Nuclear whistle-blower was blackballed by Japans Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency

[NNN0LHI]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/42772893/ns/world_news-the_new_york_times/

Culture of complicity tied to stricken nuclear plant

Some Japanese say safety problems, weak regulation may have played a role in accident

By NORIMITSU ONISHI and KEN BELSON
The New York Times
updated 4/26/2011 9:35:43 PM ET 2011-04-27T01:35:43

TOKYO — Given the fierce insularity of Japan’s nuclear industry, it was perhaps fitting that an outsider exposed the most serious safety cover-up in the history of Japanese nuclear power. It took place at Fukushima Daiichi, the plant that Japan has been struggling to get under control since last month’s earthquake and tsunami.

In 2000, Kei Sugaoka, a Japanese-American nuclear inspector who had done work for General Electric at Daiichi, told Japan’s main nuclear regulator about a cracked steam dryer that he believed was being concealed. If exposed, the revelations could have forced the operator, Tokyo Electric Power, to do what utilities least want to: undertake costly repairs.

What happened next was an example, critics have since said, of the collusive ties that bind the nation’s nuclear power companies, regulators and politicians.

Despite a new law shielding whistle-blowers, the regulator, the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency, divulged Mr. Sugaoka’s identity to Tokyo Electric, effectively blackballing him from the industry ...

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Bet that cut back on any complaining about safety by TEPCO employees.

[crickets]

1. The insularity of the nuclear industry Japan sounds even

more pronounced than it is in the US. That was an eye-opening article with a lot more detail than most.

[Prometheus Bound]

2. Those complicit fuckers should be bowing in apology to the whole country.

Not to mention neighbors whose air and water they have polluted.