Quake/Tsunami

[tw]

TEPCO management that created the meltdowns by refusing to vent is also demonstrating same mismanagement with ground water management. If drainage pipes were damaged, then major construction two years ago should have been replacing those pipes. But TEPCO decisions (even to avert the meltdown) have favored business decisions (ie cost controls) rather than what is needed (product oriented thinking). Instead, they spent years looking for and hoping to patch leaks.

Same mismanagement applies to storage tanks. Many storage tanks are now leaking or on the verge of leaking since some tanks were even constructed with plastic bolts. Long term water storage requires welded tanks. TEPCO inaction means they must now build a new tank the size of an olympic swimming pool every day.

Apparently TEPCO believed government would let them dump that water into the ocean. Then discovered that would not be permitted when numerous international NGOs were even monitoring ocean waters. So now they have created more problems traceable to decisions using business school concepts rather than using engineering concepts.

TEPCO, what does heavy structural construction and maintenance, did not even have one ground water specialist in their 40,000 employees.