The Fukushima nuclear disaster just keeps getting messier and scarier | Grist

Last Monday, Yukio Edano, chief cabinet secretary, defended the Japanese government's response to the nuclear disaster at Fukushima, insisting that the plant complex is in "a stable situation, relatively speaking." That's somewhat like the official description of 11,500 tons of water purposely dumped into the ocean waters off Fukushima as "low-level radioactive" or "lightly radioactive." It is, of course, only "lightly" so in comparison to the even more radioactive water being stored at the plant in its place. But that's the thing with descriptive words: they can leave so much to the eye of the beholder -- and the Japanese government hasn't been significantly more eager than the Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco), which runs the complex, to behold all that much when it comes to Fukushima.

The Fukushima nuclear disaster just keeps getting messier and scarier | Grist