Rodney Johnson - Without Warning

Attached to every disaster lies a calamity of sorts it seems. It’s often a place where fact too often feels as if it were fiction. It’s a place where adversity faces reality. It’s a place where shady and dangerous acts of defiance can cascade into a cataclysmic disaster. And when the plot begins to unfold and thicken, a long trail of events begins to emerge.  They often reveal: falsified documents, the manipulation of relationships, evidence that is covered up and often tainted, and a place where whistleblowers are often silenced. Yes, they all fall under what I refer to as Silent Problems in my book Without Warning (silent problems are problems that have been avoided, neglected or intentionally silenced).

A long list of companies and individuals that perpetuate this often deadly disease exist throughout the world. We can easily turn our attention  towards the likes of Enron, Lehman Brothers, WorldComm and numerous others. Today however, a silent problem of immense proportion is being revealed in Japan. It’s the story of  Tokyo Electric and Power (TEPCO), the operators of the Fukushima nuclear power plants that have succumbed to the wrath of mother nature and the revealing of a host of silent problems. And the silent problems at TEPCO not only preceeded the disaster at Fukushima, its history foretells its vulnerability to such an event. Let’s take a look at how vulnerable TEPCO was by looking into its history.

Bill Pesak from Bloomberg writes: Once one of Japan’s proudest names, Tepco is now seen by some in the same toxic class as Enron Corp. or Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. Each day brings new disclosures about how Tepco doctored safety reports and underestimated risks all without holding responsible the company directors who are still collecting their salaries, never mind keeping their jobs.

Financial Times, September 2002: The admission last week by the world`s largest private electric utility (TEPCO) that it had falsified safety records at nuclear power plants has shaken the Japanese public`s trust in the industry and is likely to make a dent in the company`s finances…  Tepco this week announced it would shut five reactors that are still operating despite cracks in shrouds that surround the reactor core. The move follows its admission that there were 29 cases of data falsification at three nuclear plants in the 1980s and 1990s. The closures came despite assurances from the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency that the reactors were safe. Tepco`s voluntarily closure of the reactors and president Nobuya Minami`s swift resignation after the falsified records were made public are an attempt to limit damage to the company`s image. But the doctored safety reports have rekindled fears about lax safety standards in Japan`s nuclear industry, three years after a fatal accident at a nuclear reprocessing plant in Tokaimura, a small town north-east of Tokyo.

From Nuclear News: Power company failed to maintain safety checks, Kimiko De Freytas-Tamura SMH March 21, 2011 OSAKA: Days before Japan plunged into an atomic crisis after a giant earthquake and tsunami knocked out power at the ageing Fukushima nuclear plant, its operator had admitted faking repair records. The revelation raises more questions about the scandal-tainted past of the Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco) and the government’s perceived soft regulation of the industry. The operator of the Fukushima No. 1 plant submitted a report to the country’s nuclear watchdog 10 days before the quake hit on March 11, admitting it had failed to inspect 33 pieces of equipment in its six reactors. A power board distributing electricity to a reactor’s temperature control valves was not examined for 11 years, and inspectors faked records, pretending to make thorough inspections when in fact they were only cursory, Tepco said. It also said that inspections, which are voluntary, did not cover other devices related to cooling systems, including water pump motors and diesel generators….

And for a historical perspective of TEPCO as a companyand its tainted past. Japan’s TEPCO: a history of nuclear disaster cover-ups: The Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) is the conglomerate at the centre of Japan’s nuclear radiation emergency at Fukushima. Its operations over the past several decades epitomise the government-backed pursuit of corporate profit, at the direct expense of lives, health and safety. A nuclear safety agency official who declined to be named said: ”We can’t say that the lapses listed in the [February 28] report did not have an influence on the chain of events leading to this crisis……

 TEPCO is the fourth largest power company in the world, and the biggest in Asia, operating 17 nuclear reactors and supplying one-third of Japan’s electricity. It has a long, documented history of serious safety breaches, systemic cover-ups of potentially fatal disasters, persecution of whistleblowers, suppression of popular opposition and use of its economic and advertising clout to silence criticism.

Among the company’s record of more than 200 proven falsifications of safety inspection reports are several relating to the stricken Fukushima Daiichi facility itself. In 2002, TEPCO admitted to falsifying reports about cracks that had been detected in core shrouds at reactors number 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5, as far back as 1993.

As the historical perspective illustrates, the number of silent problems inside TEPCO is huge. In fact, cultural underpinnings that embrace and foster silent problems likely exists. And this is a major problem facing TEPCO looking into the future. One can assume the future of TEPCO does not look good. Yes, TEPCO may be silenced by its own silent problems.