Reactor Leaking Radioactive Water

The New York Times reports:

Highly contaminated water is escaping a damaged reactor at the crippled nuclear power plant in Japan and could soon leak into the ocean, the country’s nuclear regulator warned on Monday.

The discovery poses a further setback to efforts to contain the nuclear crisis as workers find themselves in increasingly hazardous conditions.

In another new finding, Tokyo Electric Power Company, which runs the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power station, said late Monday that it had detected an increase in levels of plutonium in soil samples taken from within the compound a week ago, raising fears of yet another dangerous element that may be escaping the crippled reactors.

It was unclear where the plutonium had come from. The reactors could be a source, and tests of nuclear weapons in the atmosphere, which ended in 1980, left trace amounts of plutonium around the world. The highest levels in the soil, of plutonium 238, were found about 500 yards from the most heavily damaged reactors, the company said. It said lower levels of plutonium 239 and 240 had also been found, at amounts not significantly higher than normal.

All the reported readings are within the normal range of plutonium levels in sediment and soil given by the United States Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry. But Tokyo Electric said the highest reading was more than three times the average level found in soil in Japan.

The contaminated water threatening the ocean had radiation measuring 1,000 millisieverts per hour and is in an overflow tunnel outside the plant’s Reactor No. 2, Japan’s nuclear regulator said at a news conference. The maximum dose allowed for workers at the plant is 250 millisieverts in a year.

The tunnel leads from the reactor’s turbine building, where contaminated water was discovered on Saturday, to an opening just 180 feet from the sea, said Hidehiko Nishiyama, deputy director-general for the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency.

The contaminated water level is now about three feet from the exit of the vertical, U-shaped tunnel and rising, Mr. Nishiyama said.

Contaminated water was also found at tunnels leading from the No. 1 and No. 3 reactors, though with much lower levels of radiation.