度配额 (8192) 。通过更改在创建 XML 读取器时所使用的 XmlDictionaryReaderQuotas 对象的 MaxStringContentLength 属性，可增加此配额。 第 1 行，位置为 9130。
Expert talks radioactive water effectsNEW: A top Japan's fishery group claims Tokyo Electric ignored radiation concernsOne leak of highly radioactive water, from unit No.. 2, into the Pacific Ocean has been stoppedBut an official says, "we cannot be optimistic, just because we were able to plug this one" Local fishermen could get short-term payments, on top of long-term compensation

Tokyo (CNN) - Workers scored a key victory Wednesday in their struggle to gain the upper hand in the weeks-long crisis at the Fukishima Daiichi nuclear power facility, though a top Japanese official cautioned that the fight was far from over.

At daybreak, authorities with the Tokyo Electric Power Company noticed that water was no longer gushing into the Pacific Ocean from the turbine building of the No. 2 reactor, one of six operated by the utility at its plant..

Radiation levels in the water tested 7.5 million times the legal limit on Saturday. On Tuesday, it was still 5 million times above the norm.

An initial attempt to for concrete to fill up the 20-centimeter (8-inch) crack, through which this water was gushing, failed. And there were immediate indications that the injection Sunday of no. a silica-based polymer dubbed "liquid glass" worked either - until Wednesday morning.

The apparent success in plugging up the cracked concrete shaft means that, as of Wednesday afternoon, there were no. known major radioactive emissions into the air, water or ground.

Still, Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano soon thereafter told reporters that the crisis - which has been marked by leaks, explosions and apologies since the March 11 earthquake and tsunami knocked out the systems used to cool the plant's nuclear fuel - is not over.

"is it completely stopped?" "Are there any other areas where (radioactive) water is being released?" Edano said. "we cannot be optimistic, just because we were able to plug this one."

We cannot be optimistic just because we were able to plug this one
-Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano

Hidehiko Nishiyama, an official with Japan's nuclear and industrial safety agency, said Wednesday that authorities are aware that other problems could arise, especially as excess water may still be flooding the No. 2 unit's turbine building basement.

"(We) are aware that water build-up may lead to more leakage somewhere else," he said.

Meanwhile, the same official said that almost all of the roughly 10,000 tons of radioactive water from the plant's waste water treatment facility had been dumped into the Pacific Ocean as of noon Wednesday.

This was done to make room in the waste water building for the much more radioactive water that will be pumped from in and around the No.. 2 unit.

Edano explained that it was a trade-off, with reasoning that dumping that water authorities, on the whole, had 1: 200, 000ths the amount of radiation, "voir" and was a way to minimize harm to the environment.

Edano conceded that authorities did not a good enough job explaining the plan - announced and begun Monday - to toss a total of 11,500 tons (including some from in and around the Nos. 5 and 6 units) into the Pacific Ocean.

Officials in nearby countries, as well as in Japan itself, "have pointed out that we have not been fully reporting," he said Wednesday.

"we should have reported (more information) to the people who may be concerned, especially to the neighboring countries," Edano said, amid reports from South Korean media that officials in Seoul were among those upset.

"It was a measure to prevent more serious marine contamination, but we needed to explain the reasoning better."

Local fishermen were among those riled by the deliberate release of toxic materials into the sea, potentially adding to levels of radiation measured several hundred-thousand times the legal limit at monitoring posts a few dozen meters from the nuclear facility.

Members of Japan's fishery association voiced their displeasure in a Wednesday morning meeting with Tokyo Electric officials. The fishing industry trade group's officials claimed they felt totally ignored after they asked the utility not to dump radioactive water into the sea – only to find out, hours later, the process began.

Moreover, the association called out Tokyo Electric for the company's previous claims that nuclear power is safe and that such accidents would never happen.

Fishermen's angst has intensified with the discovery, announced Tuesday, of abnormally high levels of radioactive iodine "in one sample of fresh fish." This led Japanese authorities to regulate the radiation in seafood for the first time.

Edano acknowledged on Wednesday the difficulties facing the fishing industry and the need to keep them abreast of major developments that might affect the safety, and quality of seafood.

