I had originally dismissed Tritium as a candidate for the contamination because its nominally only in the reactor water and the Reuter's article talked about 'groundwater' (which is the name nominally given to water that accumulates in aquifers as a result of soil percolation).
Apparently TEPCO is losing control of the reactor coolant water which is a different thing.
That said, Tritium [1] isn't a particularly "bad" agent as it decays into Helium3 (great for fusion reactors if you've got one :-) and then floats away.
I had originally dismissed Tritium as a candidate for the contamination because its nominally only in the reactor water and the Reuter's article talked about 'groundwater' (which is the name nominally given to water that accumulates in aquifers as a result of soil percolation).
Apparently TEPCO is losing control of the reactor coolant water which is a different thing.
That said, Tritium [1] isn't a particularly "bad" agent as it decays into Helium3 (great for fusion reactors if you've got one :-) and then floats away.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tritium