The Japanese government’s plan to dump treated water from the damaged Fukushima nuclear power plant into the ocean “meets international safety standards” and will have “negligible impact,” the head of the International Atomic Energy agency said on Tuesday.
The assessment, carried out as part of the IAEA’s final review of Japan’s plan, was released during the organization’s chief Rafael Grossi’s visit to Tokyo ahead of the water release scheduled for this summer. “The IAEA has concluded that the process and activities for the discharge of treated water (…) comply with relevant international safety standards,” according to its report.
The triple earthquake-tsunami-nuclear accident disaster of March 11, 2011 caused the meltdown of three reactors at the Fukushima power plant in the worst nuclear accident since Chernobyl. This accident caused radioactive leaks that forced tens of thousands of residents in the surrounding areas to urgently evacuate their homes.
Reviews from Beijing, Seoul and local fishermen
Work to decontaminate and decommission the plant is expected to take several more decades, but Japan faces the immediate problem of storing around 1.33 million tons of rainwater, groundwater or injection needed to cool nuclear reactor cores. at the plant site. plant, which will soon reach saturation. The Japanese government plans to dump this water into the ocean after treating it through a decontamination system that removes radioactive elements, except tritium, and dilutes it.
The project had already been approved by the IAEA, but the Japanese government said the rejection would only start after the “comprehensive review”, the results of which were presented by Rafael Grossi on Tuesday.
But this controversial release is strongly criticized by Beijing, while in South Korea the price of salt has risen amid contamination fears after the release of water from Fukushima into the ocean. Fukushima’s fishing communities are also concerned about customers boycotting their catch, despite strict testing protocols for food sourced from the region.
Start of rejection this summer
Speaking after talks with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and Japan’s Foreign Minister Rafael Grossi said the IAEA report was the result of nearly two years of work by a team of specialists. The filtration and dilution process that will be used “is not new. It is something that exists in the industry,” he added, referring to similar discharges from plants in China or France.
Japan said the launch would start this summer, without elaborating, and Hirokazu Matsuno said the timeline still stands.
Source: BFM TV
