Japan’s nuclear regulator is criticizing the operator of the radiation-spewing Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant for grossly underestimating the contamination levels in groundwater at the site of the triple-meltdown.

Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) last week said that groundwater drawn from a monitoring well last July contained a record 5 million becquerels per liter of the bone cancer-causing isotope Strontium-90.  That’s more than five times the total radiation from all isotopes in the well that TEPCO had earlier reported.

Japan’s “legal limit” for Stronium-90 releases is only 30 becquerels per liter, a tiny fraction of was is actually happening.  The well in question is only 25 meters from the Pacific Ocean. 

TEPCO blames measuring equipment failure.

“Something like this cannot happen.  This (data) is what becomes the basis of various decisions, so they must do their utmost to avoid mistakes in measuring radiation,” said Nuclear Regulation Authority (NRA) Chairman Shunichi Tanaka, who added that he thought the mistake did not pose a serious safety risk.. at the plant.

By the way, TEPCO detected up to 58 becquerels of radioactive cesium and up to 2,100 becquerels of radioactive strontium per liter of melted snow in the area.  In the snow.