The Nuclear Regulation Authority announced Tuesday that several items of anti-terrorism equipment for detecting intruders at Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings Inc.'s Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear power plant in Niigata Prefecture had been malfunctioning since last March.
The NRA has provisionally rated the plant "red," the most serious of four levels for the security of nuclear materials, on the grounds that organizational management functions had deteriorated to the point where unauthorized intrusion was possible.
This is the first time for a red to be given since the new inspection system started in April last year, based on the Law on the Regulation of Nuclear Source Material, Nuclear Fuel Material and Reactors. The NRA will conduct an additional inspection.
"The inspection will probably take more than a year," said NRA Chairman Toyoshi Fuketa at a press conference. TEPCO is aiming to restart the plant, but Economy, Trade and Industry Minister Hiroshi Kajiyama said, "We are not at the stage where we can restart the plant as it stands now."
According to the NRA, the deficiencies were discovered during its surprise inspections of the plant conducted until late February. TEPCO claimed that it had taken alternative measures, but the NRA judged that the measures were not effective. All the deficiencies are now fixed.
The NRA said it could not disclose the type or number of faulty equipment cases for anti-terrorism reasons. According to TEPCO, there were 16 defective points, 10 of which were indicated to have existed for more than 30 days.
In September last year, it was discovered that an employee of the plant had used another person's ID card to illegally enter the central control room. Fuketa said: "This case is serious in that there had been multiple areas where third parties could illegally enter for a long period of time. The impact is different. [The severity] is incomparable to any other case."
If no objection is filed by TEPCO, the NRA will finalize its "red" rating within a week. It will then instruct TEPCO to report within six months on measures to prevent recurrence, including assessments of the deficiencies by a third-party organization. Additional, more stringent inspections will be conducted, and administrative punishment will be considered.
TEPCO commented, "We take the severe evaluation seriously."
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