The dire situation at the triple-meltdown site at Fukushima does not seem to be improving much. Earthquakes in the area continue, keeping observers worried about the spent nuclear fuel pools in the four crippled reactors -- particularly unit 4, whose pool is being held up by jacks. A crack in the facade of unit 4 has just been shown for the first time. And now a new threat to the environment has been revealed: groundwater.

Tokyo Electric reports this week that groundwater seeping into the trashed reactor buildings is worsening the overload of highly contaminated liquid that has been pooling in their basements from the constant dousing of the meltdown messes. And so the company is going to dig wells around the complex and try to route the groundwater around the reactors and straight out into the ocean.

They say they'll be monitoring the water before pumping it to the sea, but that's a slightly absurd precaution given the fact that lots of badly contaminated water has already found its way, easily, into the ocean adjacent to the reactors. They've been spraying the meltdowns for more than a year now, and the makeshift water treatment system they have set up has removed only a small fraction of the radioactive material in the resulting pools. They have only a sketchy idea of where all the water has been going, and what they do know, they're not saying much about.