Sen. Ron Wyden urges Japan to move faster to clean up, contain radioactive danger from stricken nuclear plants

Oregonian-

WASHINGTON - Sen. Ron Wyden is pressing the Japanese government to move faster to clean up – and contain – radioactive debris from theFukushima Daiichi complex, the facility that was virtually destroyedlast year by the double-fisted disaster of an earthquake and tsunami.

“The Japanese are talking about a 10-year program to move (radioactive fuel rods an

d other waste) to dry storage,” he said in an interview. “That is not soon enough. It's got to be done more quickly. … To me this is not a debatable proposition. Waiting 10 years after these kinds of earthquakes and tsunamis . I think the clean up has a lot of significant gaps.”

Wyden, who's a senior member of theSenate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, said his anxiety increased after touring the ruins April 6.

“I have to tell you, I’ve never seen anything like this. It just takes your breath away,” he said.

“I had a sense of what it was; but nothing like this. You go through the 20-kilometer area, which is sort of the evacuation zone and it’s post-apocalyptic. There are destroyed homes. The day we were there they were allowing people to come in for the first time to get some of their possessions,” Wyden said.

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Posted by hive on Apr 19 2012. Filed under Breaking, Pacific NW, Politics, Science and Nature. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. Both comments and pings are currently closed.