Intro: "The Tokyo Electric Power Company said Saturday that the filtration system it had struggled to put into operation at the damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant had broken down after just five hours, a disappointing setback in its efforts to cool the reactors."

Temporary storage tanks for low- and mid-level radioactive water from Tokyo Electric Power Company. (photo: Reuters)

TEPCO Halts Filtering of Tainted Water at Japanese Plant

By Ken Belson, The New York Times

18 June 11

he Tokyo Electric Power Company said Saturday that the filtration system it had struggled to put into operation at the damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant had broken down after just five hours, a disappointing setback in its efforts to cool the reactors.

The company said that the sprawling system, which is designed to siphon oil, radioactive materials and salt from the water used to cool the reactors, was shut down because it had filled up with radioactive cesium.

The filtration system was built ad hoc and rushed into service because Tokyo Electric, or TEPCO, is quickly running out of space to store the tens of thousands of tons of water that have been contaminated after being poured into the reactors and spent-fuel pools.

Some of the tanks, basements and other storage facilities at the power plant have inches to spare and could overflow within days. TEPCO hoped to reduce the amount of contaminated water by reusing the newly filtered water. The company is also bringing in hundreds of extra tanks.

A spokesman for TEPCO, Junichi Matsumoto, said that the company was working to find the cause of the problem and that it would restart the machines as soon as possible. The filtration system began operating at 8 p.m. Friday, and was shut down at 12:54 a.m. on Saturday.

NHK, the national broadcaster, said that in five hours the filters had accumulated four millisieverts of radioactive material, about as much as was expected to be collected in a month.

TEPCO has not discussed alternatives to its filtration strategy. But some nuclear experts believe that the utility may again be forced to dump thousands of tons of low-level contaminated water into the ocean. In April, TEPCO poured more than 11,000 tons of radioactive water into the Pacific Ocean, prompting protests from neighboring countries, environmentalists and fishermen.

Yasuko Kamiizumi contributed reporting.

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0 # Debbie Huffman 2011-06-19 06:58

I'm willing to believe there is a translation problem here rather than planned double-speak. They may be using a siphon to move the water from the tanks to the filtration system, but salt precipitates and oil floats, so they cannot "siphon" both from a tank at the same time. I suspect the actual "filter" works on reverse osmosis. But then, they have never been precise about procedures, why should I expect precision with the language? [Serious question: what pore size captures cesium?]

+4 # Linda 2011-06-19 07:56

What I would really like to know is how much of this radiation has reached communities in the US and why has the US stopped monitoring our air, water, produce and milk ?

+1 # maveet 2011-06-19 14:29

This week "plumes of volcanic ash, (which) have thrown airline schedules around Australia into chaos...
Volcanic Ash Advisory Centre spokeswoman Sally Cutter says it is not the first time ash from a volcano in Chile has caused widespread disruption.

"Back in 1991, ash from Chile did actually circumnavigate the globe twice," she said." (ABC Australia news)

Ash we can see and track. Radiation?????

0 # universlman 2011-06-20 10:15

tepco's trial-and-error behavior reminds me of the spill in our gulf just over a year ago -

tepco has withheld and finally admitted the seriousness of many details like the melting down of the cores and the exposure to the air of the spent fuel storage - we must try to assess reality in spite of tepco distorting or withholding key facts known only to them

who knows the real truth about this latest article concerning the apparent failure of the filtering system - the official time span of a year for the cleanup and the overall seriousness of conditions on the site are likely wildly optimistic - it will be years before we can expect honest reporting on fukushima

0 # E garcia 2011-06-24 10:34

The tepco people are criminally negligent, incompetent, and continue lying. They should be questioned under oath, but the japaneses govt is under the thumbs of the nuclear industry , among others. Sad state of affairs,,,,,,,, people of Japan should throw pm kan right away and charge him like the execs of telco and more serious crimes.

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