Quote:

---

FUKUSHIMA – Radiation levels in groundwater under Tokyo Electric Power Co.’s Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant are soaring, Tepco said Friday after taking samples from an observation well.

Tepco said 400,000 becquerels per liter of beta ray-emitting substances such as strontium were detected in water sampled Thursday from the well located some 15 meters from a storage tank that leaked about 300 tons of highly radioactive water in August.

The level of becquerels, a record high for water in that well, was up 6,500-fold from the 61 becquerels found Wednesday.

Tepco was planning to pump groundwater up from different wells about 100 meters from the leaky tank for release into the Pacific before the water flows into the damaged reactor buildings and becomes heavily contaminated with radioactive materials.

But that plan appears in jeopardy because the sharp increase in the levels of radioactive materials in the observation well suggest the radioactive groundwater is spreading.

---

Quote:

---

A double-shelled tank holding more than 850,000 gallons of highly radioactive wastes may be leaking through both of its protective layers at the Hanford nuclear reservation in Eastern Washington.

The tank is supposed to securely store the waste until it can be processed into a more stable form for long-term disposal. Any breach of the tank’s outer layer would be a big setback for the troubled effort to clean up America’s most contaminated nuclear site, a task soaking up $2 billion in taxpayer money each year.

The possibility of a tank breach was raised Thursday, when Hanford workers discovered increased levels of contamination during a routine removal of water from a leak- detection pit near the tank.

---