![]() ![]() ![]() To describe the water as contaminated is erroneous, as it implies that it will harm the environment.” “We have made a commitment to discharge the water without harming the environment or human health. “We take other countries’ concerns seriously, which is why we are using every possible opportunity to explain the discharge plan to them,” said Ayako Ogino, a foreign ministry official. While officials attempt to reassure the public and other countries that Fukushima produce is safe for consumers, Tepco and the government have embarked on a PR offensive, holding regular briefings on the water discharge for Tokyo-based diplomats and journalists, and running ads on TV, in newspapers and online. The government-set upper limit for radioactive caesium in ordinary foodstuffs such as meat and vegetables is 100 becquerels a kilogram, compared with 1,250Bq/kg in the EU and 1,200Bq/kg in the US. ![]() The Fukushima prefectural government says that, post-disaster, its food safety standards are among the strictest in the world. “We know fishing communities are worried … that’s why we and the government are working on addressing the potential reputational damage.”Īn aerial view shows some of the storage tanks for treated water at the tsunami-crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. “Even though it is safe, it could still harm sales of Fukushima seafood and lower prices, which is what happened 12 years ago,” conceded Junichi Matsumoto, Tepco’s chief officer for the management of treated water. The fiercest opposition has come from Fukushima’s fishers, who say releasing the water risks destroying their livelihoods because consumers will shun their catch and send prices plummeting. And we will release the water very slowly to begin with, so we could be looking at something like 20 to 30 years to complete the process.” “We will have contaminated water on the site for as long as we have to cool the reactor basements. “By the time the liquid is diluted with seawater, tritium levels will be at less than 1,500 becquerels per litre, or 1/40th of the government standard for discharging water into the environment,” he said. The water will be treated and, if necessary, treated again until the concentration of radionuclides other than tritium have fallen below government limits, said Hikaru Kuroda, a Tepco official overseeing the decontamination and decommissioning of Fukushima Daiichi. Tepco and government officials who guided a small group of journalists around Fukushima Daiichi this month insisted the science supports their plans to pump the “treated” water – they object to media reports describing it as contaminated – into the ocean. The International Atomic Energy Agency says nuclear plants around the world use a similar process to dispose of wastewater containing low-level concentrations of tritium and other radionuclides. The government and Tepco claim the environmental and health impacts will be negligible because the treated water will be released gradually after it has been diluted by large amounts of seawater. Neighbouring countries have also voiced opposition. The discharge, which is due to begin in the spring or summer, will take place in defiance of local fishing communities, who say it will destroy more than a decade of work to rebuild their industry. But the water still contains tritium, a naturally occurring radioactive form of hydrogen that is technically difficult to separate from water. The decision comes more than two years after Japan’s government approved the release of the water, which is treated using on-site technology to remove most radioactive materials. Two steel pillars protruding from the sea a kilometre from the shore mark the spot where, later this year, the plant’s operator, Tokyo Electric Power, plans to begin releasing the water into the Pacific Ocean, in the most controversial step in the Fukushima Daiichi cleanup to date. Now, 1.3m tonnes of water – enough to fill about 500 Olympic-sized swimming pools – is being stored in 1,000 tanks that cover huge swathes of the complex. Atmospheric radiation levels have dropped, damaged reactor buildings have been reinforced and robots have identified melted fuel in the basements.īut as the Guardian learned on a recent visit, progress on decommissioning – a process that could take four decades – is being held up by the accumulation of huge quantities of water that is used to cool the damaged reactor cores. Much has changed since the Guardian’s first visit to the plant in 2012, when the cleanup had barely begun and visitors were required to wear protective clothing and full-face masks. The tsunami knocked out the plant’s backup electricity supply, leading to meltdowns in three of its reactors, in the world’s worst nuclear accident since Chornobyl 25 years earlier. ![]()
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