Japan keeps oil spill from reactors

Japan keeps oil spill from reactors

MAIZURU, Japan (Reuter): Workers from Japan's maritime agency
successfully kept globs of heavy oil leaking out of a ruptured
tanker from fouling the operations of the world's largest
concentration of nuclear reactors yesterday.

Oil from the Russian tanker drifted close to the 15 nuclear
reactors lying along Wakasa Bay, but oil fences and cleanup
operations succeeded in keeping the oil from the important intake
pipes providing reactor cooling water, a spokesman said.

"About 10 MSA ships spent Sunday gathering oil clumps that had
gathered at the oil fences surrounding Wakasa Bay," the agency
official told reporters.

The cleanup operation, the biggest ever in Japan, is spread
across a 450 km (285-mile) stretch of the coast. But officials
are now concentrating efforts on keeping the oil away from the
vital power plants.

An official with Kansai Electric Co., which operates 11
reactors along the bay, said a five-meter (15-foot) wide slick
was spotted by reactor staff at the outer line of the oil fences,
some 200 meters from the reactor's water intake pipes.

The sighting was probably the vanguard of a 500-metre (1,500-
foot) wide oil slick the utility company had earlier spotted.

Nuclear power plant officials said there was no danger of a
meltdown even if oil were to enter the intake pipes. They said
that the system could tolerate small amounts of oil and at worst
they would have to suspend power generation.

Maritime officials still have no firm figure on how much oil
has escaped from the 13,157-ton tanker Nakhodka when it broke up
in stormy seas on Jan. 2.

They admit that the earlier estimate of 3,700 tons (26,000
barrels) was too low. The 26-year old tanker was carrying 19,000
tons (133,000 barrels) of fuel oil.

A Russian oil cleaning ship, the first of two promised by the
Russian government, was on its way to the oil-struck area after
being dispatched from the Pacific island of Sakhalin. The ship is
specially designed to filter oil from seawater.

Hundreds of volunteers have flocked to the areas already hit,
which include some of the most fertile fishing grounds in Japan,
to help in the dirty job of gathering the oil from shorelines.

With little more than buckets and scoops, they braved snow,
sleet and cold temperatures. But medical experts said caution
should be taken following reports of nausea, rashes and other
ailments from some volunteers.