Japan announced Thursday that it will begin releasing wastewater from the Fukushima-Daiichi plant, which is currently stricken with nuclear disaster.
We have gathered information about the release and how the water was treated.
Why release the film?
Around 100,000 litres (26,500 gallons) of contaminated water – from cooling the crippled plant’s reactors as well as groundwater and rain seeping in – is collected at the site in northeast Japan every day.
Some 1.34 million tonnes – equivalent to almost 540 Olympic pools – are now stored in around a thousand steel containers at the seaside site, and now there is no more space, authorities say.
After years of debate, Japan decided that in 2021 it would only release 500,000 litres a day via a pipe measuring one kilometre (0.62 miles).
What is the state of the water?
Plant operator TEPCO says that a special filtering system called ALPS has removed all radioactive elements – including caesium and strontium – except tritium.
TEPCO claims to have diluted the water in order to lower the radioactivity to 1,500 becquerels (Bq/L), which is far below the safety standard for the country of 60,000 Bq/L.
Is this safe?
Tony Hooker from the University of Adelaide is a nuclear expert who said the level of tritium in the air was well below what the government considers safe. World Health OrganizationDrinking water limit is 10,000 Bq/L
Hooker, AFP: “Tritium is released regularly from nuclear power plants into waterways around the world.”
He said that “for decades, there have not been any evidential harmful environmental or health effects.”
UN atomic watchdog the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has said the release meets international standards and “will not cause any harm to the environment”.
Does everyone agree?
No. Greenpeace claimed Tuesday that IAEA’s technology to filter water was flawed, and that it “completely ignored” the highly radioactive debris from the fuel that had melted. The IAEA continues to pollute groundwater every day.
“Releasing this into the water will impact the entire world.” Yukio Kanno said that Japan would deliberately spread radioactive elements.
China accused Japan of treating Pacific as a “sewer”. Beijing banned in July food imports from ten Japanese prefectures, and instituted strict radiation testing on food from other parts of the country.
While Seoul’s government has not expressed objections, many South Koreans are alarmed and have been staging demonstrations – and even panic-buying sea salt.
The release – which will take decades to complete – has also hit opposition in Japan itself, in particular from a fishing industry that fears its exports could plummet as consumers and governments shun Japanese seafood.
What has Japan done in order to ease concerns?
The government has spent many months trying to convince sceptics both at home and abroad. This includes everything from video live-streams showing fish in wastewater to study tours of Fukushima.
Tokyo has also sought to counter disinformation being peddled online about the release, such as manipulated or old photos and claims – denied by Japan – that it bribed the IAEA.
What else should be done?
The removal of radioactive materials and dangerous nuclear fuels from the three reactors which went into meltdown last year remains a far more dangerous task.
TEPCO is planning to use robots in order to remove the fuel. However, there are concerns that radiation levels may be too high to operate the remote-controlled machines.
It is estimated that the entire gargantuan project will take 30-40 years to complete and cost eight trillion yen.
