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TOKYO: Japan will release more than a million tons of water containing radioactive substances from the Fukushima nuclear plant into the sea, local reports said on Friday (October 16).
The release of the water, which has been filtered to reduce radioactivity, is likely to begin in 2022 at the earliest, national newspapers Nikkei, Yomiuri and other local media said.
A formal decision is expected to be made within this month, according to reports.
The decision ends years of debate over how to dispose of the liquid that includes the water used to cool the power plant affected by a massive tsunami in 2011.
There is around a million tons of contaminated water stored in tanks at the site of the destroyed Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, and what to do with it is a major headache for Japan. (Photo: AFP / Kimimasa Mayama)
READ: Japan’s fishermen oppose the ‘catastrophic’ release of Fukushima’s water into the ocean
A government panel said earlier this year that releasing the water into the sea or evaporating it were “realistic options.”
Until last month, there were 1.23 million tonnes of wastewater at the facility, the Nikkei reported.
Environmental activists have voiced strong opposition to the proposals, and fishermen and farmers have expressed fear that consumers will avoid seafood and products from the region.
JF Zengyoren, a national federation of fishing cooperatives in Japan, last week urged the government not to allow the release of the water, saying it would undo years of work to restore its reputation.
Any release could lead other countries to tighten restrictions on imports of Japanese seafood, reversing a recent trend toward relaxation, Hiroshi Kishi, president of JF Zengyoren, said in a meeting with government officials.
Fish wholesalers and processors in Fukushima prefecture are also “strongly” opposed to the release, the group’s chief said last week.
READ: In an Olympic year, Japan faces a decision on contaminated water from Fukushima
South Korea, which bans imports of seafood from the area, has also repeatedly raised concerns about the environmental impact.
The government of Japan has been deliberating on the issue for more than three years, but a decision is becoming urgent as space to store water, which also includes groundwater and rain that seeps into it on a daily basis, is running out. plant.
Most of the radioactive isotopes have been removed through an extensive filtration process, but one remains, called tritium, that cannot be removed with existing technology.
The expert panel reported in January that dumping the water into the sea was a viable option because the method is also used in normal nuclear reactors.
Tritium is only harmful to humans in very large doses, experts say. The International Atomic Energy Agency argues that properly filtered water could be diluted with seawater and then safely released into the ocean.
The Yomiuri reported that the water would be diluted within the facility prior to launch, making it 40 times less concentrated, and the entire process will take 30 years.
Treated water is currently held in a thousand huge tanks at the Fukushima Daiichi site, where the reactors collapsed nearly a decade ago after the earthquake-triggered tsunami.
Plant operator TEPCO is building more tanks, but they will all be full by mid-2022.
