Japan Disaster Raised to Level 5 as Control Efforts Continue

Today's top nuclear policy stories, with excerpts in bullet form.

Stories we're following today - Friday, March 18, 2011:

Frantic Repairs Go On at Plant as Japan Raises Severity of Crisis - Hiroko Tabuchi and Keith Bradsher for The New York Times [link]

• Japanese engineers battled on Friday to cool spent fuel rods and restore electric power to pumps at the stricken Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station as new challenges seemed to accumulate by the hour, with steam billowing from one reactor and damage at another apparently making it difficult to lower temperatures.
• As the crisis seemed to deepen, Japan’s nuclear safety agency raised the assessment of its severity to 5 from 4 on a 7-level international scale. Level 4 is for incidents with local consequences while level 5 denotes broader consequences. It was not immediately clear why the action had been taken. The partial meltdown at Three Mile Island in 1979 was rated 5, and the Chernobyl disaster in 1986 was rated 7.
• In a further sign of spreading alarm that uranium in the plant could begin to melt, Japan planned to import about 150 tons of boron from South Korea and France to mix with water to be sprayed onto damaged reactors, French and South Korean officials said Friday. Boron absorbs neutrons during a nuclear reaction and can be used in an effort to stop a meltdown if the zirconium cladding on uranium fuel rods is compromised.
• But the limited flow of information about what is happening continued to provoke international concerns.  After a meeting with Prime Minister Naoto Kan on Friday, Yukiya Amano, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, said he would dispatch a team “within days” to monitor radiation near the damaged plant.  At the meeting, Mr. Amano, who had just arrived from the agency’s headquarters in Vienna, said Mr. Kan agreed on the necessity to disclose as much information as possible on the unfolding nuclear crisis in Fukushima. 

U.S. Officials Don't Expect Radiation From Japan - Cassandra Sweet for The Wall Street Journal [link]

• U.S. government agencies said Thursday they have increased monitoring of radiation levels along the West Coast, but they don't expect a significant amount of radiation will reach U.S. shores from Japan.
• The Environmental Protection Agency said Thursday that it continuously measures radiation levels at more than 100 sites nationwide, and that it had installed seven additional radiation-monitoring devices in Guam, Hawaii and the Aleutian Islands off the Alaska coast to test for any radiation floating over the Pacific. The agency said it doesn't expect to see harmful levels of radiation in the U.S.
• California's top public health official said Thursday radiation particles emitted from a Japanese nuclear reactor would disperse long before reaching California, posing no threat to people's health in the state or along the West Coast.
• "The best estimates of whether radiation will reach our shores indicate that if [it does], the amounts will be so small as to basically be equivalent to our normal background radiation sources from air and soil," California Department of Public Health Director Howard Backer told reporters.
• At Fukushima City, 60 miles from the plant, government monitors recorded radiation of 20 microsieverts an hour, a level that won't have long-term health effects but is roughly 1,000 times higher than in Japanese cities far from the plant.  Also in Fukushima City, radioactive elements, including iodine, cesium-135 and cesium-137, were found in drinking water. The amounts of such elements were roughly one-quarter the levels that will make the water unfit to drink, Fukushima prefecture said.
  

US to Start Russia Arms Inspections - AFP [link]

• A US team may arrive in Russia next month to inspect the country's latest range of nuclear missiles under a new disarmament treaty signed by the two sides this year, the foreign ministry said Thursday.  Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov exchanged documents formally bringing the New START treaty into force in Munich on February 5.
• Besides slashing existing nuclear warhead and missile ceilings, the treaty allows the two sides to inspect each other's nuclear facilities -- seen as a vital confidence-building measure.  Full on-site inspections are allowed within 60 days of the treaty going into effect, and a top Russian diplomat said Thursday they could potentially begin in April.
• "The first inspection check may occur two months after the new START treaty's signature," Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov was quoted as saying by Interfax.  Ryabkov's comments came moments after one of Russia's top nuclear weapons designers said he expected the first US team to arrive this week.  He added that the first US team would stay in Russia until March 22.  
  

U.S. Government Rushing to Help Americans Leave Japan - Josh Rogin for "The Cable" a Foreign Policy Blog [link]

• As President Barack Obama stopped by the Japanese embassy to pay his respects to those who lost their lives in the Japanese earthquake and tsunami crisis, the State Department was scrambling to help Americans evacuate northern Japan.
• "Even as Japanese responders continue to do heroic work, we know that the damage to the nuclear reactors in Fukushima Daiichi plant poses a substantial risk to people who are nearby...That is why yesterday we called for an evacuation of American citizens who are within 50 miles of the plant. This decision was based upon a careful scientific evaluation and the guidelines that we would use to keep our citizens safe here in the United States or anywhere in the world."
• Obama authorized the voluntary departures of family members and dependents of U.S. officials working in northeastern Japan on Wednesday night. The State Department has deployed teams around northern Japan to help any U.S. citizens who want to leave.
• Undersecretary Patrick Kennedy told reporters that the first U.S. chartered flight left Japan on Thursday morning, Washington-time, as part of the State Department's new policy of aiding the departure of U.S. citizens. The plane took the citizens to Taipei, the capital of Taiwan. Embassy teams were at Tokyo's Haneda and Narita airports sweeping for U.S. citizens who wanted to leave.
• Kennedy said that the United States had an agreement with the consular teams from Canada, Britain, and Australia to report to each other if they find another's citizen in distress. To date, there are no confirmed deaths of American citizens.  He estimated there are about 90,000 Americans in and around Tokyo and about 350,000 Americans in Japan.

Malaysian Ship Smuggling Equipment with Possible Nuclear Link was Headed to Iran, Police Say - The Associated Press [link]

• Malaysian police said Friday that they had found equipment they suspect could be used to make nuclear weapons smuggled on board a ship headed to Iran.
• National police chief Ismail Omar told The Associated Press that the cargo was seized from a Malaysian-registered ship traveling from China to Tehran while it was docked at a central Malaysia harbor. Authorities are investigating whether the equipment could be used to make nuclear weapons.
• Malaysian International Shipping Corp. confirmed in a statement to the AP that police confiscated two containers from the MV Bunga Raya Satu on March 8. It said a freight forwarder had declared the contents as “goods used for liquid mixing or storage for pharmaceutical or chemical or food industry.”  
• Police said they had received a tip that the items were being shipped illegally and did not have a special permit required under Malaysia’s anti-trafficking law.  Malaysia passed that law last year to curb the trafficking of nuclear weapon components after being linked to the illegal supply of sensitive technology to countries including Iran and Libya.