Many things have been said about last September's fatal nuclear accident at the JCO Co. uranium processing plant in Tokai, Ibaraki Prefecture.

But six months after Japan's worst nuclear accident, little has actually been accomplished to alleviate public concerns about the safety of atomic energy or to try to pinpoint who may be criminally liable for the accident.

The government set up and revised legislation in December to place more responsibility on the central government and nuclear facility operators for disaster prevention and crisis management, but a specific plan of action has been slow in coming.

In the meantime, Japan's nuclear program hit a wall with the revelation in October that British Nuclear Fuels Ltd. falsified quality-control data on plutonium-uranium mixed oxide fuel it supplied to Kansai Electric Power Co.

The episode indefinitely delayed plans for Japan to use the recycled nuclear fuel and it further undermined public trust in atomic energy.

Due to negative public sentiment, the Ministry of International Trade and Industry recently said it plans to cut to about 13 the number of reactors to be built by fiscal 2010 from the planned 16 to 20.

Electric utilities are also facing mounting opposition by people living in areas where new nuclear plants are planned. Among them is Chubu Electric Power Co., which abandoned in February a plan to build two reactors along the Pacific coast near Ashihama, Mie Prefecture.

On a relatively positive note, JCO is close to concluding negotiations on compensation for victims of the accident and businesses that lost money as a result of the image that products from Ibaraki Prefecture were contaminated.

Some 13 billion yen will be paid in compensation, with most of the payments expected to be made by the end of this year, JCO said earlier in March, citing projections by Sumitomo Metal Mining Co., its parent company.

But local residents will undoubtedly remain worried about their health and the long-term effects of the criticality accident, which released radiation into areas around the plant.

Some have also raised concern over correspondence from JCO President Hiroharu Kitani to local residents who have applied for compensation that asks the recipients to confirm that JCO is not liable for any claims other than those mentioned in the letter.

According to a Science and Technology Agency report compiled in December, 119 residents were exposed to more than the 1-millisievert limit on annual permissible levels of radiation, with the maximum estimated exposure at 21 millisieverts.

The agency claims, however, there is little possibility that exposure to up to 50 millisieverts of radiation would lead to an increase in the incidence of cancer or leukemia.

Of the three JCO workers who caused the Sept. 30 criticality accident in the plant's conversion building by sidestepping safe procedures, Hisashi Ouchi died on Dec. 21, the first victim of a nuclear accident in Japan.

Yutaka Yokokawa, 55, the least injured of the three, was discharged from a hospital the day before Ouchi died, while Masato Shinohara, 40, remains hospitalized.

Ibaraki Prefectural Police, trying to make a case against JCO for professional negligence, decided not to pursue charges against Ouchi and Shinohara because it was the first time they had been engaged in the task that led to the accident.

The three were using a bucket to create a uranium solution in the conversion building when they poured too much uranium into a settling tank, setting off the accident.

They are, however, studying the situation of Yokokawa, a supervisor who was in a room adjacent to the one where Ouchi and Shinohara were mixing the solution using methods that deviated from government-approved procedures, and other workers in supervisory roles.

The workers were mixing uranium hexafluoride with nitric acid and were bypassing most of the government-sanctioned process. Ouchi and Shinohara reportedly mixed the solution in a stainless steel bucket by hand and manually poured it into a settling tank.

They put about 16 kg of uranium into the solution at the time of the incident, although workers are prohibited from using more than 2.4 kg.

Police investigations so far -- which included searches of the offices of JCO and Sumitomo Metal Mining, as well as inspecting the conversion building and questioning about 150 people involved with JCO -- have apparently not led to clear evidence that anyone, except for Kitani, was ultimately responsible.

It is unlikely that police will meet their target of identifying all the suspects and victims involved in the accident and establishing a criminal case against JCO during the current fiscal year, which ends today.

Police have reportedly found that the company's senior officials, including the Tokai plant chief, Kenzo Koshijima, appear to have been unaware of the illegal procedures used to prepare the uranium solution.

The effects of the accident will undoubtedly linger for a long time to come.

Failure to respect rules

MITO, Ibaraki Pref. (Kyodo) The president of JCO Co. said Thursday that Japan's worst nuclear accident, which occurred at the company's uranium processing plant in Ibaraki Prefecture, was caused by JCO's failure to respect the rules.

Reflecting on the Sept. 30 accident at the plant in the village of Tokai, Hiroharu Kitani said, "The company failed to thoroughly follow the rules."

Kitani, joined by fellow senior executives of JCO, a wholly owned subsidiary of Sumitomo Metal Mining Co., told a press conference at the Ibaraki Prefectural Government office that safety concerns and negotiations for compensation are close to being settled.

"We have cleared a big hurdle in securing safety around the facility, as the removal of the uranium solution that reached a state of criticality has begun," Kitani said. "Also, 90 percent of the compensation cases have been finalized."

In the accident, plant workers created an overconcentrated uranium solution using unauthorized methods, causing criticality -- the point at which a nuclear fission chain reaction becomes self-sustaining.

"We would like to continue to do our best" to resolve issues that remain unresolved, Kitani added. He is expected to resign in the near future to take responsibility for the accident.

Kenzo Koshijima, head of the Tokai plant, said training for his staff had been inadequate.

"I thought we were providing training to the employees, but now I realize that we had not covered the area of what could happen if they performed tasks that deviated from the rules."

At the time of the accident, the workers were apparently using methods that did not even follow the illegal manual that JCO had created to include procedures not approved by the government.

On Tuesday, the Science and Technology Agency notified JCO, which is wholly owned by Sumitomo Metal Mining Co., that it will cancel the firm's business license in response to the accident.

BNFL selloff delayed

LONDON (Kyodo) The British government said Wednesday that it will postpone the partial privatization of British Nuclear Fuels Ltd. to 2002 or later due to a series of scandals involving the firm's reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel.

The British government had planned to sell 49 percent of BNFL, which is wholly funded by the Department of Trade and Industry, for around 1.5 billion pounds ($2.4 billion) as early as next year.

The postponement was prompted by reports in recent months of falsified data and lax safety standards at BNFL's plant in Sellafield, northwestern England, which processes uranium-plutonium mixed oxide fuel.

The government decided it would take some time for the company to recover public confidence as Japan, Germany, Switzerland and the United States have announced restrictions on their dealings with BNFL in the wake of the disclosures.

Meanwhile, the British Defense Ministry said Wednesday that it has signed a 2.2 billion pounds ($3.5 billion) contract with a joint enterprise set up by BNFL and defense companies in the U.S. and Britain for the management of the ministry's atomic weapons facility in Aldermaston, southern England, where Britain's nuclear warheads are assembled.

Environmental groups have expressed concerns over BNFL's inclusion in the management of the facilities.

The disclosures about BNFL first emerged last September when it was found that quality assurance data on MOX pellets awaiting shipment to Japan had been falsified.

In December, BNFL was also found to have provided falsified data on some MOX fuel already in Japan.

In February, BNFL admitted it had falsified safety data on MOX fuel shipped to Germany.