Japan must get ready to release Fukushima water into the sea: U.S. adviser
(Reuters) - Japan should begin preparing to release a massive tide of water from the wrecked Fukushima nuclear plant into the Pacific Ocean, once it regains public trust and can confirm the water has only low levels of radiation, a U.S. adviser to the plant's operator said on Friday.
Lake Barrett, a former head of the Department of Energy's Office of Civilian Nuclear Waste Management, spent nearly a decade at the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission and led the clean-up operations after the 1979 partial meltdown at the Three Mile Island nuclear plant. He has been brought in by Tokyo Electric Power (Tepco) to advise it on the lengthy decommissioning process at Fukushima.
He said work should begin now to pump groundwater from the plant before it reaches wrecked reactors - a measure that has been stalled by local opposition.
"They should start pumping as soon as practical," said Barrett, adding that groundwater would have to be released into the sea along with water that had been treated to remove most radiation - by a system designed by Toshiba Corp.
The utility is pumping 400 tonnes of highly radioactive water out of the reactor buildings' wrecked basements every day, treating it to remove most radiation and storing the water in hundreds of makeshift tanks around the plant. Some 330,000 tons of contaminated water - enough to fill more than 130 Olympic swimming pools - has been pumped into storage pits and above-ground tanks at the facility.
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