Sludge resulting from decontaminating cooling water at Fukushima Daiichi will be intensely radioactive

The Mainichi Daily News has reported that the sludges generated by the decontamination of the 100,000 tons of cooling water used to prevent further melt-throughs at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in Japan will contain 100 million becquerels of radioactivity per cubic centimeter. The radioactively contaminated cooling water itself is reported to emit a radiation dose rate of 100 rem per hour. Since a 1,000 rem dose is considered enough to kill everyone exposed to it, 10 hours of exposure to this radioactively contaminated cooling water at Fukushima Daiichi -- at close proximity, and without radiation shieldling -- would easily deliver a lethal dose. Thus, significant precautions must be taken with its handling and processing. But Tokyo Electric Power Company has run out of storage space for the water. Fears are compounded that the approach of raining season could overwhelm the plant grounds, causing an overflow into the ocean. No interim storage nor final disposal pathways have been determined for the sludge. Water decontamination efforts will begin -- with help from the U.S. and French nuclear industries -- on June 15th at the earliest, as the decontamination process must be invented "from scratch."