nuclear-news

Panel blames TEPCO’s negligence for delay in information disclosure

An outside panel of experts accused Tokyo Electric Power Co. of not living up to its responsibility to promptly release all available data on the contaminated water leaks at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant.

The third-party panel said that up until February this year, plant operator TEPCO had been negligent in releasing information about radioactive water leaks, although it had data confirming the leaks.

Contaminated water had been confirmed leaking into the ocean every time it rained since TEPCO started monitoring the radioactive levels in drainage systems in April 2014.

When leaks of contaminated water into the plant’s harbor first came into light in summer 2013, the utility pledged to promptly report the radiation levels whenever it obtained monitoring data.

But workers at the plant had not been informed of the policy nor were they assigned specific tasks related to the policy.

The panel’s report concluded that TEPCO showed a tendency to prioritize responding to recurrent troubles at the plant over actually implementing effective countermeasures.

“There is an organizational culture at the company for officials to avoid clarifying where responsibility lies and implementing planned countermeasures,” the report said.

After its shoddy record of reporting information on radiation levels drew fire, TEPCO retraced past data and made it available to the public. It has disclosed all monitoring data on radioactive materials at the plant since Aug. 20

Source: Asahi Shimbun.

http://ajw.asahi.com/article/0311disaster/fukushima/AJ201508250044

August 25, 2015 - Posted by dunrenard | Japan | Fukushima Daiichi, Tepco's Negligence