By Stephen Leo

The events that took place on March 11, 2011 have created lasting problems through out areas of Japan that were caused by the earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear power plant meltdown. The Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant was built on the coast of Japan in the Fukushima Prefecture. After the earthquake and tsunami hit, the reactor cooling system was damaged and could not be turned back on, as a result the nuclear fuel began to meltdown and there were several explosions from the heat and pressure that blew the tops off of several reactor buildings[1]. This radioactive material began to leak into the atmosphere and ocean as TEPCO is continually trying to contain the radioactive material. The melted fuel rods are now sitting on the bottom of the reactor buildings1. TEPCO is still under tremendous scrutiny because even four years later they are still trying to control the release of radioactive water into the ocean.

Since the nuclear meltdown of the Fukushima plant there has been numerous leaks and problems from storage tanks, rainwater, and aquifers. There are countless examples of contaminated water getting into the Pacific Ocean. In an article by National Geographic News written by Patrick J. Kiger, he states that according to Shunichi Tanaka, head of Japan’s Nuclear Regulation Authority that contaminated water has been leaking into the pacific since the disaster first happened[2]. Along with the everyday problem of groundwater flowing around the plant and then into the Pacific after being contaminated, TEPCO has also released around 3 million gallons of contaminated water into the Pacific to make room for more heavily contaminated water that was being pumped out of the reactor into storage areas2. To further the claim that water is being released into the pacific daily, Ken Buesseler a scientist from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution has continued to find fish with increased levels cesium-134, which is a radioactive isotope that decays fairly quickly2. If this radioactive isotope decays quickly in the environment then to find high levels of it in the water and in fish means there must be a steady release of it into the environment. According to the article many experts have estimated that around 95,860 gallons of water seeps into the basement of the plant and is contaminated2. Since the nuclear plant is right on the coast the underground water flows from the mountains and hills down towards the plant were it is contaminated before reaching the ocean.

TEPCO is dealing with the problems within the nuclear plant but now is also dealing with trying to stop the contaminated water from reaching the Pacific Ocean. To deal with the problem with the reactors TEPCO continues to pump gallons of water on the damaged reactors to try to keep the fuel cool and stable2. They also have built a farm of water storage tanks to try to house as much of the contaminated water in these storage tanks as possible instead of using the holding ponds, which seem to leak. The problem with this is eventually they will run out of storage with the tanks and will need to find an alternative place to put the water2. As of recently TEPCO has stated that they are going to try to form an ice wall around the reactors to stop the water from reaching the plant and being contaminated. This plan involves placing pipes into the ground around the reactors and having refrigerator like units pump coolants into the pipes in hopes of freezing the ground around the reactors[3]. Ice walls like this one have reportedly been used in other mining operations with success³.  This ice wall would dramatically decrease the contamination of groundwater and would direct it around the plant. Another plan that TEPCO has is using a water filtration system called ALPS. TEPCO has six ALPS units on site that are capable of removing all radioactive material except tritium[4]. The system has been upgrade several times and is now able to process around 2,000 tons of water a day⁴. With this system running TEPCO can start to put a dent into the huge amounts of contaminated water they have stored in tanks. This system would be more effective if the ice wall was finished because as of now there are still large amounts of water still flowing under the plant being contaminated. Without the ice wall TEPCO will never be able to treat enough water to put a dent in those storage tanks because there will be so much new contaminated water each day. The newly treated water still has tritium in it so it would still need to be stored since there is no technology to remove it from the water but at least many of the other radionuclides are removed from the water. Tritium is less harmful compared to other radionuclides according to the EPA, when it undergoes radioactive decay it releases a low energy beta particle and has a half-life of 12.3 years[5]. There is an increased risk of cancer for people exposed to tritium but since it releases low energy particles it leaves the body relatively quickly and is one of the least dangerous radionuclides, so if some of this water contaminated with Tritium was released it would disperse quickly with not much affect⁵. Of course this would be worse case, it still should not be release into the environment for obvious reasons but compared to some other contaminated water on site, it is not nearly as bad.

The completion of many of these plans are unknown and the way things seem to go with TEPCO the deadlines will continue to get pushed back because of some sort of complications along the way. The clean up should also extend beyond the power plant into the surrounding towns, which many of them are now vacant and empty. These towns will need to be cleaned up because of the radioactive material in certain hot spots and also they have not been maintained for many years. It will be interesting to see it TEPCO will take responsibility of the clean up of these towns and surrounding areas since their negligence led to many of them being evacuated and abandoned.

TEPCO is at the point were all reactors are considered cool and stable, the big problem is still the leaking of contaminated water into the Pacific Ocean once this problem is dealt with they can get rid of the contaminated water they have stored. From there much of the clean up involves cleaning up hot spots through out the surrounding areas. Eventually the fuel rods will need to be removed which is the tricky part of the clean up process. This is a delicate process since it is still dealing with radioactive material. After the fuel is removed the plant can then be dismantled and official decommissioned. A rough outline for this type of plan without set backs would be around 40 years[6]. There are so many factors involved in the clean up its hard to say how long it will take to clean up the disaster. There will be problems that will last longer than the clean up, like how people from the Fukushima Prefecture will be viewed through out Japanese society. Also the affect that relocation has had on families who did not receive enough money, they are essentially homeless or forced to return to their homes, which could be in a hot spot where they risk exposure to radiation. Also the people who were forced to relocate lost ties with land and towns that their family may have lived for many years, these looses can affect people for many years and it is hard to put a time table on these types of looses. It will be interesting to see how over the years this situation unfolds and how TEPCO continues to handle the clean up while trying to gain the publics trust again.