Fortunately, the map is a hoax, according to the real Australian Radiation Services, which has put a disclaimer on its website letting readers know it had nothing to do with the map.
“They’re just scaremongering for no real benefit to the community,” he said. “They should be trying to assess the situation, not make matters worse.”
Other versions of the map attribute the information to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, said NRC spokesman David McIntyre. No matter where it allegedly comes from, there is no truth to it.
Plugging away: No highly radioactive water is seen leaking early Wednesday from the reactor 2 storage pit (top), where it was seen pouring from a crack Tuesday afternoon (bottom). KYODO PHOTO
Japanese workers have stopped the leak of radioactive water from the earthquake-damaged Fukushimanuclear power plant, but the situation is still far from under control, according to a confidential US Nuclear Regulatory report obtained by the New York Times. The report identifies a wide array of problems including build-ups of hydrogen gas that could cause explosions similar to those that crippled the plant soon after the earthquake. Workers have begun injecting nitrogen into a reactor to try to stabilize the hydrogen. Plant owners are also facing the problem of how to dispose of millions of gallons of radioactive wastewater – they’ve been dumping it into the ocean for several days now. Voice of America reports the dumping will continue until at least Friday.
(click link for audio/news.Also for Radio news USA)
Tokyo Electric Power Co. finally succeeded in stopping the main leak of highly radioactive water from the damaged Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant into the ocean Wednesday morning and workers were preparing to inject nitrogen into at least one reactor in a bid to prevent another hydrogen explosion
Tepco said it confirmed at 5:38 a.m. that a crack in the No. 2 reactor storage pit had been plugged after workers injected 1,500 liters of sodium silicate and another agent to solidify a layer of small stones under a cable trench.
“I have been told that it is being thoroughly looked into whether the leak has completely stopped and whether there are other (cracks),” Chief Cabinet SecretaryYukio Edano said. “We have not stopped worrying just because the leak supposedly stopped.”
The highly radioactive water is believed to have come from the No. 2 reactor core, where fuel rods have partially melted, and ended up in the pit. The pit is connected to the No. 2 reactor turbine building and an underground trench connected to the building, both of which were found to be filled with high levels of contaminated water.
Bottom line is no body is sure how the radio active waste shall affect marine Life and Environment.
They just make a general assertion that the effects will be minimal with out any supporting evidence and no one has determined what the ‘Safety Limits’of radioactive materials dumped in the ocean are.
Japan, with no other options in sight is forced to dump Nuclear waste into the sea, treaties notwithstanding.
The Effects to So Sea water and the effect it will have on ground water level nobody knows.
We have created the Nuclear Monster,let us suffer from it.
Story:
Tokyo Electric Power Co. on Monday began releasing 10,000 tons of low-level radioactive water from the Fukushima No. 1 power plant into the Pacific Ocean on Monday evening to help accelerate the process of bringing the crippled complex under control.
The radical step was taken to make room for the more radioactive water that is being pumped out of the No. 2 reactor’s turbine building.
The utility also said it plans to release 1,500 tons of radioactive water being stored under the No. 5 and No. 6 reactors, which have been safely shut down.
The government said dumping the water will pose “no major health risk” and is inevitable in order to rescue the plant.
Tepco will try to minimize the environmental impact of the dump by setting up an underwater silt fence similar to an oil fence outside the seawater intake near the damaged No. 2 reactor, where toxic water is already leaking into the sea from a cracked storage pit.
Greenpeace first encountered a vessel routinely and deliberately dumping radioactive
waste at sea, approximately 400 miles South West of Cornwall in July 1978. The area
had been specified by the Nuclear Energy Agency (NEA), an off-shoot of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), as the designated
dumpsite of the western European nuclear industry. The Greenpeace ship Rainbow
Warrior found the Gem, a vessel chartered annually by the UK Atomic Energy Authority
(UKAEA) to dump so-called low- and intermediate-level radioactive wastes from
medical and military establishments and nuclear power plants.
