Japan Press Weekly

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2013 April 10 - 16 [NUCLEAR CRISIS]

Gov’t responsible for leak of radiation-contaminated water: JCP Shiokawa

The government’s failure to properly regulate and oversee TEPCO’s makeshift measures at the Fukushima plant for two years since the 2011 nuclear accident has led to the series of radiation-contaminated water leaks, Japanese Communist Party parliamentarian Shiokawa Tetsuya stated on April 10.

At an Upper House industry committee meeting, Shiokawa pointed out that the Industry Ministry accepted Tokyo Electric Power Company’s explanation that underground pools to store contaminated water at the Fukushima plant can be used for more than 10 years. He also revealed that the ministry concluded the assessment of the storage pools’ structural strength to be “reliable”.

In response to Shiokawa, nuclear regulation agency official Yamamoto Tetsuya admitted that the underground pits “had problems in their planning, management, and operations.”

The JCP representative stressed that to keep depending on TEPCO to bring the crippled plant under control allows priority to be given to reducing cost over securing safety, and demanded that the government take the responsibility to decommission the Fukushima plant.

Radiation-contaminated water has been found to have escaped from three out of the seven underground storage pools at the nuclear power plant.

TEPCO on April 10 announced its plan to build more tanks at the plant to transfer contaminated water from the underground pools. It also announced that it will continue to use the present pools until early June, when the transfer is expected to be completed.

Related past article:
> Radioactive water escapes from Fukushima plant (April 7 and 8, 2013)