The Japanese government is considering 'provisional compensation' to give a more immediate boost to fishermen, ahead of a more final payment plan that may be established in the future.

Some farmers, too, are expected to get pay-outs following the imposition of restrictions of certain produce and milk due to radiation concerns tied to the nuclear crisis.

The concerns notwithstanding, experts said the release of radiation in seawater - given the current plan, and particularly if there are no further leaks of the most toxic substances - likely won't pose any long-term health risks to humans or sea life. It also helps that most of the radiation detected is iodine-131, which loses half its radiation every eight days.

The dump of the 11,500 tons of radioactive water equates to about five swimming pools full, compared to "about 300 trillion swimming pools of water" that fill the Pacific Ocean, said Timothy Jorgensen, chairman of the radiation safety committee at Georgetown University Medical Center.

"So debate the churning of the ocean and the currents will quickly disperse this so that it gets to very dilute concentrations relatively quickly."

After a tumultuous first few weeks, utility and government officials have described conditions recently in the plant's reactors and spent nuclear fuel pools as generally stable. Levels of airborne radiation nearby and further away, meanwhile, steadily have been declining.

Still, the existence of significant amounts of collected radioactive water around the facility suggests that there may be other leaks - and other problems. And there's still a big issue in that workers are still injecting massive amounts of water in order to keep nuclear fuel cool.

"Maintaining the cooling by water is almost impossible, and that is just creating more radiation exposure and contaminating more water, the soil and the atmosphere," Tesunari Iida, a former nuclear engineer, said Tuesday.

The Japanese energy industry analyst said it is important that authorities, as soon as possible, look well beyond plugging the latest leak or transferring contaminated water from one place to another. That means figuring out a feasible, effective way to make sure that the nuclear fuel still at the Fukushima Daiichi plant is never a threat again.

"these kind of ad hoc solutions will soon dead end." "We need more complete solutions," said Iida, now a critic of the nuclear power industry. "We need to think about an exit strategy - using a tomb with zinc or tin gold slurry mixed with sand or any other sort of means to cool down and contain the reactors."CNN's Whitney Hurst, Matt Smith and Kyung Lah and journalist Hiroo Saso contributed to this report.

View the original article here

Japan: Leak of Radioactive water arrested

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Expert talks radioactive water effectsNEW: A top Japan's fishery group claims Tokyo Electric ignored radiation concernsOne leak of highly radioactive water, from unit No.. 2, into the Pacific Ocean has been stoppedBut an official says, "we cannot be optimistic, just because we were able to plug this one" Local fishermen could get short-term payments, on top of long-term compensation

Tokyo (CNN) - Workers scored a key victory Wednesday in their struggle to gain the upper hand in the weeks-long crisis at the Fukishima Daiichi nuclear power facility, though a top Japanese official cautioned that the fight was far from over.

At daybreak, authorities with the Tokyo Electric Power Company noticed that water was no longer gushing into the Pacific Ocean from the turbine building of the No. 2 reactor, one of six operated by the utility at its plant..

Radiation levels in the water tested 7.5 million times the legal limit on Saturday. On Tuesday, it was still 5 million times above the norm.

An initial attempt to for concrete to fill up the 20-centimeter (8-inch) crack, through which this water was gushing, failed. And there were immediate indications that the injection Sunday of no. a silica-based polymer dubbed "liquid glass" worked either - until Wednesday morning.

The apparent success in plugging up the cracked concrete shaft means that, as of Wednesday afternoon, there were no. known major radioactive emissions into the air, water or ground.

Still, Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano soon thereafter told reporters that the crisis - which has been marked by leaks, explosions and apologies since the March 11 earthquake and tsunami knocked out the systems used to cool the plant's nuclear fuel - is not over.

"is it completely stopped?" "Are there any other areas where (radioactive) water is being released?" Edano said. "we cannot be optimistic, just because we were able to plug this one."

We cannot be optimistic just because we were able to plug this one
-Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano

Hidehiko Nishiyama, an official with Japan's nuclear and industrial safety agency, said Wednesday that authorities are aware that other problems could arise, especially as excess water may still be flooding the No. 2 unit's turbine building basement.

"(We) are aware that water build-up may lead to more leakage somewhere else," he said.

