Parts of TEPCO's accident manuals made public

[robdogbucky]

Parts of TEPCO's accident manuals made public

"...The documents show that TEPCO had not made sufficient preparations to cope with critical nuclear accidents.

In the March 11th tsunami, almost all electricity sources for the reactors at Fukushima Daiichi were lost after the batteries and power supply boards were inundated.

The documents reveal that TEPCO did not envision such a power failure or any kind of prolonged power loss. It assumed that in a serious incident, emergency power sources would be available to vent pressure in the reactor containment vessels or to carry out other safety procedures.

The agency says it decided to make the manual public because transparency is necessary to find the cause of the Fukushima nuclear accident and to establish better safety measures for the future.

Monday, October 24, 2011 21:10 +0900 (JST)

http://www3.nhk.or.jp/daily/english/society.html

[robdogbucky]

1. Why did they have to re-submit them?

"The Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency has made public a large portion of Tokyo Electric Power Company's procedural manuals for nuclear accidents.

These are the manuals that the operator of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant earlier submitted to the Lower House with most of the contents blacked out. The company had insisted the information had to be kept secret in order to protect its intellectual property rights, and because disclosure could open its facilities to terrorist attack.

Based on the law, the nuclear safety agency ordered TEPCO to resubmit the manuals without redaction...

http://www3.nhk.or.jp/daily/english/society.html




Municipalities reluctant to host storage facilities for contaminated waste

Nearly half of the municipalities that need to decontaminate radioactive materials emitted by the nuclear disaster at the Fukushima No. 1 Nuclear Power Plant refuse to accommodate interim storage facilities for contaminated soil and waste, a Mainichi survey has found.

The Mainichi Shimbun survey, conducted from late September through mid-October, found that many municipalities are reluctant to host such mid- and long-term storage facilities and to accept contaminated soil and waste from other municipalities. In particular, over half of the municipalities in Fukushima Prefecture declined to host such facilities.

The survey covered a total of 171 municipalities in eight prefectures -- all the cities, towns and villages in Fukushima, Miyagi and Ibaraki prefectures, as well as municipalities in other prefectures that have areas where more than 10,000 becquerels of radiation were detected in soil by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology's surveys. Additionally, other municipalities that are home to radiation "hot spots" were also included. Among them, 162 cities, wards, towns and villages responded to the survey, of which 104 municipalities said they have either started or are planning to decontaminate radioactive materials.

Of the municipalities in need of decontamination, 46 percent said they "will not accept" hosting interim storage facilities for contaminated soil and waste, while 52 percent said they were "undecided." Among municipalities in Fukushima Prefecture, 55 percent said they will not accept such facilities, outnumbering 45 percent that said "undecided." In other prefectures, the number of municipalities that answered they were "undecided" over the issue outstripped those that declined to host such facilities, at 58 percent and 38 percent, respectively...

(Mainichi Japan) October 24, 2011

http://mdn.mainichi.jp/mdnnews/news/20111024p2a00m0na012000c.html




Hotspot hotline

Japan's science ministry has launched a telephone hotline to deal with public concerns about radiation exposure in areas outside Fukushima Prefecture. The prefecture hosts the damaged nuclear complex.

The ministry set up the hotline after radiation monitoring by local governments and citizens' groups found a number of locations within the Tokyo Metropolitan Area with levels exceeding government limits.

The ministry is asking local governments and citizens' groups to tell it if they find sites where the hourly radiation dose at one meter above the ground is more than one microsievert higher than nearby areas.

One microsievert per hour is the government-set limit for determining whether topsoil at school playgrounds should be removed, using state subsidies. The ministry is also asking the local governments to carry out simple decontamination work, such as clearing mud from ditches if necessary...

http://www3.nhk.or.jp/daily/english/24_20.html




Residents to file suit seeking halt of Tsuruga reactors

OTSU, Japan (Kyodo) -- A group of residents from Shiga and nearby prefectures plan to file a lawsuit to suspend the restart of two nuclear reactors at the Tsuruga plant in neighboring Fukui Prefecture, arguing an accident at the plant would contaminate Lake Biwa, their water source, and be life-threatening, according to sources involved in the suit.

Among the plaintiffs' lawyers is former judge Kenichi Ido, who in 2006 issued the first and only ruling in Japan to order the suspension of a nuclear reactor. The group plans to file for an injunction at the Otsu District Court in Shiga probably by the end of this month.

The plaintiffs argue that Tsuruga's Nos. 1 and 2 reactors, which have been halted for routine checks, must not be restarted until lessons are learned from the crisis at the radiation-spilling Fukushima Daiichi power plant and inspections are completed under a set of new standards and regulations, the sources said.

They believe residents will face life-threatening dangers if Shiga's Lake Biwa, Japan's largest lake and the water source for the region including the Kyoto, Osaka and Kobe metropolitan areas, suffers radioactive contamination...

(Mainichi Japan) October 24, 2011

http://mdn.mainichi.jp/mdnnews/news/20111024p2g00m0dm084000c.html


Monday, Oct. 24, 2011


Kashiwa's hot spot just one of many to come, expert says
By MIZUHO AOKI

Staff writer

The hot spot discovered in Kashiwa, Chiba Prefecture, has local residents alarmed now that the science ministry has confirmed the source of the radiation is probably fallout from the Fukushima No. 1 power plant.

But another radiation expert warns that there are more hot spots to come.

Masahiro Fukushi warned citizens Monday that more hot spots can be found where rainwater accumulates, like near the ditch in Kashiwa, and urged them to go out and take readings of such places in their neighborhoods on their own, instead of waiting around for the government's plodding surveys.

Contamination in much of Kashiwa is far higher than other parts of the Tokyo metropolitan area, so the mini hot spot really wasn't much of a surprise, said Fukushi, a professor of radiation science at Tokyo Metropolitan University...

http://www.japantimes.co.jp/text/nn20111024x3.html



Radioactive soil traced to contaminated rainwater due to broken ditch

Rainwater contaminated with radioactive fallout from the Fukushima No. 1 Nuclear Power Plant likely leaked through a broken ditch, causing high levels of radioactive cesium in the soil in Kashiwa, Chiba Prefecture, the central government said Oct. 23.

The government made the announcement after the Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology Ministry conducted an on-the-spot inspection of a hot spot emitting up to 276,000 becquerels of radioactive cesium per kilogram of soil on a plot of public land in the city's Nedo district.

The ministry's findings revealed widespread fallout of radioactive materials from the crippled Fukushima nuclear plant. The city will consult with the ministry about how to decontaminate the affected area.

According to the ministry's Office of Radiation Regulation, the wall of a 30-centimeter deep and 30-centimeter wide concrete ditch adjacent to the highly radioactive hot spot had been broken over a 0.5- to 1-meter stretch in width. The rainwater ditch downstream has been built along a city road.

(Mainichi Japan) October 24, 2011

http://mdn.mainichi.jp/mdnnews/news/20111024p2a00m0na004000c.html