New Disaster Level: 3

TEPCO just declared that the ongoing release of highly radioactive water at Fukushima constitutes a LEVEL 3 nuclear incident.    For reference, this places the current situation one level below the SL-1 disaster, in which 4 people were killed and the Tokiamura criticality accident in which two people died.  Its not clear if this incident the current incident could be upgraded.   No one has died, but a team of workers were sprayed with radioactive water.

It appears TEPCO is now admitting that they've been leaking 300 tons of radioactive water a day, every day, since the disaster began, something they denied for months.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/fukushima-nuclear-plant-leaking-300-tonnes-of-radioactive-water-from-storage-tank-8775962.html

http://rt.com/news/fukushima-sea-radiation-highest-686/

This article:

Nagasaki Bomb Maker Offers Lessons for Fukushima Cleanup

Provides for the first time that I have seen a price tag for the  Fukushima cleanup:  $112 billion (11 trillion yen) . For reference this is about 1/60 of Japan's GDP.  Of course the true cost of the disaster will be much more than this estimate, especially if you include the 100,000 people who were displaced and had their housed condemned, the cost of lost electrical power, etc.  This is probably more expensive than all other tsunami cleanup/damage expenses...but I'd like to see a comparison.

Emergency Declared

Unknown quantities of highly radioactive water are continuously entering the groundwater and ocean.

Cs-137 levels increased by 1,500% in the last week.
Strontium is not being tested for currently (why not?) but will be 'next'

http://preview.reuters.com/2013/8/5/fukushima-radioactive-water-likely-breached

The mitigation involves pumping and diverting 500 tons of ground water  PER DAY.   This is on top of storing the huge quantity of radioactive water being produced daily  (see previous posts.)

The amount of labor required to keep Fukushima from getting worse seems to be increasing linearly, or faster, with time.   How long will it be before 20% of Japanese citizens will be required to keep this plant from getting worse... and how about how much effort it will take to make things better, and/or actually begin to look at then clean up the problem....(which hasn't been done yet.)