Discharge of water from the destroyed Fukushima nuclear power plant into the Pacific Ocean is set to begin Thursday, Japan’s prime minister said Tuesday, sparking restrictions on Japanese seafood in Hong Kong and a condemnation from China.
This process was validated by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in early July and Tokyo is ensuring it is safe for the environment and human health. But the use, which has lasted for decades, has met with great concern and criticism, especially from China.
“The ocean is the property of all mankind, it is not a place where Japan can arbitrarily dump polluted water,” Chinese diplomacy spokesman Wang Wenbin told reporters on Tuesday.
Beijing already banned food imports from 10 Japanese departments, including Fukushima, last month and is conducting radiation tests on food from the rest of the country.
Hong Kong also decided on Tuesday to ban seafood imports from ten Japanese departments “immediately”.
Tokyo plans to discharge more than 1.3 million tons of water from the Fukushima Daiichi power plant from rainwater, groundwater and injections needed to cool the reactor cores that melted after the March 2011 tsunami that devastated the country’s northeast coast are.
This water was previously treated to remove its radioactive substances, with the exception of tritium, which could not be removed with existing technologies.
Only highly concentrated doses of tritium are harmful to health, say experts.
Tepco, the operator of the Fukushima power plant, also plans a distributed discharge into the sea until the early 2050s at a maximum rate of 500,000 liters per day and a dilution to reduce the radioactivity of the tritiated water well below the national standards for this category.
Japanese fishermen were concerned
Japan therefore affirms that this operation poses no threat to the marine environment and human health. The IAEA, which controls the project, agrees and gave the green light in July.
According to Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, the operation will begin on Thursday “weather permitting”.
IAEA staff are working on site to ensure the project “meets safety standards” and will also provide “real-time and near real-time” monitoring data to the international community, the agency said in a press release on Tuesday. Tepco and the Japan Fisheries Agency will also post monitoring data online.
“The Japanese government has chosen the wrong solution — decades of deliberate radioactive pollution of the marine environment — at a time when the world’s oceans are already under high stress,” Greenpeace said in a statement on Tuesday.
The Japanese fishing industry fears negative consequences for the image of its products among Japanese consumers and abroad.
“We are always against the rejection of water,” because “scientific certainty does not necessarily imply a sense of security in society,” their representative, Masanobu Sakamoto, said at the end of a meeting with Mr. Kishida on Monday.
Situation “exploited” by Beijing
Japan will demand an end to China’s trade restrictions by providing “scientific evidence,” Mr. Kishida assured on Tuesday.
He also pledged measures to support Japan’s fishing industry by promoting its production and domestic consumption of its products, and opening up new export markets. A fund of 30 billion yen (190 million euros) is also planned to counteract the risk of a loss of image.
China’s fears may be genuine, but its vehement tone is also likely due to geopolitical and economic tensions between Beijing and Tokyo, according to James Brady, an analyst at research firm Teneo.
Beijing could thus “exploit” the Fukushima water problem by trying to “exacerbate internal divisions in Japan on the issue”, putting “certain pressure” on Japan’s foreign trade and trying to balance the recent warming in Tokyo-Seoul relations disturbing, said Mr Brady, interviewed by AFP.
Seoul has not expressed any objection to the Japanese plan, although South Koreans are also concerned.