TEPCO fails to meet Fukushima water treatment system rules

August 15, 2017

TOKYO- Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings Inc. said Monday that it failed to meet operational rules for its systems to remove cesium in radiation-tainted water at its crippled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power station for four days in March last year.

The situation did not affect the company's work to decontaminate the water at the plant damaged in the March 2011 powerful earthquake and tsunami, TEPCO said.

There are two cesium-removing systems at the power station in Fukushima Prefecture, northeastern Japan. Under the rules, one of the two systems must be workable, according to TEPCO officials.

One of the systems had comprised four water treatment units, which together allowed it to be regarded as a single legitimate system. But after the system was overhauled so that strontium could also be removed, the number of units effectively decreased to two and it failed to be considered as a legitimate single system under the operational rules as a result, the officials said. Jiji Press