So the Japanese PM has ordered TEPCO to close all of the nuclear reactors at Fukushima and concentrate on cleaning up the radioactive water:

Japanese authorities ignored US calls to contain contaminated water at the stricken Fukushima power plant in 2008, officials told media. The revelation comes as the Japanese battle to stem radioactive water leaks flooding into the sea from the facility.

Tokyo Electric Power (TEPCO) estimates that 300 metric tons of groundwater has mixed with radioactive material at the site and is steadily flowing out to sea. Water needs to be constantly pumped over the stricken reactors at the Fukushima site to prevent them from overheating.

Four hundred metric tons of groundwater runs into the nuclear facility from higher ground every day, TEPCO estimates. Japanese authorities have so far been unable to stem the flow, although it turns out they were aware of the threat groundwater posed back in 2011 in the wake of the tsunami that decimated the facility.

Two officials dealing with the cleanup operation told Reuters that TEPCO had ignored warnings from US experts over the need to control contaminated water at the site. A plan to construct a barrier to prevent the groundwater from entering Fukushima was proposed as early as April 2011.

“It was obvious to us that there was great deal of groundwater intrusion into the plant, and we shared that with the Japanese government,” said Charles Casto, a representative of the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) who was based in Tokyo from March 2011 to early 2012.

TEPCO chose to disregard the idea because the potential cost of constructing the barrier would have had an impact on investor confidence. A TEPCO memo obtained by Reuters that was sent to Japanese officials in June 2011 said the expense of constructing a barrier would fuel fears of imminent bankruptcy.
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“Shoddily made”? You don’t mean TEPCO is still trying to cut corners, do you?

TOKYO — A crisis over contaminated water at Japan’s stricken nuclear plant worsened on Saturday when the plant’s operator said it had detected high radiation levels near storage tanks, a finding that raised the possibility of additional leaks.

The operator, Tokyo Electric Power Company, or Tepco, said it had found the high levels of radiation at four separate spots on the ground, near some of the hundreds of tanks used to store toxic water produced by makeshift efforts to cool the Fukushima Daiichi plant’s three damaged reactors. The highest reading was 1,800 millisieverts per hour, or enough to give a lethal dose in about four hours, Tepco said.

The contaminated spots were found as Tepco employees checked the integrity of the tanks after a leak two weeks ago released 300 tons of toxic water into the Pacific. That leak prompted Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to announce that the government would step in at the plant, which was crippled two years ago by a huge earthquake and tsunami, to help get it under control amid rising public fears of a second environmental disaster.

Saturday’s discoveries suggested that there may have been other leaks from the tanks, many of which appear to have been shoddily built as Tepco has scrambled to find enough storage space for the contaminated water being produced by the plant. However, Tepco said that it had found no evidence of fallen water levels in nearby tanks, making it unclear how much water, if any, may have leaked out, and whether any reached the Pacific, about 1,500 feet away.

Also, this:

Vapour has begun rising again from a reactor at the Fukushima nuclear power plant, more than two-and-a-half years after its core melted down, the site’s Japanese operator said Friday.

Tokyo Electric Power said it believed the steam was coming from a puddle sitting atop the reactor and was not dangerous, but it has not been able to clarify why vapour started appearing occasionally from July this year.

TEPCO said the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant remained stable, with sensors in and around it showing no increase in levels of radioactivity being released.

‘So these guys were all like, ‘Whoa, we can’t believe you’re bringing criminal charges against us for a spill when we said ‘Oopsie!”

Oh dear, Attorney General Kathleen Kane is creating a “hostile business environment”! Maybe if the business environment is a little less friendly, these companies will be a little more careful about the poison they so frequently “accidentally” spill:

Pennsylvania Attorney General Kathleen Kane’s decision to prosecute a major Marcellus Shale natural-gas driller for a 2010 wastewater spill has sent shock waves through the industry. But environmentalists Wednesday hailed the prosecution of the Exxon Mobil Corp. subsidiary as a departure from the soft treatment they say the industry has received from Pennsylvania regulators. “We have been very concerned about enforcement in the Marcellus, and we welcome the attorney general’s taking an active role,” said Myron Arnowitt, Pennsylvania director of Clean Water Action.

Kane’s office announced charges Tuesday against XTO Energy Inc. for discharging more than 50,000 gallons of toxic wastewater from storage tanks at a gas-well site in Lycoming County.

XTO in July settled federal civil charges over the incident by agreeing to pay a $100,000 fine and deploy a plan to improve wastewater-management practices. The consent decree included no admissions of liability. The Fort Worth, Texas, drilling company, which Exxon acquired in 2010, said it had worked cooperatively with federal and state authorities to clean up the spilled waste, known as “produced water.” XTO excavated and removed 3,000 tons of contaminated soil from the site.

“Criminal charges are unwarranted and legally baseless because neither XTO nor any of its employees intentionally, recklessly, or negligently discharged produced water on the site,” XTO said in a statement. Kane’s office said it did not need to prove intent to prosecute the company for crimes.

XTO is charged with five counts of unlawful conduct under the Clean Streams Law and three counts of unlawful conduct under the Solid Waste Management Act.

Industry leaders said the prosecution of a company for what they called an inadvertent spill creates a hostile business environment. “The incident has been fully addressed at the state and federal levels, and this action creates an untenable business climate that will discourage investment in the commonwealth,” Kathryn Z. Klaber, president of the Marcellus Shale Coalition, said in a statement. The Pennsylvania Chamber of Business and Industry also protested.