#Fukushima I Nuke Plant Groundwater Contamination: Now It's Hole No.3, With All-Beta at 1,400 Bq/L from ND a Week Ago

Whatever or wherever it is leaking, it's spreading.

Despite TEPCO's attempt to tell us the cesium contamination in the observation hole No.1-2 was from contaminated dirt particles (or other residues), that still doesn't account for higher all-beta and very high tritium.

Now, the sample taken from another observation hole, No.3, on July 11 suddenly shows higher all-beta amount.

From TEPCO's email notice for the press, 7/12/2013:

＜地下水観測孔No.3＞
Groundwater observation hole No.3

・７月11日採取分 Sample collected on July 11：
セシウム134 Cs-134　 1.9 Bq/L
セシウム137 Cs-137 　4.8 Bq/L
全ベータ all-beta 1,400 Bq/L

・７月４日採取分（お知らせ済み） Sample collected on July 4 (already published)：
セシウム134 Cs-134 1.5 Bq/L
セシウム137 Cs-137 2.8 Bq/L
全ベータ　all-beta ＮＤ（18 Bq/L）

Here's the diagram showing where these holes are located. They are along the seawall, east of the turbine building.

From Nuclear Regulatory Agency (secretariat of NRA) document, 7/10/2013 (original diagram from TEPCO, 6/26/2013):

In the earlier version of the diagram by TEPCO (6/16/2013), the observation hole No.3 is right near the location where a leak of highly contaminated water from Reactor 3 (remember it is a MOX-fuel reactor) was found on May 11, 2011.

The Tokyo University researcher who has written papers on measuring radioactive materials of Fukushima origin, including the one about neptunium-239 discovery in Iitate-mura tweeted an interesting idea on how to find out whether the contamination is coming from any of the reactors:

How about mixing a small amount of radionuclides that are not present in the reactors in the water to cool the reactors, and seeing if these radionuclides are detected in the observation holes?

He withdrew that idea later by saying it may not be a small amount that would be needed.

TEPCO could use bath salts again...

Tweet