The Japanese government has decided to take the lead in the Fukushima clean-up efforts after reports of additional leaks in the tanks holding the contaminated water that resulted from the earthquake and tsunami disaster that severely crippled to nuclear reactors in the northeast part of the country in 2011.

Japan’s Prime Minister announced that the cleanup and decommission of the site can no longer be left to the Tokyo Electric Power Company. Prime Minister Shinzo ABE stated, “Instead of the ad hoc approaches that have been taken in the past, we put together a basic policy today that will offer a fundamental solution to the problem of contaminated water. The government needs to resolve the problem by standing at the forefront.”

Last week, the Japanese goverment blamed TEPCO with mismanagement of the radioactive water saying TEPCO failed to “properly inspect the contaminated water deposits which leaked into the sea.”

The Japanese government intends to upgrade water treatment systems to deal with the growing amount of contaminated water and will construct a wall of frozen earth to keep the contaminated water from the groundwater around the site. A refrigeration plant will be built at the site and coolant filled pipes will be inserted around the tanks beneath the ground and chilled to -20 to-40 degrees to freeze the soil around the tanks to a depth of 90 feet. Japan has earmarked $500 million for the project.

Last weekend, TEPCO updated the estimated level of radiation around the site by 18-fold. Its previous announced estimates were around 100 milliseverts per hour, now those estimates have skyrocketed to 1,800 milliserverts an hour. At that level, death would occur within four hours of exposure.

Because water is being pumped constantly into the reactors to cool them to prevent further meltdown, 400 tons of contaminated water iis being added to the storage tanks daily. It is beleived that TEMPCO will have to begin evaporating or discharging the contaminated water in the near future.

Japan’s announcement was made days before the decision as to who will host the 2020 Olympics will be made. Tokyo is one of the cities being considered. Istambul, Turkey and Madrid, Spain are the other two choices for the Olympiad. The decision as to the host will be determined in Buenos Aires, Argentina on September 7th during the 125th IOC Session.