The failed nuclear plant spewed radiation into the ocean.
Sloshing with Japanese sea water, the 5-gallon plastic jugs crowding Ken Buesseler’s laboratory at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution contain evidence of an ongoing nuclear crisis.
Collecting samples off the coast where the Fukushima nuclear power plant was damaged in a March 2011 earthquake, the WHOI senior scientist measured higher than normal radiation levels long after the original disaster.
“It was very concerning,” Buesseler said during a recent interview in his lab, dubbed “Cafe Thorium,” after the naturally occurring radioactive metal.
“It dropped off, but it never went back to pre-Fukushima levels,” he said. Buesseler, along with a team from WHOI, made the first of his three visits to the Fukushima area in June 2011, suspected groundwater flowing through the reactor site was carrying radiation into the sea.
After denying that scenario for months, the Tokyo Electric Power Co., the Japanese utility that operates the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant, admitted in August that there have been spills at the site and that irradiated groundwater is coursing through the Fukushima property on a daily basis.
Leaks from hastily constructed storage tanks holding contaminated water used by cleanup workers to cool down the reactor site also are contributing to the ongoing radioactivity.
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