Tepco Says It Has Control Of Groundwater In Critical Trenches At Stricken Plant

The Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO), operators of the stricken Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant in the Fukushima Prefecture in Japan, said Thursday it had completed a critical clean-up step by removing the last of the retained water from the underground trenches on the seaside of Units 2 and 3.

Underground water seeping in to the crippled plant and flowing back to the natural environment after becoming contaminated has been a major concern since the triple reactor meltdown in March 2011, which occurred after the plant was hit by massive post-earthquake tsunami event.

Tepco said “removal of this highly contaminated water is expected to reduce the risk against any possible water leakage.”

“Initially, TEPCO had attempted to block the water flow between the trenches and the turbine buildings by freezing some of the accumulated water. Through trial and error, a different strategy was adopted to fill the inside of the trenches directly with special liquid cement while removing the retained water,” the company said.

Removal of the water from Unit 2 was completed on June 30. With the completion of water removal from Unit 3 on July 30, the entire project has been basically completed. What remains is filling of the vertical shafts up to where the turbine building meet. This is intended to prevent any further inflow of water from the turbine buildings, Tepco said in a statement.

The plan at this point is to store the water, which has elevated saline levels, at the Daiichi facility and treat it with systems in place to remove Cesium, Strontium and other nuclides.

"Completion of the water removal from the trenches is an important milestone towards achieving that goal. It has been a challenging task and I congratulate our workers on their persistence and their success,” said Naohiro Masuda, TEPCO D&D Engineering Company leader.

Masuda called the task of getting control of underground water “one of our most important goals this year … to reduce any risk of water leakage and to prevent the possibility of environment or ocean contamination.”

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