Japan's damaged Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power
plant is struggling to find room to store tens of thousands of gallons of
highly contaminated water used to cool the broken reactors. Large volume of
radioactive water, enough to fill more than 50 Olympic-sized swimming pools, are
being stored in hundreds of large tanks built around the plant.
Operator Tokyo Electric Power Company has already
cut down numerous trees to make room for more tanks and predicts the volume of
water will be more than triple within three years. Dumping massive amounts of
water into the melting reactors was the only way to avoid an even bigger
catastrophe. The measures to keep the plant
under control created another major problem for the utility: What to do with
all that radioactive water that leaked out of the damaged reactors and
collected in the basements of reactor buildings and nearby installations.
Even though the reactors are currently being cooled only with recycled water, the volume of contaminated water is
still increasing, because ground water is seeping through cracks into the
reactor and turbine basements. The
Power Company is setting up a treatment system that would make the water clean
enough for reuse as a coolant thus reducing health risks for workers and
environmental damage. There is, however, concern hat the radioactive
water in the basements may get into the underground water system, where it
could reach far beyond the plant through underground water channels, possibly in
the ocean or public water supplies.
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