METI Blames TEPCO and Workers for Contaminated Water Leak at #Fukushima I Nuke Plant, Says They Are Not Working Hard Enough

According to Minister Toshmitsu Motegi, former McKinsey consultant who doesn't look the part, leaks of contaminated water happening recently at Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant are not caused by faulty engineering or lack of money, but by TEPCO and the workers at the plant not working hard enough.

I guess lazy workers caused the land to sink, then.

Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant is sustained (barely, but nonetheless) by workers from TEPCO and affiliate companies, some of whom are paid as little as $100 a day to work in a highly contaminated environment.

In addition to radiation exposure, they get the blame.

From Yomiuri Shinbun (8/26/2013):

東電に汚染水専門チーム設置を指示へ…経産相

Minister of Economy to order TEPCO to set up a team dedicated to contaminated water issues

東京電力福島第一原子力発電所で汚染水を巡るトラブルが相次いでいる問題で、経済産業省は２６日、東電に対して、汚染水対策の専門チームの設置など対策強化を求める。

As problems of contaminated water happen one after another at Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant, Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry is set to demand TEPCO on August 26 to set up a team dedicated to devising countermeasures against contaminated water.

茂木経産相が同日午後、福島第一原発を訪れて指示する。

Minister Motegi will visit Fukushima I Nuke Plant in the afternoon on August 26 and give instructions to TEPCO.

福島第一原発の貯蔵タンクから汚染水３００トンが漏れた問題について、経産省は、日常の点検不備など、東電の人為的ミスの側面が強いとみている。「技術・資金の問題というよりも、現場の対応力の問題」などと指摘しており、東電に対する監視体制も強化する方針だ。

About the leak of 300 tonnes of contaminated water from a storage tank at the plant, Ministry of Economy thinks it was caused more by human errors on the part of TEPCO, such as insufficient daily inspections. The Ministry points out, "It's a matter of ability [of the workers] to respond at the plant, rather than technology or money." The Ministry plans to strengthen the oversight on TEPCO.

東電の社内では、これまで汚染水関係の専門家の発言力が低かったとされている。このため、専門チームには、汚染水対策の知見が深いゼネコンなどに、助言を求めることも検討する。

It is said that experts in contaminated water have little say within TEPCO. The Ministry is considering having general contractors with deep knowledge of how to deal with contaminated water in the team.

What kind of joke is this? General contractors with deep knowledge of how to deal with contaminated water?

It was one of those knowledgeable general contractors or two who drove down the sheet piles in the artificial soil and in the port, destabilizing the underground trenches and probably causing the release of contaminated water in the surrounding soil. It was one of those knowledgeable general contractors who built the concrete platform for the RO waste tanks that weigh 1,000 tonnes a piece when full. The platform cracked and sank.

Yet another general contractor did the injection of waterglass along the embankment made of artificial soil, which caused the groundwater to rise and flow over the underground waterglass wall.

And "oversight" from the very ministry whose lack of knowledge and initiative as the nuclear regulatory authority (NISA was under this ministry) after the accident contributed greatly to the haphazard, patchwork countermeasures at the plant? (Approving TEPCO's plan to store the RO waste water in the in-the-ground ponds comes to mind.)

Motegi also says the national government (i.e. his Ministry, in particular Agency of Natural Resources and Energy whose official talked about his "assumption" of "300 tonnes of contaminated groundwater" leak) will be in charge.

As if it's a good thing.

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