Contaminated Water Found in Japan Resulting from Nuclear Disaster

Summary of Article: In Japan, a terrible earthquake and tsunami destroyed a nuclear power plant run by the company Tepco. This is considered the worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl in 1986. Tepco at first claimed that it wasn't its fault, since it could not foresee the earthquake. Later investigations found that Tepco's lack of a safety culture and bad habits exacerbated the problem, releasing "obscene quantities of radiation into the air and sea" unnecessarily. Tepco was held responsible for cleaning up the nuclear spill but now the company has been found to be doing a poor job: contaminated ground water near the plant has been discovered. Tepco wants to solve the crisis by allowing some of the nuclear waste to go into the ocean but local fishermen are against this. For pictures of the plant and more discussion, click here.

Discussion with Kids:

• Why did Tepco at first claim that the nuclear spill wasn't its fault? What did the Japanese government decide? 
• Who is responsible for cleaning up the nuclear waste? Why is Tepco found to have done a bad job cleaning it up? 
• Why are fishermen against having the waste go into the ocean? 
• If ground water and nearby sea water are contaminated, who suffers? Go down the food chain. (For the sea: fish and people who eat the fish. For ground water: local crops, rice and the people who eat that food). 
• What would you do if you were the Japanese government?