Online:
Visits:
Stories:
Profile image
Story Views

Now:
Last Hour:
Last 24 Hours:
Total:

Fukushima Withheld Alarming Numbers as Contamination Just Keeps Soaring

Thursday, February 13, 2014 12:41
% of readers think this story is Fact. Add your two cents.

(Before It's News)

Jacob Chamberlain 
RINF Alternative News

On the same day that new measurements from the crippled Fukushima nuclear plant show an unprecedented surge in one kind of radiation, new charges surfaced Thursday against TEPCO, the plant’s owner, that it has been withholding vital data on a second radioactive substance.

Five months ago, measurements taken by TEPCO showed surging levels of the highly radioactive strontium-90 at a groundwater well. However, despite requests from the country’s Nuclear Regulation Authority (NRA) for all such data, TEPCO withheld that information until Wednesday.

“We did not hear about this figure when they detected it last September,” Shinji Kinjo, NRA’s taskforce on contaminated water issues at Fukushima, told Reuters. “We have been repeatedly pushing TEPCO to release strontium data since November. It should not take them this long to release this information.”

“This is not an appropriate way to deal with the desire of the public (for transparency) and in particular, the regulator, which is now very closely regulating issues related to public health, the environment and so on,” said Martin Schulz, a senior research fellow at the Fujitsu Research Institute.

Meanwhile, adding to this week’s news, TEPCO also announced that samples taken from a separate groundwater well near the plant are now detecting a record 54,000 becquerels per liter of another radioactive substance, cesium.

This level more than doubles all previous records of cesium in groundwater near the plant, the last being 22,000 becquerels detected in a separate observation well in July 2013, The Japan Times reports.

In a separate bit of bad news Shanghai Daily reports that there may be a new leak at the site of the well containing cesium, which is located just 50 meters from the Pacific Ocean.

Jacob Chamberlain is a writer for Common Dreams.



Source: http://rinf.com/alt-news/editorials/fukushima-withheld-alarming-numbers-contamination-just-keeps-soaring/

Report abuse

Comments

Your Comments
Question   Razz  Sad   Evil  Exclaim  Smile  Redface  Biggrin  Surprised  Eek   Confused   Cool  LOL   Mad   Twisted  Rolleyes   Wink  Idea  Arrow  Neutral  Cry   Mr. Green

Top Stories
Recent Stories

Register

Newsletter

Email this story
Email this story

If you really want to ban this commenter, please write down the reason:

If you really want to disable all recommended stories, click on OK button. After that, you will be redirect to your options page.