U.S. Warns of New Threats in Japan
COOPER: Breaking news about Japan. "The New York Times" reporting tonight that U.S. government engineers sent to help with Japan's nuclear crisis are now warning that the troubled Fukushima Daiichi plant is facing new threats, long-term threats as a result of the measures being taken to keep the plant stable. The "Times" got hold of a report outlining potential problems, and in a moment we're going to run them by nuclear engineer Michael Friedlander. But first, some other developments today with this plant, TEPCO. The owner of the plant says it has finally stopped a serious lake at the Number Two Reactor. TEPCO released this photo earlier, saying its latest attempt to repair a crack had reduced -- that had reduced the flow of highly radioactive water into the ocean. You can see the difference here. The picture on the left was taken Saturday; shows much more water gushing from that crack. A short time ago, TEPCO released this photo showing the leak has stopped, and that is very, very good news indeed. Just today, tests showed that water pouring from the Number Two Reactor contained radiation five million times the legal limit. Days ago, it was actually higher. Apart from that leak, though, the plant is still dumping tons of -- thousands of tons of radioactive water into the ocean to free up its storage tanks for water that's even more radioactive. Now high levels of radiation have been found in fish. Today for the first time authorities issued radiation safety standards for fish. Meantime, TEPCO facing a growing backlash, has offered payments to residents in ten communities near the plant. It's calling the money a token offer and says more compensation will come. But one city has already flat-out rejected the money, saying it amounts to about $12 a person. CNN's Kyung Lah joins me from Tokyo, and in Hong Kong, Michael Friedlander, who worked as a senior nuclear power plant operator for more than a decade. So Michael, U.S. government engineers helping the plant are warning that the plant faces new threats, one that could persist indefinitely, mounting stresses on the containment structures, the possibility of explosions due to the release of hydrogen and oxygen; what do you make of these new reports the "New York Times" has reported?</s>MICHAEL FRIEDLANDER, SENIOR NUCLEAR POWER PLANT OPERATOR: Well, you know, Anderson, let's put it into a little bit of context. We are so far outside the original design basis of this power plant. I think it's prudent that some people step back and take a look at it and ask all the "what if" questions. You know, it's important to note that they created a laundry list of these different things that are absolutely just -- they need to be looked at and they need to be considered. But at the end of the day, and I've said this before, we simply cannot put ourselves in the situation where we stop injecting water. That is the only means of cooling the cores. But more importantly, what it does is it illustrates better than I could have ever articulated the absolute sense of urgency that TEPCO needs to take in terms of getting on the long-term method of core cooling, which is the residual heat removal system. It's something we need to consider, it's something that people need to be standing back and asking the "what if" questions. But quite honestly, other than that, there's really nothing more that can be done.</s>COOPER: You talked about the heat removal system. What do you mean?</s>FRIEDLANDER: Nuclear power plants are designed so that, when they shut down, we have systems -- it's a two-loop system. It's sort of like the radiator in your car, where we circulate water through the reactor. It picks up the heat and then it flows through a heat exchanger and that exchanges the heat with another loop that ultimately sends hot water into the ocean, not radioactive but hot water. And that is the long-term method of core cooling that we have to get on. That equipment is normally powered by emergency diesel generators, which of course we know were knocked out during the tsunami. And in fact, they found when they were trying to restore these systems; that was when the radioactive water was found that they've been dealing with now for more than a week.</s>COOPER: Kyung, when I heard TEPCO is offering what they say is a token payment, I didn't realize how much of a token in some places this was, $12 per person. That's kind of stunning, isn't it?</s>KYUNG LAH, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: It's very stunning to the town of Namie (ph). This is one of the towns that was evacuated from the shadow of the nuclear plant. The town basically said, TEPCO, take your token money and you can just keep it. The city manager of Namie says put yourself in his shoes. His people have been evacuated. They haven't been given a timeline that they can go home. They've lost their jobs, their loved ones, their bodies still lying around after the tsunami. They haven't been able to bury them. How is he, as a city manager, supposed to go to these evacuees and say, "Here; here's $12. Hope you feel better." Basically, Namie saying they're just not going to do that.</s>COOPER: Michael, in terms of the international help that -- that Japan has asked for, has received, have they asked for enough? You'd like to see more international involvement, right?</s>FRIEDLANDER: Absolutely, Anderson. It's difficult for me to -- to understand if it's simply a matter of logistics or if it's an issue of communications, or if this is simply a cultural issue of trying to save face and demonstrating that they can do it themselves. There is capacity and there's certainly capability external to Japan that can be brought to bear on this. I sit here daily astonished looking at just how the government and how TEPCO is flailing around dealing with this issue. We are now three weeks into a major international crisis and I've seen almost no external help brought in.</s>COOPER: And in terms of the water going -- the radiated water going into the ocean, they've stopped that leak. And we showed those pictures before. But they're still dumping tons of water, radioactive water into the Pacific, right?</s>FRIEDLANDER: You know, you are absolutely correct. On one hand, we can declare a bit of victory for the extremely highly radioactive water that was being dumped in some form. But it's exactly how you said it; we're still in the process of dumping more than three million gallons of water that has more than 100 times the allotted limit of radiation into the ocean. Furthermore, they have not provided any isotopic analysis of exactly what's in that water. And furthermore, because of where that water is coming from, we have reason to believe that there are long-lived radio isotopes in that water. Again, the issue they have been dealing for several weeks now, we simply need to keep our eye on the food chain, because this is where this is all going to come home to roost.</s>COOPER: Michael Friedlander, appreciate your expertise; and Kyung Lah, as always thank you for your reporting. Still ahead, tough talk from President Obama but still no budget deal; we have new information behind the scenes talks to avoid a government shut-down on Friday. Plus, what executives at the company that own the rig that exploded in the Gulf of Mexico now say they plan to do with their huge safety bonuses. That's right, they got safety bonuses.