Since its early days, in the late 1940s, the nuclear industry had chosen the oceans as a
convenient place to dispose of its inconvenient wastes. The USA, the then USSR, France,
the United Kingdom, Germany, Sweden and other states used the sea as a radioactive
dump, both in the Pacific and the Atlantic, and they were determined to continue.
The Oslo Convention was the first regional treaty to regulate the dumping of wastes at
sea – it was negotiated in 1972 by the countries bordering the North-East Atlantic. The
nuclear industry successfully blocked efforts to include radioactive wastes within the
auspices of the convention. Consequently, while the Convention regulated the dumping
of sewage sludge, dredging spoils, and organohalogen compounds (amongst others) for
almost twenty five years, the signatory nations had no right to even comment on the
dumping of radioactive wastes. Yet, paradoxically, the OECD/NEA designated dumpsite
for radioactive wastes was inside the area covered by the Convention.
A few months later in 1972 the negotiations on the London Dumping Convention were
concluded. This was the first global treaty to regulate the dumping of wastes at sea. This
time the negotiations were less dominated by the Western European nuclear states, and,
as a result, the dumping of so-called high-level radioactive wastes was banned.
The first reported sea disposal operation of radioactive waste was carried out by the USA in 1946 in the North-East Pacific Ocean and the latest was carried out by the Russian Federation in 1993 in the Japan Sea/East Sea. During the 48 year history of sea disposal, 14 countries have used more than 80 sites to dispose of approximately 85 PBq (1 PBq = 1015 Bq) of radioactive waste (Fig. 10).
Already-grave conditions at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant worsened Sunday with the highest radiation readings yet, compounding both the risks and challenges for workers trying to repair the facility’s cooling system.
Leaked water sampled from one unit Sunday was 100,000 times more radioactive than normal background levels — though the Tokyo Electric Power Co., which operates the plant, first calculated an even higher, erroneous, figure that it didn’t correct for several hours.
Tepco apologized Sunday night when it realized the mistake; it had initially reported radiation levels in the leaked water from the unit 2 reactor as being 10 million times higher than normal, which prompted an evacuation of the building.
After the levels were correctly measured, airborne radioactivity in the unit 2 turbine building still remained so high — 1,000 millisieverts per hour — that a worker there would reach his yearly occupational exposure limit in 15 minutes. A dose of 4,000 to 5,000 millisieverts absorbed fairly rapidly will eventually kill about half of those exposed.
Tests also found increased levels of radioactive cesium, a substance with a longer half-life, the Japanese safety agency said.
“Because these substances originate from nuclear fission, there is a high possibility they originate from the reactor,” said Hidehiko Nishiyama, the agency’s deputy director-general, at a news conference. He said that it was likely that radiation was leaking from the pipes or the suppression chamber, and not directly from the pressure vessel, because water levels and pressure in the vessel were relatively stable.
Meanwhile, plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co. turned on the lights in the control room of the No. 2 reactor the same day, and was analyzing and trying to remove pools of water containing radioactive materials in the turbine buildings of reactors 1 to 3.
The iodine-131 in the seawater was detected at 8:30 a.m. Friday, about 330 meters south of the plant’s drain outlets. Previously, the highest amount recorded was about 100 times above the permitted level.
If a person drank 500 ml of water containing the newly detected level of contamination, it would be the equivalent of 1 millisievert of radiation, or the average dosage one is exposed to annually, the NISA said.
“It is a substantial amount,” NISA spokesman Hidehiko Nishiyama told a news conference.
But he also stressed there is “no immediate risk to public health,” as the changing tides will dilute the iodine-131, and its half-life, or the amount of time it takes for it to lose half its radioactivity, is only eight days.
Nishiyama said the high concentration was perhaps caused by airborne radiation that contaminated the seawater, or contaminated water from the plant that flowed out to sea.
Tepco said early Saturday that it had detected a radiation reading of 200 millisieverts per hour in a pool of water in the No. 1 reactor’s turbine building on March 18 and failed to notify workers, but later denied that a radiation level that high was found.
“If we had warned them, we may have been able to avoid having workers (at the No. 3 reactor) exposed to radiation,” a Tepco official said.
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