Page 8A
ENVIRONMENT
East Oregonian
Saturday, July 22, 2017
Possible melted fuel seen for Oregon regulators dilute
first time at Fukushima plant Gov. Brown’s clean air plan
By MARI YAMAGUCHI
Associated Press
TOKYO — An under-
water robot captured images
of solidified lava-like rocks
Friday inside a damaged
reactor at Japan’s crippled
Fukushima nuclear plant,
spotting for the first time
what is believed to be nuclear
fuel that melted six years ago.
Plant operator Tokyo
Electric Power Co. said the
robot found large amounts of
lava-like debris apparently
containing fuel that had
flowed out of the core into
the primary containment
vessel of the Unit 3 reactor
at Fukushima. The plant
was destroyed by a massive
earthquake and tsunami in
March 2011.
Cameras mounted on
the robot showed extensive
damage caused by the core
meltdown, with fuel debris
mixed with broken reactor
parts, suggesting the difficult
challenges ahead in the
decades-long
decommis-
sioning of the destroyed plant.
Experts have said the fuel
melted and much of it fell to
the chamber’s bottom and is
now covered by radioactive
water as deep as 6 meters
(20 feet). The fuel, during
meltdown, also likely melted
its casing and other metal
structures inside the reactor,
forming rocks as it cooled.
TEPCO spokesman Taka-
hiro Kimoto said it was the
first time a robot camera has
International Research Institute for Nuclear Decommissioning via AP
This image captured by an underwater robot provided
by International Research Institute for Nuclear Decom-
missioning shows lava-like lumps believed to contain
melted fuel inside the Unit 3 reactor at Fukushima
Dai-ichi nuclear plant in Okuma town, Japan, Friday.
captured what is believed to
be the melted fuel.
“That debris has appar-
ently fallen from somewhere
higher above. We believe it
is highly likely to be melted
fuel or something mixed
with it,” Kimoto said. He
said it would take time to
analyze which portions of
the rocks were fuel.
In an earlier survey
Wednesday, the robot found
severe damage in the vessel,
including key structures that
were broken and knocked
out of place.
The robot, nicknamed
“the Little Sunfish,” on
Friday went inside a structure
called the pedestal for a closer
look. TEPCO plans to send
the robot farther down on
Saturday in hopes of finding
more melted fuel and debris.
Experts have said the
melted fuel is most likely
to have landed inside the
pedestal after breaching the
core.
Kimoto said the robot
probe in its two missions has
captured a great deal of useful
information and images
showing the damage inside
the reactor, which will help
experts eventually determine
a way to remove the melted
fuel, a process expected to
begin sometime after the
2020 Tokyo Olympics.
“It’s still just the beginning
of the (decades-long) decom-
missioning. There is still a
long way to go, including
developing the necessary
technology,” he said. “But it’s
a big step forward.”
The solar eclipse is coming
August 21
PORTLAND (AP) —
Oregon’s polluters have
again drastically diluted an
effort to clean up toxic air
in the state.
A 2011 effort to fix Port-
land’s bad air failed. More
recently, industry lobbyists
convinced lawmakers to
withhold money for imple-
menting new rules that
Gov. Kate Brown proposed
after the 2016 Bullseye
Glass crisis in Portland.
Now, citing industry “feed-
back,” the Department of
Environmental Quality has
loosened the rules them-
selves.
The newly revised
draft rules allow polluters
to create far more cancer
risk across Oregon than
the department initially
proposed.
In the original plan,
released in March, no
business would have been
allowed to increase the
cancer risk by more than
10 people in every million
who breathe the air for
70 years. In the new plan,
existing polluters could
increase the risk above
more than 100 cancers in
every million people with
agency approval. No cap
would be set.
The department has
also added a loophole that
would give local politi-
cians a say about whether
some of the state’s biggest
polluters should be subject
to limits on the toxic chem-
icals coming from their
smokestacks.
The loophole would
enable
the
agency’s
director to exempt the
state’s highest polluting
businesses from require-
ments to nearly eliminate
the risk from their toxic
emissions.
Companies
would be eligible for the
exemption if they installed
some pollution controls
and consulted with the state
health department and local
politicians.
The latest move carries
far more significance than
the budget fight in Salem.
This industry victory has
been authored by a state
agency that answers to the
governor, an indicator that
her commitment to her
clean air overhaul may be
wavering amid business
opposition.
The deference to local
lawmakers evokes what
happened with concerns
over toxic pollution from
Entek International, a
Lebanon
manufacturer
that uses a cancer-causing
solvent, trichloroethylene.
When the department
began investigating the
risks to neighbors, local
politicians criticized the
agency for attacking a
major employer.
State lawmakers who
represent the area around
Entek berated the depart-
ment during hearings in
Salem; one pledged to
never fund its budget again.
The criticism, coupled with
an unprecedented gag
order, succeeded in getting
the department to slow
down its plan to tell neigh-
bors about the potential
risks of breathing the air
there. The environmental
quality department planned
to deploy air monitors
months ago but its deputy
director, Leah Feldon, said
Thursday it still has not.
Feldon could not cite
another example of a law
her department enforces
that gives local politicians
any discretion over whether
it should be followed. Nor
could she immediately
point to another state’s laws
with a similar loophole.
Robb
Cowie,
a
spokesman for the Oregon
Health Authority, which is
jointly drafting the rules,
said the changes reflect
what he called “feedback”
received from an advisory
committee of industry and
environmental groups.
“In our state, there are
communities that do have
a major employer,” Cowie
said. “We’re not giving the
community a veto. But we
are providing an oppor-
tunity for input to inform
that decision based on the
concerns and what that
local community wants us
to take into account.”
It’s unclear whether the
changes came at Brown’s
urging.
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