Nippon Steel Failed to Report Cyanide Water Leaks at Japanese Plant

SEATTLE (Scrap Monster): Leading Japanese steelmaker Nippon Steel Corporation admitted that it had failed to report cyanide water leaks at a plant in Eastern Japan. The company was alleged to have not properly reported 39 incidents of leaks exceeding permitted levels since February 2019. The repeated violations were reported at the company's East Nippon Works in the city of Kimitsu, Chiba Prefecture, which was first disclosed in the month of June this year.

According to company announcement, it re-examined data on the quality of discharged water checked over the past few years and found that readings were even worse than those reported to authorities including the Chiba Prefectural Government.

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The steelmaker detected cyanide exceeding legal limits but failed to report the facts properly. Also, it redid water checks to record only results that met the legal standards.

The onsite inspection by the prefecture authorities have detected amounts of up to 0.6 milligram per litre, which is over six times the allowed limit.

Junichi Tani, East Nippon Works manager apologized for the actions and promised to prevent any such event happening again.

In related news, the company has decided to restart the operations of the blast furnace No.3 at its Nayoga works by around the end of August this year. It had originally planned to restart the operations in June this year, but was postponed following dip in steel demand following the Ukraine war and Chinese lockdown.