"Radioactivity levels in Fukushima groundwater increase 47-fold over 5 days"

As reported by the Asahi Shimbun:

'Radioactivity levels soared 47-fold over just five days in groundwater from a monitoring well on the ocean side of the crippled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant, the plant operator said Aug. 5.

Tokyo Electric Power Co. said 56,000 becquerels of radioactive substances, including strontium, were detected per liter of groundwater sampled on Aug. 5 in the “No. 1-5” monitoring well, which is adjacent to the turbine building for the No. 1 reactor. The previous measurement for the well water was made on July 31.

Highly radioactive water has been detected for some time in groundwater near reactor and turbine buildings of the nuclear plant. A record high level of 900,000 becquerels per liter was found in early July in water taken from a different monitoring well.

TEPCO has been struggling to deal with the enormous amounts of water used to cool the damaged reactors and block the flow of contaminated water into the ocean.'

Japan NRA: Fukushima Daiichi's radioactive water leakage into Pacific Ocean now an "emergency" situation

As reported by Reuters, Japan's Nuclear Regulation Authority has admitted that Fukushima Daiichi's ongoing radioactive water leaks into the Pacific Ocean now constitute an "emergency" situation. Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO), responsible for the nuclear catastrophe in the first place, is in charge of dealing with the on-site aftermath. There is growing concern about TEPCO's incompetence -- or worse, lack of commitment -- at rising to that challenge.

TEPCO admits that Fukushima Daiichi has already released 20-40 trillion becquerels of radioactive tritium into the Pacific since March 11, 2011 (a becquerel is one radioactive disintegration per second).

As also reported by the Asahi Shimbun:

'...That is about 10 to 100 times the volume emitted over a one-year period of operating the nuclear plant.

“There is only a minor effect on the environment because it is about the same level as the upper limits of emission standards during operating periods,” a TEPCO official said...'.

TEPCO's admission, and spin, is startling. The Fukushima Daiichi nuclear catastrophe, in this regard, is only 10-100 times worse than "normal" operations used to be at the six reactor complex for a single year?! Obviously, Fukushima Daiichi released large amounts of hazardous tritium into the environment as part of its "routine" operations for four decades before the earthquake and tsunami devastated the site!

TEPCO's attitude is not unlike that of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), which has washed its hands of an epidemic of tritium leaks into groundwater at U.S. atomic reactors. NRC, at the highest levels, has stood by its assertion that tritium leaks have "no nexus with health and safety." After all, NRC allows tritium to be "routinely" discharged in large amounts into the living environment, by permit, since it cannot be filtered from nuclear power plants' liquid releases.

This of course flies in the face of the fact that tritium -- radioactive hydrogen -- is a clinically-proven cause of cancer, birth defects, and genetic damage. Tritium, with a hazardous persistence of 120 years, can integrate at the most intimate levels of the human anatomy, right down to the DNA molecule. If tritium organically binds, it can remain lodged in the human body for long periods of time, doing significant damage. The health hazards associated with tritium exposure have been well-documented, including in peer-reviewed scientific journals, despite the nuclear establishment's downplaying of the risks to the contrary.

"Attorney Generals Fight for Public Access in Nuclear Issues"

Environmental coalition attorney Terry Lodge of Toledo speaks out against Davis-Besse's 20-year license extension at a press conference in Oak Harbor, OH in August 2012An article written by Roger Witherspoon, "Attorney Generals Fight for Public Access in Nuclear Issues," begins:

"The Attorney Generals of New York and Vermont have joined the fight against California’s San Onofre Nuclear power plant in an effort to stop federal regulators from erasing all record of a judicial ruling that the public has a right to intervene before major amendments are granted to an operating license.

If the five-member Nuclear Regulatory Commission grants the request of their staff to vacate the ruling of the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board and expunge the record, it will eliminate a precedent that affects power plant operations and regulatory practices around the country. In particular, it will affect the six-year fight in New York to shut the Indian Point power plants 25 miles north of New York City; and Vermont’s ongoing effort to shut the Vermont Yankee power plant.

The cross country battle now being waged by NY Attorney General Eric Schneiderman and Vermont Attorney General William Sorrell is an uphill fight against one of the most powerful professional staffs in the US government and an agency that has a unique view of its own independence.

“The Commission has stated that it is not bound by judicial practice, including that of the United States Supreme Court,” stated Schneiderman and Sorrell in a brief filed June 24 with the NRC challenging the staff request...". Continue reading Roger Witherspoon's article here.

The next proceeding most likely to be immediately and directly impacted by the survival or demise of Friends of the Earths' (FOE) San Onofre precedent involves the replacement of steam generators at FirstEnergy Nuclear Operating Company's (FENOC) problem-plagued Davis-Besse atomic reactor, located on the Lake Erie shoreline in Oak Harbor, Ohio just east of Toledo. A coalition of environmental groups -- Beyond Nuclear, Citizen Environment Coalition of Southwestern Ontario, Don't Waste Michigan, and the Sierra Club -- have challenged FENOC's attempt to avoid transparent, open, and publicly accessible license amendment proceedings, by arguing the new steam generators are "like-for-like" replacements of the old ones.

