“Sawdust and newspapers”?
A bunch of hillbillies running these plants?
Even clumping kitty litter would probably have worked better. There might be a network of internal cracks in the concrete housing. The paper and sawdust will just fill up the cracks, blocking them to more effective plugging agents, without doing much to the water flow.
The plugging attempts are just wags for the sheeple. They are intentionally leaking water from all the reactors that they are injecting. Something about the conservation of mass comes to mind. Their plan appears to be eventually pumping it into a gigantic barge. Leaks will continue until the barge gets there IMHO.
Conservation of Mass - Wikipedia