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fukushima
Thousands of Liters of Radioactive Wastewater Leak in Fukushima Mishap
A Chinese official implored Japan to "face up to the concerns of its neighboring countries and the international community."
Feb 08, 2024
Thousands of liters of radioactive wastewater from the destroyed Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station in Japan leaked from the outdoor vent of a filtering device, the company that operates the facility said Wednesday.
Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) said about 5,500 liters of both contaminated and filtered water leaked when a valve was left open during cleaning. The company, which said it discovered the leak on Wednesday morning, warned that some of the water—which is believed to contain 220 times the level of radioactivity required for government reporting—may have seeped into the ground.
"TEPCO has confirmed that there was no significant fluctuation in radiation measurements recorded at the site," the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said in a statement. "The event does not pose any risk to the public and there is no environmental impact off-site."
The Fukushima plant, located about 150 miles northeast of Tokyo, was catastrophically damaged during the massive March 2011 earthquake and tsunami that caused meltdowns in three of the facility's reactors.
Last July, the IAEA approved a Japanese plan to gradually release more than 1 million metric tons of filtered Fukushima wastewater into the Pacific, despite years of warnings from environmentalists and widespread opposition by people in the region.
News of the leak prompted an angry response from the Chinese government.
"Japan's repeated accidents in the process of treating Fukushima nuclear-contaminated water have fully exposed the chaos and disorder of TEPCO's internal management," a spokesperson for the Chinese Embassy in Tokyo said on Thursday, according to the South China Morning Post.
"The Japanese government's supervision measures are lacking and ineffective, which once again proves that the nuclear-contaminated water treatment equipment lacks long-term reliability," the official added.
Asserting that "the discharge of the Fukushima nuclear-contaminated water into the sea is related to the health of all mankind, the global marine environment, and international public interests," the spokesperson reiterated calls for Japan to "face up to the concerns of its neighboring countries and the international community."
The new leak follows the October 2023 accident at a separate Fukushima wastewater treatment facility in which four workers were sprayed with radioactive liquid waste while cleaning pipes. Two of the workers were briefly hospitalized for skin contamination, although none showed symptoms of radiation poisoning.
There have been regular demonstrations against the Fukushima wastewater dump in South Korea and China—two countries that, like many others with nuclear power plants, have discharged far greater quantities of treated radioactive wastewater into oceans and other bodies of water than Japan says it will release.
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Tens of Thousands in Seoul: 'Stop the Dumping of Radioactive Wastewater'
'It is time for the international community to step in and call out this clear breach of the international law'
Sep 03, 2023
South Koreans have continued a weekend rally against Japan's dumping of Fukushima nuclear plant's contaminated radioactive wastewater into the ocean by holding a large demonstration on Saturday.
The protesters, including fishermen, activists and politicians, shouted slogans such as "Immediately stop the marine dumping of radioactive wastewater" and "Prohibit import of all Japanese aquatic products," as they urged the South Korean government to file a lawsuit with the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea against the Japanese government.
On August 24th, Japan began dumping radioactive water from the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant into the Pacific Ocean.
The move resulted in a massive backlash across Asia and around the world.
While South Korea's opposition Democratic Party leader Lee Jae-myung calls the Fukushima release an "act of terror," the country's government under President Yoon Suk Yeol has backed Japan's decision, Deutsche Welle explained. However, the release is unpopular with the public, with more than 80% opposing the release and more than 60% vowing not to eat Japanese seafood afterward, The Associated Press reported.
According to The Korea Herald:
Democratic Party of Korea head Rep. Lee Jae-myung, on the fourth day of a hunger strike, said he would call on the international community to join his party’s protests against the Japanese government over the water’s release, in a press conference on Sunday.
“The dumping of the wastewater contaminated with radioactive materials by Japan is in direct violation of the London Convention on marine pollution,” he said. “It is time for the international community to step in and call out this clear breach of the international law, stop Japan’s misbehavior and stand united to preserve marine safety.”
The main opposition leader said he penned a letter to the heads of states and governments of the 86 signatories of the London Convention to collectively rally against the release of the Fukushima wastewater.
Xinhua news reports:
"Fukushima nuclear-contaminated wastewater has the nature of trash," Lee Seo-yoon, a mother of three children, said during the rally, adding that Japan regards the ocean as the largest and the cheapest trash bag.
Lee stressed that it would be absurd to hope that no one would be harmed after dumping the trash into the ocean, urging Tokyo to store the radioactive wastewater on its soil rather than dumping it in the sea.
"The ocean is the future of my family and the future of our descendants," said Kim Sam-ho, a fisherman who came from the country's southern coastal Wando County.
Kim raised his strong doubts about the safety of the radioactive wastewater, calling for the South Korean government to take necessary actions including supporting measures for fishermen.
