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.