It's Official: Fukushima Wastewater to Be Pumped Into Ocean This Week

It's Official: Fukushima Wastewater to Be Pumped Into Ocean This Week

SIMON STURDEE,

Japan has announced plans to release wastewater from the stricken Fukushima-Daiichi nuclear plant into the ocean starting Thursday.

Here is what we know about the release, how the water has been treated and concerns around the safety of the exercise.

Around 100,000 litres (26,500 gallons) of contaminated water – from cooling the crippled plant's reactors as well as groundwater and rain seeping in – is collected at the site in northeast Japan every day.

Some 1.34 million tonnes – equivalent to almost 540 Olympic pools – are now stored in around a thousand steel containers at the seaside site, and now there is no more space, authorities say.

Japan decided in 2021, after years of discussion, that it would release at most around 500,000 litres per day into the sea via a pipe one kilometre (0.6 miles) long.

Plant operator TEPCO says that a special filtering system called ALPS has removed all radioactive elements – including caesium and strontium – except tritium.

TEPCO has said it has diluted the water to reduce radioactivity levels to 1,500 becquerels per litre (Bq/L), far below the national safety standard of 60,000 Bq/L.

Greenpeace said Tuesday that the technology used to filter the water is flawed and that the IAEA "completely ignored the highly radioactive fuel debris that melted down which continues every day to contaminate ground water".

"(Releasing) this into the sea will impact the whole planet. Japan would intentionally be spreading radioactive elements," Yukio Kanno, a Fukushima resident, said at a recent Greenpeace-organised protest.

China has accused Japan of treating the Pacific like a "sewer". Beijing in July banned food imports from 10 Japanese prefectures and imposed stringent radiation tests on food from the rest of the country.

While Seoul's government has not expressed objections, many South Koreans are alarmed and have been staging demonstrations – and even panic-buying sea salt.

The release – which will take decades to complete – has also hit opposition in Japan itself, in particular from a fishing industry that fears its exports could plummet as consumers and governments shun Japanese seafood.

More....