Fukushima Watch: A 'Level 3′ Incident at Daiichi

Japan's new nuclear watchdog decided on Wednesday morning to declare a radioactive spill at the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant a Level 3 -- or ``serious incident'' -- on the International Nuclear and Radiological Event Scale. That's a scale, overseen by the International Atomic Energy Agency, that lets us compare, for instance, the 2011 meltdowns at Fukushima Daiichi (a ``7'') with the 1986 nuclear disaster at Chernobyl (also a ``7'') with the 1999 uranium-processing accident at Tokaimura, Japan, which caused two deaths but didn't spread contamination widely beyond the accident site (a ``4'').

Though there have been contaminated-water leaks at Fukushima Daiichi before, the reason this is a Level 3 is because there's a lot of water (300 metric tons) and it's very radioactive (measurements of more than 100 milliseiverts per hour -- which is the level at which cancer risks are seen as rising, and equivalent to double the maximum dosage that workers at the plant are allowed in an entire year).

JRT readers may be wondering just what this all means for Fukushima Daiichi. Are conditions there getting worse?

The short answer is: To some extent, yes -- although it's not deemed a serious hazard yet to the surrounding environment.

For the nearly two and a half years since an earthquake and tsunami knocked out power at Fukushima Daiichi and sent the site's three active reactors into meltdown, operator Tokyo Electric Power Co. has been struggling with the massive amounts of water -- 400 metric tons -- it's needed to apply to the damaged fuel cores every day. Add to that an estimated 1,000 tons a day of groundwater that flows through the site -- and is potentially contaminated as it goes -- and that's a lot of liquid to deal with.

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