The discharge of radioactive water from Fukushima sparked an international scandal

The European Union went to Tokyo and lifted restrictions on the import of Japanese food products, introduced after the accident at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. According to Western media, the move came just weeks before Japan is expected to begin pumping wastewater from nuclear power plants into the Pacific Ocean. However, China and other concerned countries have threatened to further restrict imports of Japanese seafood if the water is released.

Recall what the problem is: in March 2011, the Fukushima-1 nuclear power plant was partially destroyed as a result of an earthquake and the tsunami caused by it. Explosions provoked by a failure in the cooling system damaged four of the six reactors. In order to prevent melting of the three damaged cores of the reactor, water was continuously pumped in for cooling – as a result, it turned out to be contaminated with uranium fuel rods. Subsequently, this liquid seeped into damaged basements and tunnels and mixed with groundwater.

An estimated 1.3 million tonnes (comparable to about 500 Olympic swimming pools) of contaminated water are stored in huge reservoirs at nuclear power plants. Nuclear power plant operator Tokyo Electric Power (Tepco) is warning storage space is running out fast. In addition, this is still a very expensive “pleasure” – the storage of contaminated liquid was estimated at about $ 910 million a year.

Tepco’s advanced fluid handling system can remove most radioactive elements, but it cannot remove tritium, an isotope of hydrogen that is difficult to separate from water.

Japan’s plan is for treated water to be diluted so that the tritium level is one-fourth the concentration allowed under the country’s safety standards before being dumped into the sea. The waste disposal operation is expected to take 30 to 40 years.

The Japanese authorities and Tepco say the environmental and health impacts will be negligible as the purified water will be discharged gradually after it has been diluted with large amounts of sea water. And the IAEA is reassuring the public by claiming that nuclear power plants around the world use a similar process to remove wastewater containing low concentrations of tritium and other radionuclides.

But back to the decision of the European Union: the EU statement to lift restrictions on food products from the affected areas was announced after talks at a summit in Brussels between European Council President Charles Michel, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida.

The fact is that the European Union several times weakened import restrictions imposed after the worst nuclear accident in the world since Chernobyl, provoked by a powerful earthquake and tsunami, occurred at a nuclear power plant in the Japanese prefecture of Fukushima in 2011. But from 2021, Europe began requiring certificates confirming the content of radioactive isotopes in wild mushrooms, certain types of fish and edible wild plants from Fukushima and nine other prefectures affected by the disaster. Now the European Commission has said that the restrictions will be lifted completely, and Japan promises to control products for radioactivity.

“This will help move forward the reconstruction of the devastated areas, and we appreciate and welcome it,” Japanese Prime Minister Kishida told reporters. In Tokyo, I must say, very painfully perceive the bans on goods from the regions of the Land of the Rising Sun affected by the 2011 disaster. So the Japanese perceive the decision of the EU as a significant victory.

But in reaching out to Japan, the EU is not acting in an altruistic way, but is trying to make progress in removing Japanese trade barriers for EU fruits, vegetables and beef, which are restricted from entering the Japanese market by food safety rules.

Significantly, the EU’s decision to remove all remaining barriers to Japanese goods to European consumers soon (possibly as early as August) was taken just days after the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) approved Tokyo’s plans to release water. .

According to the IAEA safety review, the move would have “minor radiological impacts on people and the environment.” But the IAEA is far from the Pacific Ocean, the headquarters of the organization is located in Vienna. But the countries neighboring Japan are afraid of both the water drained from the nuclear power plant into the sea and the products produced near Fukushima-1.

Eleven countries currently maintain controls on imports of products from Fukushima Prefecture and other parts of Japan.

China, with a reputation for being a vocal critic of nuclear water dumping into the ocean, signaled this week that it could extend restrictions on Japanese food imports, while Hong Kong said it would ban seafood from Fukushima and nine other prefectures if discharge of water from a nuclear power plant into the sea.

“Our assessment shows that the prefectures near Fukushima are at higher risk, so we are now treating our residents responsibly,” Jie Chinwan, head of Hong Kong’s environmental department, told reporters.

Beijing has long been bluntly urging the Japanese to abandon their plans to dump radioactive water into the ocean. This topic was also raised on the sidelines of the ASEAN summit now in Jakarta during a meeting between Japanese Foreign Minister Yoshimasa Hayashi and high-ranking Chinese diplomat Wang Yi. The representative of Tokyo called on China to “scientifically” approach the issue of the release of radioactive water from a nuclear power plant. It is doubtful that such a method of “persuasion” will have an effect on the Chinese side.

All these warnings are very sensitive for Tokyo. After all, the same Hong Kong is considered the second largest market in Japan after mainland China for the export of agricultural products and fisheries. Japan exported 75.5 billion yen ($536 million) of fish products to Hong Kong last year, according to Japanese government statistics.

And here is what the Hong Kong edition of the South China Morning Post, which does not hide its anger at the Japanese plans approved by the IAEA, writes: Grossi (Rafael Grossi – Director General of the IAEA – “MK”) and the “unanimous” opinions of his team of experts do not inspire confidence. If the IAEA had bothered to sort it out, there would be no shortage of dissenting voices.

The Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission said tritium could increase the risk of cancer, referring to a hazardous element in radioactive wastewater that cannot be removed due to a lack of existing technology. The US Nuclear Regulatory Commission has recognized that any exposure to radiation, including tritium, can pose some health risk.

The Chinese Atomic Energy Administration has said that more than 70 percent of nuclear-enriched water does not meet discharge limits after passing through a filtration system and requires further treatment.”

It is not only the Chinese who are concerned about the situation around the Fukushima nuclear power plant. The Russian Consumer Protection Agency said it would step up oversight of seafood imported from Japan.

And the South Korean government, while endorsing the IAEA report, is facing opposition from opposition MPs who are skeptical of assurances that nuclear wastewater does not pose a risk to marine species and the people who consume it. During a visit to Japan this week, South Korean opposition MPs said their government had ignored the concerns of members of the public.

Speaking in Seoul, opposition Democratic Party spokesman Jeong Jong-suk said that South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol showed an “irresponsible attitude” towards public health by endorsing the IAEA report. “Isn’t Yoon the president of South Korea? the politician asked. “Trying to solve a problem directly related to the health and safety of people by relying on the goodwill of Japan is not a responsible approach for the president.”

Why are there South Koreans and Chinese – even in Japan itself, many are opposed to plans to dump water from nuclear power plants into the sea. Local fishing communities are confident that these actions will destroy their many years of work to restore the industry, which was affected in 2011, and consumers, most likely, out of fear of radiation, will refuse to catch them, which will lead to a sharp drop in prices for fish and seafood. Although, who knows, maybe the readiness of the European Union to supply food products from Fukushima to the European table will somehow console Japanese fishermen …