Stunning
Story from a Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant Worker
Interview
by Comedienne Oshidori Mako
30
June, 2013
Mako
Oshidori of Yoshimoto Creative Agency is a member of the Manzai
Kyokai (The Association for Stand-up Comedians) and of the Board of
Directors of the Free Press Association of Japan. She regularly
attends press conferences given by public authorities and TEPCO since
the outbreak of the Great East Japan Earthquake. She also
relentlessly does reporting on Fukushima and other disaster-affected
areas. She presently writes columns for “DAYS JAPAN” and
Excerpt
from column #57 “Iwakino Mama Tachi to Chikachosuisou to Sagyoin
no kata no Ohanashi no Ken” literally, “About mothers in Iwaki,
underground water tank and stories from a worker” of “Datsutte
miru?” on MAGAZINE
9
===========================================================
I
heard a stunning story which made me think that the leak of
concentrated salt water from an underground water storage tank is a
relatively minor accident.
On
April 11, I talked with a Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant
worker and a young professor of the University of Tokyo.
Why skimp on money and time in the management of a level 7 nuclear accident?
Worker:
I think that leaks here and there are a normal thing.
– Are
you serious? Why?
Worker:
Because it was a situation of emergency in which a lot of facilities
were built in a rush. After the accident, facilities were being
built in such a speedy fashion that it did not matter if they had to
last for only one year or so.
Some
constructors have even put
the sentence “Quality is not guaranteed” in the
contract. Facilities
built and supposed “to last for only one year” are still being
used. It is normal that their condition deteriorates.
– Shocked…
Worker:
In addition the effort to secure “cheaper commissions in order to
cut down expenses” is also a problem. The government allocates
funds to TEPCO for the management of the nuclear power plant
accident, but the money is not a grant. It is a debt and must be
refunded in the future.
Since the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant is not expected to generate profit in the future, it is normal that TEPCO seek to reduce its debt as much as possible.
Since the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant is not expected to generate profit in the future, it is normal that TEPCO seek to reduce its debt as much as possible.
That
is the reason why “cutting the budget, reducing the cost, and
using lower price materials” for constructions and facilities in
the management of the nuclear power plant accident is the order of
the day.
On the ground, there are no such attempts as to gather the brains of the World in order to effectively deal with the nuclear accident.
On the ground, there are no such attempts as to gather the brains of the World in order to effectively deal with the nuclear accident.
– That
is quite far from gathering the brains of the World. It’s just a
get-together of stingy people, right?
Worker:
It is stinginess not only with money but with time, too. Orders such
as “It
is the fiscal year-end. So hurry up and complete the construction
work!” are
common. Sometime
you hear things such as “It
is the fiscal year-end, there is no more funding available”. Why
should the “fiscal year-end” take priority over any other matter
in an unsettled situation of a Level 7 nuclear disaster?
Is
it alright to entrust the management of a nuclear power plant
accident to just one business entity such as TEPCO? As long as TEPCO
is a business entity, it is in pursuit of profit and book closing at
the year-end is part of that. So, I think that things won’t work
if the management of the accident and the decommissioning project of
the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant are not separated from
TEPCO and entrusted to an ad hoc specialized team.
With the same personnel recruiting policy as before the accident, the recruitment of workers for the accident management is going to be a failure.
Worker:
The problem is not only money, but also the recruitment of workers.
It is getting really difficult to secure manpower for the accident
management.
Workers
who have already been exposed to doses of radiation beyond the
prescribed limit have to disengage from work. It was predictable
that skilled and experienced workers would be decreasing.
Also,
there are workers coming from faraway places, who just want to make
money in a short period. I know it is not a problem peculiar to the
nuclear power plant. It is the shady side of the construction
industry.
Before
the accident, such workers used to do their job with the original
contractor under the supervision of up to 4 or 5 subcontractors.
But after the accident, it became hard to secure enough workers
even by arranging to have much more, for instance, nine or ten
subcontractors. And by resorting to so many subcontractors in
between, wages suffer considerable reduction.
What
happens is that workers who come to Fukushima from faraway regions
to make money stay at workers’ lodgings and become aware of a
certain fact through their interaction with other workers.
They
learn that wages for decontamination work are higher and the work
itself involves less risk of radiation exposure than construction
work at the power plant. Then these workers switch their jobs from
construction to decontamination work.”
– Oh…
I have heard about this situation from some other workers.
Worker:
There is another kind of workers. They are workers who came from
other nuclear power plants disseminated all overJapan. Now most of
these nuclear power plants are shut down, right? These workers come
here toFukushima by appointment or choose to bring their
contribution as a sort of mission or from a certain sense of
responsibility.