"The major purpose of nuclear safety is to block radiation from reaching the environment and people," said Han Byung-sub, a nuclear expert who had worked at the Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute (KAERI) and the Korea Electric Power Corp. Engineering & Construction (KEPCO E&C).
Han noted that the proper measurement of radiation from Fukushima, involving groundwater flowing in and out of the destroyed reactor, was not carried out, urging the South Korean government to properly measure the radiation in waters off the country from now on.
Following the one-and-a-half-hour rally, the protesters marched about five km in downtown Seoul to the presidential office.
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Japan Releases First Fukushima Wastewater Amid Protests
In response, China said it would ban the import of all Japanese ocean products, with one ministry spokesperson calling Japan's decision "selfish."
Aug 24, 2023
At around 1:00 pm local time Thursday, the Tokyo Electric Power Company began to discharge wastewater from the Fukushima nuclear plant, in keeping with the schedule Japan announced Tuesday.
In response, South Korean protestors attempted to enter the Japanese Embassy in Seoul, and China said it would ban the import of all Japanese ocean products.
"The ocean is the common property of all humankind, not a place for Japan to arbitrarily dump nuclear-contaminated water," Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin said ahead of the first release of water Thursday, as The Guardian reported.
Wang also called the decision "extremely selfish."
"The sea is not Japan's trash bin."
The Chinese customs agency said it would immediately and "completely suspend the import of aquatic products originating in Japan" to "prevent the risk of radioactive contamination of food safety." This means that, in addition to seafood, marine products like seaweed or sea salt would also be covered, CNN explained.
In South Korea, around 50 people gathered for a protest outside the Japanese Embassy in Seoul, Reuters reported. A group of them entered the building and reached the eighth floor, where they unfurled banners.
"The sea is not Japan's trash bin," one banner read. "Stop releasing contaminated water at once."
Police arrested 16 people for trespassing, physically carrying and dragging some out of the building and on to a bus, a Reuters photographer said.
While South Korea's opposition Democratic Party leader Lee Jae-myung calls the Fukushima release an "act of terror," the country's government under President Yoon Suk Yeol has backed Japan's decision, Deutsche Welle explained. However, the release is unpopular with the public, with more than 80% opposing the release and more than 60% vowing not to eat Japanese seafood afterward, The Associated Press reported. This has prompted the government to threaten Japan with a lawsuit if radiation levels surpass the safety limit, according to DW.
"I totally oppose the Japanese plan. The radioactive wastewater is truly a bad thing," Seoul resident Lee Jae-kyung told AP. "My feelings toward Japan have worsened because of the wastewater release."
The governments of Hong Kong and Macao have also placed a more limited ban on seafood from 10 Japanese prefectures including Fukushima. Hong Kong chief executive John Lee called Japan's decision to release the water "irresponsible," according to The Guardian. There, the release also drew protests, with demonstrators ripping up a sign with the Japanese flag and the words, "No trace of humanity. An enemy of the whole world," when they reached the consulate, as AP reported.
Domestically, too, the release has prompted opposition from fishers and environmental groups, as well as concern from citizens.
"I'm not going to buy fish from Fukushima again and I will ask the sushi restaurant where I usually go where they are buying their stocks from. And I definitely will not go to any of the beaches there with my children until I am absolutely sure that it is safe again," Kanako Hosomura, who lives less than 200 kilometers from the plant, told DW.
Around 400 protesters gathered outside the Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) headquarters Thursday morning, Greenpeace Japan tweeted.
The protests continued even after the release began.
Japan insists that its plan for the release is safe, and the International Atomic Energy Agency has concluded it is "consistent with relevant international safety standards." TEPCO is first treating the water in an advanced liquid processing system to remove everything except for the radioactive tritium, which is not possible to remove because it is an isotope of hydrogen, a key component of water, as NPR explained. The water containing the tritium is then further diluted with seawater to one-seventh of the World Health Organization's safety standard, according to DW. The government says some nuclear plants release tritium-contaminated wastewater at higher levels, NPR reported. And The Guardian observed that Chinese plants also release wastewater into the ocean.
TEPCO said it would release 7,800 tons of water over the next 17 days, and around 31,200 tons by April, according to DW. The entire process is expected to take around three decades.
Edwin Lyman, the director of nuclear power safety at the Union of Concerned Scientists in Washington, D.C., told NPR that Japan's plan was "the least bad of a bunch of bad options."
"The idea of deliberately discharging hazardous substances into the environment, into the ocean is repugnant," Lyman said. "But unfortunately, if you do look at it from the technical perspective, it's hard to argue that the impacts of this discharge would be worse than those that are occurring at nuclear power plants that are operating worldwide."
However, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute senior scientist Ken Buesseler said it would be better to keep the waste stored on land where it could be watched.
While he didn't think the waste posed a threat to the wider Pacific, "nearshore in Japan could be affected in the long term because of accumulation of non-tritium forms of radioactivity," Buesseler told NPR.
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