Meanwhile, the same official said that almost all of the roughly 10,000 tons of radioactive water from the plant's waste water treatment facility had been dumped into the Pacific Ocean as of noon Wednesday.

This was done to make room in the waste water building for the much more radioactive water that will be pumped from in and around the No.. 2 unit.

Edano explained that it was a trade-off, with reasoning that dumping that water authorities, on the whole, had 1: 200, 000ths the amount of radiation, "voir" and was a way to minimize harm to the environment.

Edano conceded that authorities did not a good enough job explaining the plan - announced and begun Monday - to toss a total of 11,500 tons (including some from in and around the Nos. 5 and 6 units) into the Pacific Ocean.

Officials in nearby countries, as well as in Japan itself, "have pointed out that we have not been fully reporting," he said Wednesday.

"we should have reported (more information) to the people who may be concerned, especially to the neighboring countries," Edano said, amid reports from South Korean media that officials in Seoul were among those upset.

"It was a measure to prevent more serious marine contamination, but we needed to explain the reasoning better."

Local fishermen were among those riled by the deliberate release of toxic materials into the sea, potentially adding to levels of radiation measured several hundred-thousand times the legal limit at monitoring posts a few dozen meters from the nuclear facility.

Members of Japan's fishery association voiced their displeasure in a Wednesday morning meeting with Tokyo Electric officials. The fishing industry trade group's officials claimed they felt totally ignored after they asked the utility not to dump radioactive water into the sea – only to find out, hours later, the process began.

Moreover, the association called out Tokyo Electric for the company's previous claims that nuclear power is safe and that such accidents would never happen.

Fishermen's angst has intensified with the discovery, announced Tuesday, of abnormally high levels of radioactive iodine "in one sample of fresh fish." This led Japanese authorities to regulate the radiation in seafood for the first time.

Edano acknowledged on Wednesday the difficulties facing the fishing industry and the need to keep them abreast of major developments that might affect the safety, and quality of seafood.

The Japanese government is considering 'provisional compensation' to give a more immediate boost to fishermen, ahead of a more final payment plan that may be established in the future.

Some farmers, too, are expected to get pay-outs following the imposition of restrictions of certain produce and milk due to radiation concerns tied to the nuclear crisis.

The concerns notwithstanding, experts said the release of radiation in seawater - given the current plan, and particularly if there are no further leaks of the most toxic substances - likely won't pose any long-term health risks to humans or sea life. It also helps that most of the radiation detected is iodine-131, which loses half its radiation every eight days.

The dump of the 11,500 tons of radioactive water equates to about five swimming pools full, compared to "about 300 trillion swimming pools of water" that fill the Pacific Ocean, said Timothy Jorgensen, chairman of the radiation safety committee at Georgetown University Medical Center.

"So debate the churning of the ocean and the currents will quickly disperse this so that it gets to very dilute concentrations relatively quickly."

After a tumultuous first few weeks, utility and government officials have described conditions recently in the plant's reactors and spent nuclear fuel pools as generally stable. Levels of airborne radiation nearby and further away, meanwhile, steadily have been declining.

Still, the existence of significant amounts of collected radioactive water around the facility suggests that there may be other leaks - and other problems. And there's still a big issue in that workers are still injecting massive amounts of water in order to keep nuclear fuel cool.

"Maintaining the cooling by water is almost impossible, and that is just creating more radiation exposure and contaminating more water, the soil and the atmosphere," Tesunari Iida, a former nuclear engineer, said Tuesday.

The Japanese energy industry analyst said it is important that authorities, as soon as possible, look well beyond plugging the latest leak or transferring contaminated water from one place to another. That means figuring out a feasible, effective way to make sure that the nuclear fuel still at the Fukushima Daiichi plant is never a threat again.

"these kind of ad hoc solutions will soon dead end." "We need more complete solutions," said Iida, now a critic of the nuclear power industry. "We need to think about an exit strategy - using a tomb with zinc or tin gold slurry mixed with sand or any other sort of means to cool down and contain the reactors."CNN's Whitney Hurst, Matt Smith and Kyung Lah and journalist Hiroo Saso contributed to this report.

View the original article here