However,
in the future, closed nuclear power plants will be restarted one
after the other, which means that most of these workers will return
or be asked to return to their original nuclear power plants.”
– Really?
As suspected, will they be restarted one after another?
Worker. Of
course! Things are taking that direction. It is in order to restart
the closed nuclear power plants that the Nuclear Regulation
Authority has already released a roadmap for inspection operations.
No wonder, workers are going to be asked to resume their plants for
such operations.
As
the Nuclear Regulation Authority released the “Outline of the New
Safety
Standards (Draft)”, some electric power companies have
already started with investigation, inspection, and construction.
Meanwhile, nuclear workers from all over the country are returning
to their original power plants.
Worker: Original
workers at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant are more and
more exceeding their dose limit of radiation exposure. The workers
from other nuclear power plants are returning to their former
plants. Workers who come to Fukushima from other parts of the
country to make money are decreasing and difficult to recruit.
Not
only building facilities with low price materials in order to cut
down expenses, but securing manpower is also
a serious problem.
Worker:
There is also a problem related to the status of workers. This is a
deeply rooted dark side of the construction industry, but shifting
between 3 or 4 subcontractors is a real issue.
As
I mentioned a little earlier, we are now working with people who
subcontract with up to the ninth lower company. Suppose that a team
of 10 workers doing the same work has members with different
contract statuses, say, subcontractors who are under the
supervision of a third or a sixth lower company. To avert the
so-called “Contract Fraud”, team leaders of the prime or the
second contractors are not allowed to give direct instructions to
workers of the sixth or ninthsubcontract companies.
It
is true that giving direct instructions without direct employment
is illegal and there is a lot to be done about the whole dark side
of the construction industry. However, such regulations might turn
out to be a hindrance to an effective management of the nuclear
power plant accident.
At
work sites, team leaders can’t give instructions such as “this
work should be done like this” in fear of being taxed with
contract fraud in case the concerned person complains that “I
received instructions from someone who I has no direct employment
relationship with.” So, the
leaders are afraid to give instructions.
That is another problem.
Certainly
contract fraud is wrong. But, in a situation where people of
various statuses have to work together due to the shortage of
manpower, such regulations are quite unreasonable. I hope that such
working conditions are going to be changed. The government and
other organizations should join forces to manage all the labor for
an effective management of the accident. This is one of the reasons
why I think that TEPCO should step down from the management of the
Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant.
Reactor #4’s problem is not only its nuclear fuel pool!
Worker:
Regarding the accident management, TEPCO has the tendency to cover
up the issues that are noised about. No long-term plan for the
decommissioning of the plant is put into execution. What is being
done is rather the execution of a haphazard plan just to hoodwink
the public attention. Issues out of the public eye are just left
out.
The
spent fuel pool of reactor #4 is being talked about, isn’t it?
Strategies or plans have soon been put into place to address this
issue. But I think the spent fuel pool is not the only problem
reactor #4 faces.
There
is a Device Storage Pit (DSP) on the other side of the reactor well
opposite to the spent nuclear fuel pool. The DSP is not used at
normal time operations. But when the earthquake hit, reactor #4 was
under periodic inspection. Just before the earthquake, upon
removing the shroud from the reactor well, it was cut off under
water and put into the DSP. So inside the DSP of reactor #4, there
are a lot of fragments of highly radioactive shroud.”
(A
shroud is a cylindrical stainless steel structure fixed inside of
the Reactor Pressure Vessel. It surrounds nuclear fuel assemblies
and control rods. It also serves as a divider to secure the cooling
water flow in a reactor. It is as large as 7 meters in height, 4.5
meters in diameter and 35 tons in weight. Since the shroud is
inside the reactor while fuel rods reach a critical state, it
naturally contains a high dose of radiation. It is the shroud
inside the DSP which is on the opposite side of the spent fuel pool
of reactor #4.)
Worker: The
DSP is full of water and, as you know, the shroud and a lot of
other devices are in it. The overall seismic resistance of the DSP
was estimated for one year. Now that the nuclear reactor building
is weakened by the explosion, I’m worried about what is going to
be done with the DSP.
When
fuel rods from the spent fuel pool were about to be removed, a
suggestion was made that materials stored in the DSP be removed as
well, but it was rejected because “we don’t have enough budget
for that, the issue of concern to the public now is the spent fuel
pool”.
–Oh
no! I wonder how long the DSP is going to resist…
Worker:
The covering work of reactor #1 was finished, too, but it was also
a symptomatic measure. The cover is not demountable. Eventually the
decommissioning operations are going to be done inside the nuclear
reactor building, so I wonder how the cover is going to be
removed…. I think it must require a great amount of labor. The
cover was placed in order to “reduce the emission of radioactive
substances into the atmosphere and, thus, appease the concerns of
the public over radiation” as an emergency measure.
