The government said Japan should release more than 1 million tonnes of polluted water from the devastated Fukushima nuclear power plant into the sea, which is likely to anger neighboring countries and local fishermen.
The official confirmation of the move, which took place more than a decade after the nuclear disaster, will once again hit the fishing industry in Fukushima, which has been opposed to the measure for years.
Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga said at a ministerial meeting on Tuesday that the government’s decision to release the waters in the Pacific was the “most realistic” option and “inevitable to achieve Fukushima’s recovery”.
The operator of the plant, Tokyo Electric Power [Tepco], and government officials say tritium, a radioactive material that is not harmful in small amounts, cannot be removed from the water, but other radionuclides can be reduced to levels allowed for release.
“The Japanese government has put in place basic policies to release the processed water into the ocean, after the safety levels of the water are guaranteed … and while the government takes measures to prevent reputational damage,” Suga told reporters.
The government to release the diluted water will begin in two years, with the expectation that the whole process will take decades.
“Based on the strict compliance with established regulatory standards, we choose oceanic release,” reads a statement.
The announcement provoked rapid condemnation from environmental groups.
Greenpeace Japan said it “strongly condemns” the release of water, which “completely disregards the human rights and interests of the people of Fukushima, the wider Japan and the Asia-Pacific region”.
“The Japanese government has let the people of Fukushima down again,” said Kazue Suzuki, the group’s climate and energy campaigner.
‘The government has taken the completely unfair decision to deliberately pollute the Pacific Ocean with radioactive waste. This discounted the radiation risks and turned its back on the clear evidence that sufficient storage capacity is available at the core site as well as in surrounding districts.
“The cabinet’s decision could not protect the environment and neglected the widespread opposition and concern of the Fukushima residents, as well as the neighboring citizens of Japan.”
About 1.25 million tons of water have accumulated on the site of the nuclear power plant, which was crippled after it melted in 2011 after a tsunami.
It contains water that is used to cool the plant, as well as rain and groundwater that seeps in daily. The water must be filtered again to remove harmful isotopes and will be diluted before any release to meet international standards, the government said.
The radioactive water, which is increasing in volume by about 140 tons per day, is now stored in more than 1,000 tanks, and the space on site is expected to run out about next fall. Tepco argued that it would struggle to make progress in dismantling the plant if it continued to build more storage tanks on the site.
The International Atomic Energy Agency supports the decision, as radioactive elements other than tritium are removed from the water or reduced to safe levels before being released. The IAEA also pointed out that nuclear power plants around the world use a similar process to remove wastewater.
According to experts, tritium is only harmful to people in large doses and with dilution, the treated water poses no scientifically observable risk.
“There is a consensus among scientists that the impact on health is small,” Michiaki Kai, an expert in radiation risk assessment at the Oita University of Nursing and Health Sciences, told Agence France-Presse before the decision was announced. .
However, local fishing communities say that releasing the water will undermine years of hard work to rebuild consumer confidence in their seafood.
“They told us that they would not release the water into the sea without the support of fishermen,” Kanji Tachiya, who heads a local fishing cooperative in Fukushima, told the public broadcaster NHK. said. “We cannot support this move to break the promise and unilaterally release the water into the sea.”
The decision comes about three months before the postponed Olympic Games in Tokyo, with some events planned about 60 km from the plant.
South Korea, China and Taiwan have opposed the move.
Zhao Lijian, spokesman for the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, called on Japan to act responsibly on the discharge of the water. “To protect international public interests and the health and safety of Chinese people, China has spoken out on the diplomatic channels on the Japanese side,” Zhao said on Monday.
The South Korean Foreign Ministry has “expressed serious regret over this decision, which could have a direct or indirect impact on the security of our people and the surrounding environment in the future”.
Japanese officials objected to the descriptions of the water as ‘contaminated’ or ‘radioactive’ in the media and insisted that it be described as ‘treated’.
Shaun Burnie, senior nuclear specialist at Greenpeace Germany, said the claim was “clearly false”.
“If it were not polluted or radioactive, they would not need approval (to release the water) from the Japanese nuclear regulator,” he said. ‘The water in the tanks is treated, but it is also contaminated with radioactivity. The Japanese government has deliberately tried to mislead this case abroad. ”