Japan announced last Tuesday that it had unilaterally decided to release almost 1.25 million tons of treated radioactive wastewater that was contaminated during the 2011 Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant meltdown into the Pacific Ocean. Following the announcement, several maritime neighbours and environmental groups swiftly expressed concern and condemnation, including China, which has usually remained unperturbed on such issues in the past. While Japan insists that the plan is safe, that it has acquired approval from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), and that it will continue to maintain transparency throughout the process, fishing industries and foreign governments remain sceptical of the associated health risks with the release. Although fear around radiation is a natural response given our historic experience with the downsides of nuclear power, the fears exaggerate the actual threat of Japan’s planned release.
Japan’s decision, which coincides with the Fukushima meltdown’s ten-year anniversary, has been in the works for a while now and was long due. The fact that the 1.37 million tons storage capacity of tanks on the Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) facility are expected to be exhausted by fall 2022 further pushed Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga’s administration to announce a decision regarding the wastewater. To put things into perspective, the country will be releasing water enough to fill about 500 Olympic-sized swimming pools in two years and its gradual release is expected to take decades to finish. According to a basic policy outlined by Japan's Ministry for Economy, Trade and Industry (METI), the radioactive water has been treated utilising an advanced liquid processing system to remove all contaminants below environmental levels but needs to be re-filtered to remove harmful isotopes. Further, it will be significantly diluted to meet international standards before it is released into the ocean.
The concern for countries like South Korea, China, and Taiwan—all of which share maritime borders with Japan—is that “the decision could bring a direct and indirect impact on the safety of... people and surrounding environment.” Moreover, TEPCO has acknowledged that the process will fail to filter out a radioactive isotope of hydrogen called tritium. While this late revelation has naturally made several governments anxious, experts have dismissed these fears, positing that tritium is the least radioactive, and least harmful, of all radioactive elements.
The policy document states that tritium will be diluted to 1500 becquerels per litre, which is 1/40 of the concentration permitted under Japanese safety standards and 1/7 of the World Health Organization’s guideline for drinking water. In other words, these discharge amounts are well within the range of the amounts seen at other nuclear power stations around the world. To provide further credibility to the plan, Tokyo’s blueprint has received a green light from the IAEA, a regulatory body that has set up “a very rigorous process” to certify such processes. The IAEA’s Director-General, Rafael Grossi, noted that releasing wastewater into the ocean meets global standards of practice, which is in fact a common way to release water at nuclear power plants, even when they are not in emergency situations. Further, it has been found that ingestion of tritium cannot harm humans or marine life.
The decision has created furore domestically as well, with the head of the National Federation of Fisheries Cooperative Associations (or JF Zengyoren), Hiroshi Kishi, voicing strong opposition to the government’s decision. Kishi argues that the 2011 nuclear disaster has already led to a negative perception of the safety of the area’s farms and its products due to the potential presence of radioactive elements travelling up the food chain and leading to what ecologists call “biomagnification”. This has prevented the industry from reaching pre-2011 sales figures, even one decade after the disaster. In addition, they have also been furthered burdened with more stringent fishing restrictions as well as a dearth of catch in the aftermath of the disaster.
Keeping these challenges in mind, Kishi stressed that the government’s chosen method will undo all efforts the fishing community have made towards distancing their businesses from contamination rumours. “We vigorously oppose a release of contaminated water into the ocean as it will clearly cause reputational damage,” agreed Toshihito Ono, the head of fish wholesalers and processors in Fukushima prefecture. This opposition has been further amplified by the South Korean municipal councils of Busan and Ulsan, which lie close to the sea the wastewater will be released into.
To counter the scientific aspect of the opposition, scientist James Conca, who has worked with the United States (US) government labs on nuclear containment issues for 30 years, argued in a Forbes article that “there are 16,280,000,000,000,000,000,000 Bq of potassium-40, rubidium-87 and many more radionuclides already in the world’s oceans. So the fish are swimming in plenty of natural radioactive material anyway, more than this Fukushima water could ever provide.” he further argues that “The biological half-life of tritium in fish and marine life is even shorter than in humans, less than 2 days, and the dilution in seawater is too rapid for any significant dose to get back to any people because the physical and chemical properties of tritium mean it does not concentrate up the food chain - it dilutes up the food chain.”
While Conca’s claims may hold validity, the fears of Kishi and Ono are not centred around the scientific credibility of Japan’s decision but the perceptions that the decision may yield, which are not tied to science but to fear and gut instincts. The rumour of contamination in the once-prised Japanese seafood is a common assumption that has impacted its industry since the meltdown. After 2011, Fukushima’s fishing industry stagnated for almost an entire year. Even today, there are no catches within a 10-kilometre radius of the Daiichi plant and those made in the near vicinity are subject to safety checks for radioactive materials by prefectures and the fishing cooperatives themselves. In five years now, there have been zero cases reported outside acceptable levels. However, the area’s negative reputation remains unchanged, thus complicating the complete recovery of the once-thriving industry, even after a whole decade. This goes to prove that even though the science disproves concerns about radiation, the reputational damage from a larger community that does not base its opinions on chemistry, will further dent the industry’s sales.
Greenpeace Japan is among those furthering this sentiment. “The Japanese government has once again failed the people of Fukushima,” Kazue Suzuki, a climate change and energy campaigner at Greenpeace Japan, said in a statement. “The government has taken the wholly unjustified decision to deliberately contaminate the Pacific Ocean with radioactive wastes. Rather than using the best available technology to minimize radiation hazards by storing and processing the water over the longer term, they have opted for the cheapest option,” it added.
Storing the water for few more years was mooted an option, as it would have allowed for the radioactive tritium level to decay by half. However, it was not feasible because TEPCO would have had to build more storage tanks and continue holding all contaminated water for another 15 years or so, at which point the financial costs would have outweighed the negligible environmental and public health benefits. Japan also considered several other disposal options apart from marine discharge, including evaporating the water or injecting it into deep geologic formations, but determined that marine discharge was the “most realistic” option to carry out this “inevitable task” because it was more technologically and financially feasible as well as keeping in line with international practices.
Society’s inherent discomfort with nuclear energy means that Japan has somewhat of an uphill task to address the concerns of other countries, rights groups, and its own citizens. In light of this, it is crucial for authorities to scale up their public messaging and stress on the scientific principles that have guided this controversial decision. However, this does not account for the fact that many opinions and decisions are formed instinctively and are not informed through science. Keeping this in mind, PM Suga also promised that the administration will “do everything it can” to “prevent reputational damage” to the industry. Although what measures the government will take is not exactly clear at this point, it is expected that the Japanese government will offer financial assistance to the businesses affected by the water release and communicate the safety of the decision. Simultaneously, TEPCO has been engaging with local communities to educate them about the realities of the cleanup. The only way Japan can make this process easier on itself is by continually upholding transparency throughout the procedure and by rigorously following its safety plan. Keeping the water in storage for another dozen years or more is not just expensive, but also unnecessary. More than anything, this whole episode, which has spanned over a decade now, has time and again illustrated the unjustifiable risks and costs associated with using nuclear energy.
Japan’s Release of Radioactive Wastewater from Fukushima Isn’t as Concerning as it Appears
Japan's decision to release treated wastewater from the Fukushima meltdown has been met with criticism and concern. However, risks associated with the procedure do not ring alarm bells scientifically.
April 23, 2021
SOURCE: KYODO