But the coalition's expert witness, Arnie Gundersen, Chief Engineer at Fairewinds Associates, Inc., has documented numerous major changes from the degraded old to the new replacement steam generators. Gundersen also serves as FOE's expert witness at San Onofre. Toledo-based attorney Terry Lodge (photo, above left) serves as the coalition's legal counsel.

An Atomic Safety (sic) and Licensing Board (ASLB) panel heard pre-hearing oral arguments regarding the environmental interveners' standing, as well as the merits of its arguments, on July 24th. The ASLB indicated it would rule on the admissibility of the coalition's intervention petition this month.

Nuclear revolving door gobbles up billions of dollars of ratepayers' money, threatening to move onto taxpayers next!

Commissioner Geoffrey Merrifield's NRC file photoWhile still a U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) Commissioner, Geoffrey Merrifield (photo, left) did the nuclear power industry a big favor. He spearheaded a seemingly simple, but significant, change in NRC regulations, which paved the way for new reactor construction, unfettered by bothersome environmental safeguards. Merrifield shephered through a change in the definition of the word "construction." Now, nuclear utilities could build any aspect of a nuclear power plant, save for the reactor and its containment building, without having to first complete an environmental impact statement, as required by the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). Thus, large aspects of a new reactor construction job -- such as foundation excavations for the reactor complex, or construction of the turbine building -- could proceed apace, building "facts on the ground," and momentum that would be hard to stop.

Merrifield capped such corruption by leaving NRC immediately after his dirty work, and going to work for the Shaw Group, which specializes in -- you guessed it -- new reactor construction! This example of the nuclear revolving door between supposed government regulator and industry even made a number of senior managers at NRC uneasy about Merrifield's blatant, self-serving conflict of interest.

Now, as reported by the Atlanta Progressive News, to such corruption must be added incompetence, raising not only financial risks, into the billions of dollars, but radiological risks that could impact millions of lives:

'...Chicago Bridge and Iron (CB&I), formerly known as Shaw Modular Solutions, makes modules being used to assemble four Westinghouse AP1000 reactors being built at Plant Vogtle in Georgia and V.C. Summer in South Carolina.

“CB&I is unable to provide properly constructed modules... and [have demonstrated a] continued inability to reliably meet the quality and schedule requirements of the project," Barbara Antonoplos, a ratepayer, testified, citing a report from the utility's regulatory staff in South Carolina.

"These problems have existed from the beginning and been raised in every other CB&I hearing and still there is no fix... they [Georgia Power] still do not have a competent outfit making parts and once the new parts get delivered to Vogtle, they are repairing them to make them acceptable.  This alarms me because incompetence of this magnitude breeds disaster especially when it comes to construction of a nuclear device. There is no way these reactors can be considered safe... when ‘patch it together’ is the best construction model they are able to come up with," Antonoplos said.

"Ongoing failures of this sort result in escalating cost and I don't believe you should force ratepayers to foot the bill for such gross incompetence," Antonoplos said.

Southern Company’s projections do not include the cost of the lawsuit they’re engaged in with their contractor, The Shaw Group/Chicago Bridge and Iron, nor the full cost of not getting Federal Loan Guarantees, for which the negotiation deadline has been extended three times according to Georgia WAND's website...' More.

"Advocates, Ratepayers Oppose Paying for Vogtle’s Cost Overruns"

As reported by the Atlanta Progressive News, Georgia ratepayers, as well as groups such as Georgia Women's Action for New Directions and Nuclear Watch South, have testified before the Georgia Public Service Commission (PSC) against billion dollar cost overruns at Southern Company's construction site for proposed new reactors from being foisted onto customers' electricity bills:

'..."Many of the cost overruns are the result of mismanagement.  The company has said less than one percent of the increases in costs are from engineering procurement and construction.  These costs are results from mismanagement in paperwork and scheduling delays," Courtney Hanson, Director of Public Outreach at Georgia Women's Action for New Directions (Georgia WAND), testified.

"Southern Company jumped the gun in seeking license for the whole project and the cost accrued because of design changes and license amendment requests.  They were not prepared when the process started and the cost reflects that.  This is a problem that happens over and over," John Michael, a ratepayer, testified.

"The cost overrun is not a new story and it is unfair for these cost overruns to be continually passed on to the ratepayers.  Last time [with Vogtle units one and two] we were promised four reactors for six hundred million dollars and we got two for over eight billion.  A company will never reduce costs if they continually have a blank check written to them," Amanda Hill-Attkisson, Managing Director of Georgia WAND, testified...

[Steve] Prenovitz, an expert in economics with Nuclear Watch South, challenged continuing the Vogtle project.  He raised the question over whether the public would be better served by cutting their losses on Vogtle before massive cost overruns in the future reach stratospheric numbers.'