Monitoring Desk
ISLAMABAD: Twelve years after the nuclear catastrophe triggered by the massive earthquake and tsunami, workers at the Fukushima Daiichi plant in northeast Japan are preparing to release treated wastewater into the sea.
According to the AFP, operator TEPCO said that the water has been filtered to remove radioactive elements, and called the release both necessary and safe, but there has been domestic and global opposition.
Why does wastewater need to be released?
The site produces 100,000 litres of contaminated daily water. It is the combination of rainwater, groundwater that seeps into the place, and water used for cooling.
The water has been filtered to remove most radionuclides, and more than 1.32 million tonnes of treated water was being stored at the site as of February.
That accounts for 96 percent of the storage capacity, so TEPCO is keen to start releasing the water soon.
Under the plan approved by the federal government, the process has expected to begin this spring and summer.
Is it safe?
TEPCO said that many filtering systems, including in its ALPS facility, remove the 62 radioactive elements in the water, including caesium and strontium, but tritium remains.
Experts said that tritium is harmful to humans in large doses, and TEPCO plans to dilute the water to decrease radioactivity levels to 1,500 becquerels per litre, far below the country’s safety standard of 60,000 becquerels per litre.
The International Atomic Energy Agency said that the release meets international standards and “would not cause any harm to the environment”.
Neighbouring countries, including South Korea and China, along with activist groups such the Greenpeace and some local residents are strongly opposed to the release.
Local fishermen fear the release would once again make consumers wary of buying their catch.
“We have suffered reputational damage since the disaster, and we would go through that all over again, starting from zero,” fisherman Masahiro Ishibashi, 43, told AFP.
How will the water be released?
The operator had constructed more filtering facilities on the shore and a kilometre-long underwater pipe to release treated water over many decades.
TEPCO official Kenichi Takahara said that “We do not plan to release the water all in one go, it would be maximum of 500 tonnes the day of the total 1.37 million tonnes of ALPS-treated water,”.
“It would take 30 to 40 years, a time required for decommissioning the plant.”
The operator would cap the amount of radioactivity from tritium discharged at 22 trillion becquerels per year, the national annual standard for wastewater released before the accident.
What has a reaction been?
Japanese diplomats have been briefing nearby nations on plan, and TEPCO meeting local residents in the bid to win support.
Their new project involves keeping fish in treated water
Kazuo Yamanaka said that “Fish kept in ALPS-treated water do ingest tritium, to some extent. But once animal is transferred to normal seawater, the level of tritium in the fish quickly lowers,”.
He keeps hundreds of flatfish and sea creatures in many tanks at the plant, half with ordinary seawater and the other in treated wastewater, diluted to around the same level as the liquid that would be discharged.
He runs the live stream of the fish on YouTube, and plan to expand the trials to seaweed.
He said that “When we spoke with local people, they said that they wanted to see fish living healthily in the ALPS-treated water,”.
“They said that they would feel reassured when they saw it, rather than just seeing numbers and data.”
It remains unclear if TEPCO’s effort can win over fishing communities that still struggling to recover from disaster.
“I do not think the fisheries of Fukushima would truly recover until the day the nuclear plant shuts down,” Ishibashi said.