The
more I hear, the more I get disappointed. I gradually began to
understand why the leak of concentrated salt water from an
underground water storage tank is relatively a minor accident.
What if the reactor #2 situation worsens?
Worker:
Yes, the problem of the underground water storage tank is trivial,
because the mother of all problems is neither the radioactive
pollution nor the cooling system, but the nuclear reactor buildings
and reactors themselves. How are reactors #1 to #4 going to be
demolished and disposed of? The current situation is that nobody
can even get inside. Comparing to that, workers on-site feel that,
problems outside the building such as the metal-clad distribution
switchboard or the underground water storage tank are trivial,
though they are serious, too.
– Then,
what is the most serious problem?
Worker:
That is undoubtedly reactor #2.
Professor
of Tokyo University:
As I thought! Even among researchers, the situation of reactor #2
is beyond imagination.
Workers: About
reactor #2, nobody knows exactly what is going on inside or what
happened just after the earthquake. The explosion of reactors #1
and #3 could be simulated to a certain degree. From various
parameters, we could predict the initial response and what was
going to happen next.
But
we are clueless about reactor #2. Why was such large amount of
radioactive substances emitted without explosion? What is happening
with the fuel rods? From various parameters, it is said that there
is no melt-through of fuel rods.
Professor
of Tokyo University:
I agree. It seems like fuel rods did not go through the Reactor
Pressure Vessel.
Worker: Then
why were such large amounts of radioactive substances emitted
outside the building? Nobody knows the answer!
(The
amount of radioactive substances emitted from reactor #2 is way
larger than from reactors #1 and #3!)
Worker: The
condition of reactor #2 just after the earthquake cannot be
estimated. At the same time, doses of radioactivity are surprisingly
high in the building of reactor #2.
I’ll
give you an extreme example. Let’s assume that the situation
worsens to the point that it becomes impossible to pour water in
order to cool off the reactor. For
reactors #1, #3 and #4, a specialized squad prepared to bear the
risks of radiation exposure can always enter
the building and do the work required.
But
in the case of reactor #2, radioactive emissions inside most
buildings are extremely high that a prepared squad is likely to
perish before it accomplishes its mission.
– I’ve
never thought the situation is so severe.
Worker: Now
you clearly understand why I can’t help thinking that the work
outside the building such as the metal-clad distribution switchboard
or the underground water storage tank is trivial. Exposure to
radiation cannot be avoided but the work can still be performed in
such locations.
********************
ADDENDUM
The
Level 7 nuclear disaster has not yet been averted. The actual
management of the accident will hardly bring a solution. If TEPCO
does not step down from the control of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear
Plant soon, Japan is likely going to face a critical situation
again. This is the message I wish you to spread. These are the words
of the worker interviewed.
I
transmitted the message to “Iwaki no Shoki Hibaku wo Tsuikyu Suru
Mama no Kai” (Mothers’ Association for the Pursuit of Initial
Radiation Exposure).
Mothers:
As expected, the announcement of the cold shutdown state was
premature. There are absolutely no specific plans on how to rapidly
evacuate children if another big disaster happens at the Fukushima
Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant.
Iwaki
plays a role in supporting the recovery effort of the nuclear power
plant accident. But if something happens, we want that children be
evacuated immediately.
As
long as the nuclear power plant accident is classified under Level
7, people of Iwaki should pay more attention and consider various
solutions. The safety of workers, the evacuation of children, and
the safety of Japan are all equally important issues to us.”
********************
Post-Addendum
By
the way, the increasing contaminated water will eventually be
discharged into the ocean after radioactive substances have being
gotten rid of as much as possible with the Advanced Liquid
Processing System (ALPS), a multinuclear removal system.
At
the end of 2011, I also received a phone call from another on-site
worker announcing that the “Test operation of ALPS has started! I
heard the contaminated water will be discharged into the ocean after
the removal of radioactive substances as much as possible using
ALPS.”
I
soon asked a question about it at a joint press conference, but Mr.
Matsumoto, the TEPCO spokesman said “There is no such a plan.” I
had the impression that TEPCO just didn’t have the courage to say
that they were going to discharge water treated with ALPS into the
sea. Since then the issue of the test operation remained untouched
and time goes on.
Worker:
In fact, the system was only partly operated and abandoned for an
entire year. I think that it is because concerns rose over the
eventual practical use of ALPS. It was certainly feared that
something could go wrong with the system.
However,
the “multi” nuclear removal system can’t remove tritium!!
All
the above is a story counted by a worker at the Fukushima Daiichi
nuclear power plant. His message is that the nuclear power plant
accident is not over yet, and that it is most likely to get worse.
He invites you to be proactive in the efforts carried out for change
all over the country and in the society.
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