Japan: water contaminated by the Fukushima disaster will be dumped into the ocean
About 1.25 million tonnes of contaminated water are currently stored in more than a thousand cisterns near the damaged Fukushima power plant (illustrative image).
AFP / File
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3 min
Japan has decided to dump more than a million tonnes of contaminated water from the damaged Fukushima nuclear power plant into the sea.
The storage limits for this water - partly treated - will soon be reached.
This government decision comes ten years after the plant's accident caused by an earthquake of force 9 on the Richter scale followed by a giant tsunami.
It arouses opposition from fishermen in Fukushima and neighboring countries including South Korea, China and Taiwan.
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With our correspondent in Japan,
Frédéric Charles
Fishermen in the Fukushima region are already suffering from rumors about their fish that they are only able to sell at a reduced price.
A discharge of water after treatment would be misunderstood by consumers and would have a "
catastrophic impact on their industry
", they say.
The discharge of water into the Pacific Ocean will begin in about two years.
500 Olympic swimming pools
Nearly 1.3 million tonnes are stored in a thousand tanks on the nuclear site.
Enough to fill 500 Olympic swimming pools!
It costs its operator Tepco more than $ 900 million each year.
The storage capacities of the contaminated water used to cool three of the six reactors which had melted will reach their limits in the fall of 2022. The plant must also recover the groundwater which infiltrates the basements of the buildings. reactors.
Most power plants release tritium
Tepco manages to filter the water and remove all of its radionuclides except one: tritium.
The Japanese government recalls that most power plants in the world discharge water containing tritium without consequences for the marine environment.
Ken Buesseler, a scientist from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute in the United States who has visited Fukushima several times observes that "
contaminants other than tritium still remain at very high levels in the reservoirs
" at the site of the central.
And these contaminants "
all pose a greater health risk than tritium because they accumulate more easily in seafood and seabed sediments
."
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To read also: Fukushima: 10 years later, a disaster still in progress
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