Japan named the date of the discharge of water from nuclear power plants into the ocean: China is outraged

Japan is due to begin dumping sewage from the devastated Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant from Thursday, despite opposition from the fishing communities, China and some scientists.

Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said on Tuesday he had asked the plant’s operator, Tokyo Electric Power (Tepco), to “quickly prepare to release water” in line with plans approved by nuclear regulators, adding that the release would begin on Thursday “weather permitting.” conditions and state of the ocean.

Kishida said that the disposal of more than 1 million tons of water stored at the facility was an important part of the long and difficult process of decommissioning the plant.

The plan, The Guardian notes, has sparked controversy because the water discharged from the nuclear power plant contains tritium, a radioactive substance that cannot be removed by the facility’s water filtration technology.

Hong Kong, an important market for Japanese seafood exports, has threatened to impose restrictions. Special Administrative Region head John Lee said on Tuesday that he strongly opposes the water plan, adding that he has instructed the city government to “immediately activate” controls on Japanese seafood imports.

As The Guardian recalls, South Korea and China have banned the import of seafood from parts of Japan after the triple accident at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in March 2011 on the northeast coast of the country. China remains strongly opposed, accusing Japan of treating the ocean like a “gutter”.

The South Korean government recently withdrew its objections to the dump, but opposition parties and many South Koreans are concerned about the impact of the dump on food safety.

The decision to release the plant’s water into the ocean comes weeks after the UN’s nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), approved the release, saying the radiological impact on humans and the environment would be “negligible.”

Some experts point out that nuclear power plants around the world use a similar process to remove wastewater containing low concentrations of tritium and other radionuclides.

“Tritium was thrown out [атомными электростанциями] for decades without any obvious harmful environmental or health effects,” comments Tony Hooker, a nuclear power expert at the University of Adelaide.

However, environmentalists described the filtration process as flawed and warned that “huge” amounts of radioactive materials would be dispersed into the sea in the coming decades.

Sean Burney, a senior nuclear energy specialist at an environmental organization, argues that the Japanese government “choose the wrong decision – decades of deliberate radioactive contamination of the marine environment – at a time when the world’s oceans are already facing enormous stress and pressure: “This is an outrageous action which violates the human rights of the residents and communities of Fukushima and other neighboring prefectures and the entire Asia-Pacific region as a whole.”

The Japanese government and Tepco are also facing opposition from local fishermen who say pumping water into the Pacific will destroy their industry. In a meeting on Monday with Masanobu Sakamoto, head of the National Federation of Fisheries Cooperative Associations, Premier Kishida tried to reassure the fishing communities that the dump was safe. Leading up to the meeting, Sakamoto stated that his group’s opposition to the plan had “not changed one iota”. He said they understand that the release of water may be scientifically safe, but still fear damage to their reputation.

Those concerns were reflected in a survey published this week by the Asahi Shimbun newspaper, in which 75% of respondents said the government had not done enough to prevent expected reputational damage to Japanese seafood.

Kishida acknowledged these concerns, but insisted that the release of water “is absolutely not something we can put off if we want to decommission the Fukushima nuclear power plant and revive the area.”

“I promise that we will take full responsibility for ensuring that the fishing industry can continue to earn a living, even if it takes decades,” the Japanese premier told reporters on Monday.

The Japanese government has set up 30 billion yen ($206 million) in funds to compensate local fishermen for reputational damage and 50 billion yen to eliminate any financial impact on their business, the Kyodo news agency reported.

Wastewater, which includes rainwater and groundwater, is polluted when it is used to cool nuclear fuel rods damaged in 2011 when a massive tsunami hit the power plant, cutting off its backup power supply.

About 1.3 million tons of purified water – enough to fill 500 Olympic swimming pools – is stored in more than 1,000 steel tanks at the site, but Tepco warned that storage space is running out.

Tepco’s advanced fluid handling system removes most radioactive elements except for tritium, an isotope of hydrogen that is difficult to separate from water. The water will be diluted to the 40th concentration permitted by Japanese safety standards before being pumped into the ocean over the next 30 to 40 years through an underwater tunnel 1 km from the coast.

Tomoaki Kobayakawa, president of Tepco, said the firm has a “strong determination to prevent reputational damage.” He added that Tepco “will direct all its resources to ensure the safety and quality of operation of the facility, quickly obtain monitoring results and disseminate this information in an accurate and understandable form.”

Water will be released at a maximum rate of 500,000 liters per day. A Japanese official said the first test results of the discharged seawater could be available early next month. Japan will also test the fish in the waters near the plant and publish the results on the website of the Ministry of Agriculture.