07 August 2013 (10:41 UTC-07 Tango)/30 Ramadan 1434/16 Mordad 1392/01 Geng-Shen (7th month) 4711

“Stabilizing the Fukushima plant is our challenge….the contaminated water is an urgent issue which has generated a great deal of public attention.”-Abe Shinzo, practitioner of the understatement, and a closet Imperialist

Prime Minister Abe Shinzo has ordered the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry to take control of Tokyo Electric Power Company’s (TEPCo) failed efforts to control the meltdowns of at least three GE designed nuclear reactors at Fukushima Daiichi.

The order came after the Ministry conducted its own investigation, which revealed that highly radioactive water has been pouring into the Pacific Ocean at a rate of 300 tons per day!!!

The Ministry said about 1000 tons of groundwater from the hills above Fukushima Daiichi flows through the area everyday.  300 tons become irradiated as it passes through the Fukushima Daiichi ground, on its way to the ocean.  Another 400 tons flood into the basements of four reactor buildings, damaged during the the 11 March 2011 quake and tsunami.  TEPCo has been struggling to pump out and store that water, but, has had nothing but problems with massive leaks from the storage tanks, and the filtration systems.  The Ministry said it is likely the contaminated groundwater began pouring into the Pacific just days after the meltdowns began!

For the past two and a half years TEPCo has said they didn’t know where the water was coming from!

The Ministry also estimates it will take at least 40 years to tackle the nuke disaster, at a cost of at least $11 billion (far more than what TEPCo said it would cost).  Here’s the rub; there is nothing that can be immediately done to stop 300+ tons of radiation from pouring into the Pacific Ocean!   This is more than incompetence, it seems almost intentional, evil!

Oh but wait, there’s more!  Guess what they’re going to attempt now?  They want to freeze the ground.  They think that’ll stop the contaminated water from getting to the ocean.  Experts have pointed out that it will be ridiculously expensive to do that, and there’s no guarantee it’ll work.  A groundwater expert asked the obvious; why don’t they divert or pump out the ground water before it reaches the reactors: “It is incredibly difficult to completely block the groundwater like this. It would be better if they could pump clean water before it reaches the plant.”-Ohga Kotaro, Hokkaido University

Because the ground around Fukushima Daiichi is contaminated, the only sure thing is to divert as much groundwater as possible before it passes through the area.