Japan dumps Fukushima water into the sea: are there risks to people and the Pacific Ocean?

The controversial plan Japan to dump purified radioactive water into the Pacific Ocean became a reality. Twelve years after the tragedy of fukushimathe Asian country carried out this Thursday the 24th the first discharge into the sea of ​​residual water from the nuclear plant damaged by the earthquake and tsunami of March 11, 2011. A tragedy whose effects still cause fear and concern.

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The download was carried out after more than a year of deliberations that occurred while the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) was preparing an evaluation of the Japanese plan, which it gave its approval at the beginning of July this year.

On Wednesday the 23rd, Tokyo Electric Power (TEPCO), operator of the Fukushima-Daiichi nuclear power plant (northeast Japan), indicated that it transferred about 1 m3 of this filtered water to remove radioactive substances and that it diluted this amount with 1,200 m3 of sea water.

The only radioactive substance in that water that cannot be removed with current methods is tritium, whose presence has been at the center of criticism from some scientists and environmentalists who have rejected the Japanese project.

The center of the Japanese strategy is the Advanced Liquid Processing System (ALPS) that was installed at the Fukushima nuclear power plant, whose reactors were destroyed, and consists of processing the water as many times as necessary to reduce it to minimal or non-existent levels. the most dangerous radioactive materials.

One of the problems is that ALPS is capable of removing 62 high-risk radioisotopes, but it cannot remove tritium or completely remove other radionuclides such as carbon-14 or iodine-129.

TEPCO affirmed that the tritium concentration of the sample evaluated this week is below the expected level of radioactivity of 1,500 becquerels (Bq) per liter, the maximum established for its discharge into the sea. The water will travel through a one kilometer underground tunnel that connects the plant with the waters of the Pacific that bathe the facilities.

The AFP agency points out that this level is 40 times lower than the Japanese and international regulations (60,000 Bq/litre) and seven times lower than the maximum established by the World Health Organization (WHO) for drinking water (10,000 Bq/ liter).

In summary, TEPCO and the IAEA say that the radiation that will go to the sea will have a negligible radiological impact on people and the environment.

The spill will continue for three or more decades, during which time Japan expects to discharge into the sea more than 1.3 million m3 of water from the Fukushima power plant from rainwater and groundwater, and from the injections necessary to cool the Reactor cores that went into meltdown after the 2011 tsunami.

Prime Minister Fumio Kishida has said that the discharge of the water is essential for progress in decommissioning the plant and the recovery of Fukushima prefecture.

Opposition and concern about risks

Although only highly concentrated doses of tritium are dangerous to health, several organizations and experts have doubted that the contamination is negligible. Not only they have expressed their fears.

The Japanese fishing industry has shown its opposition to the plan for fear of damaging the reputation of the safety of its products.

Collectives in neighboring countries have also raised concerns, making it a political and diplomatic issue. In some cases, new controls were announced on their imports of Japanese seafood.

China, for example, in July banned the importation of food products from ten Japanese prefectures and imposed radiation controls on those from the rest of the archipelago.

Hong Kong announced that it will ban seafood imports from 10 Japanese prefectures from today in response to the spill. Said measure will affect all sea products -live, refrigerated, frozen or dried-, as well as sea salt and algae.

In South Korea there have been demonstrations against the plan of the country of the Rising Sun and some citizens have collected sea salt for fear that the water from which it is obtained ends up contaminated.

Doubts not fully resolved

Carlos Umana, member of the board of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), considers that there is several questions that neither TEPCO nor the UN nuclear agency have been able to answer.

The International Association of Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, an organization of which it is a part, also opposes the Japanese plan. Umaña recalls that there was a forum held by the Pacific islands in which an independent panel of scientists was hired who raised serious doubts about the discharge of Fukushima water into the sea.

“For example, very few of the tanks containing this radioactive water have been sampled, things like the sludge left in the tank, and various other considerations related to environmental contamination have not been taken into account,” says the expert.

He points out that in recent months Japan has done nothing to alleviate the doubts that still exist. “Japan has not changed its position at all and the problem is that its position is supported by the IAEA, which is not impartial because it is a nuclear organization that promotes nuclear energy. Despite the fact that the Pacific Islands Forum had commissioned an independent study by five scientists and several other scientific organizations recommend against this dumping, Japan insists that it is of no consequence,” he says.

In line with that, says Azby Brown, a senior researcher at the environmental monitoring group Safecast and a longtime resident of Japan. “The Japanese government and TEPCO made the decision to release the water after a process that has neither been fully transparent nor adequately included important stakeholders, both in Japan and abroad. This sows the seeds of what could be decades of mistrust and strife, ”she wrote in a recent essay for“ The New York Times ”.

Brown sees something even more worrisome, and that is that Japan is setting a precedent for other governments that might be even less transparent. He explains that this is dangerous, especially in Asia, “where more than 140 nuclear power reactors are already in operation and, led by growth in China and India, dozens more are being built, are in the planning stages or are under construction.” Have proposed. If Japan, a globally respected cultural and economic force, can get away with dumping radioactive water, what can stop other countries?

For Umaña it is clear that the effects of radiation in the sea are being underestimated. He points out that these isotopes have not been adequately measured and that the contamination will transcend Japan’s maritime border and will spread to all areas of the Pacific, including the American continent as well. “There is going to be contamination there, which could be significant and could even affect the quality of the water and the fishing,” he warns.

“Regarding the Fukushima accident, there is already talk that there is already food contaminated by radiation. And this radiation contamination translates into a higher incidence of diseases such as cancer, chronic diseases such as arthritis, cardiovascular diseases and, in addition, a greater possibility of congenital malformations ”, he points out.

Impact in America?

It is difficult to talk about the risks in the population because the radiation is not high enough. However, it is possible to measure the level of radiation in the fish populations in the area, which would make it possible to extrapolate the possibility of diseases that occur as a result of this radiation.

The experts who have warned about the issue focus on one concern: radiation contamination of the Pacific Ocean and the effects on health, both human and animal.

Umaña considers that these are risks that are not being taken into account and questions the accuracy of the studies carried out to carry out the Japanese plan.

“The lightness with which these reports have been made is worrying. There are a lot of concerns in relation to these reports that they are not scientifically thorough and when we are talking about radiation and contamination this has to be very precise and that is not the case in this case”, he affirms.

What is the impact this spill could have on America? The concern stems from the fact that we share the same ocean with Japan.

“The radiation and the reactive plume, both from the disaster and from the current spill, can be transferred perfectly. The Pacific Ocean is vast, so quite high pollution is not expected. However, with the Fukushima accident, radiation levels have already been detected on the California coast. If this contamination continues, it is more likely that there will continue to be a higher content of radiation in the Pacific Ocean and that this will affect the coasts of America and also of Latin America”, says Umaña.

Source: Elcomercio

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I am Jack Morton and I work in 24 News Recorder. I mostly cover world news and I have also authored 24 news recorder. I find this work highly interesting and it allows me to keep up with current events happening around the world.