The 4th Nuclear Reform Monitoring Committee Meeting
The Chairman's Opening Address
- (Dr. Klein)
- Thank you and good morning. As you know this meeting has been scheduled for some time. And on behalf of the committee, we would like to express our frustrations at your recent activities regarding the water contamination. We believe that these events detract from the progress that you have made on your clean-up, and the reforms for the Fukushima. I think this action regarding the water contamination demonstrates a lack of the conservative decision making process. In addition to the lack of conservative decision making process, it also appears that you are not keeping the people in Japan informed. These actions indicate that you do not know what you are doing, and that you do not have a plan, and that you are not doing all you can, to protect the environment and the people. We look forward to the hearing of all of your activities, that you have done all the reform, but especially we are interested in your ground water issues. Items of specific interest, are, what did you know, when did you know it, and what are your plans to mitigate impact. And again I would like to summarize that you have made a lot of positive progress, but the water issue is definitely disturbing, and it detracts from the progress you are making. And now I will let my fellow committee members make comments.
Individual Committee Member comments
- (Lady Judge)
- In the past few months, I have been endeavoring to speak to some of the women and people in Japan, about the fact that TEPCO is on the journey to be reborn, to set a renewed belief. I am really disappointed and distressed to have read about what happened with respect to the water issue. I have spoken personally to many people around Japan and in the rest of the world, about the journey that TEPCO began when they set up this Nuclear Monitoring Reform Committee. This type of communication issue undermines the confidence that we have tried to build with respect to the new TEPCO. And as is already been said by the chairman, both the form and the substance of the issue have been mishandled. I hope that there would be lessons learned from the mishandling of this issue. And the next time an issue arises, which inevitably will, because decommissioning is a complicated and difficult process, that the public will be immediately informed about the situation, and what TEPCO is planning to do in order to remedy it. Thank you very much.
- (Mr. Sakurai)
- I thoroughly agree with the statements made by the other committee members with regard to the water contamination issue. In addition to that, I would especially like to hear your interpretation of the specific cause of this problem and the steps that are to be taken towards it, in the aspect of risk communication and social communication, which is my specialty, and would like to continuously receive reports on this topic in order to discuss it if necessary. Meanwhile, about the progress report that has been made after the quarter, as you may know, the government has made a statement regarding the authority of the National Diet of Japan Fukushima Nuclear Accident Independent Investigation Commission, on June 11, 2013. In that statement, the government referred to the implementation of the employees's sense-reform, information disclosure, management system, and governance of TEPCO. The government has also showed their particularly high valuation on the role of our committee by referring especially to the Nuclear Reform Special Task Force, the Nuclear Reform Monitoring Committee, and the Nuclear Safety Oversight Office. We have been feeling heavy responsibility. We hope that the management department understands the important role of our committee as well. Finally, during this quarter, I had a chance to inspect the disaster drill at the Kashiwazaki Kariwa Nuclear Power Station and the headquarters, along with President Mr. Hirose. Notable improvements have been made compared to the television conference at the 3.11 accident, especially with regard to the actions taken by the Power Station side. On the other hand, however, there was an impression that there is still room for improvement concerning the behavior of the headquarters, especially with the authority problems. I hope you would eventually conduct disaster drills including external relations, that is, risk communication and social communication, with the vision to conduct disaster drills in cooperation with national or local governments in the near future. As the other committee members have already mentioned, there had been a water contamination problem. We hope to be informed of updated information in order to be completely aware of your implementation status of the reform plan.
Materials
- Report on the findings of the Nuclear Monitoring Committee to the Board of TEPCO on the progress of the Nuclear Safety Reform(45KB)
- Meeting Agenda(11KB)
- The Outline of "Nuclear Safety Reform Plan Progreess Report"(43KB)
- Nuclear Safety Reform Plan Progress Report (FY2013 1st Quarter)(1,099KB)
- Progress Report on the Nuclear Safety Oversight Office(53KB)
- accomplishments of the International information Disclosure Activities regarding the Accident at Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station(59KB)
- The framework for Nuclear Reform Monitoring and role of Members(62KB)
- Summary of the Meeting(80KB)