On Sunday, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida will pay a brief visit to the tsunami-ravaged Fukushima nuclear plant to emphasise the safety of an impending release of treated radioactive wastewater into the Pacific Ocean, a contentious plan that his government wants to begin soon despite domestic and international protests.
His journey comes only hours after he came home from a meeting with US and South Korean leaders at Camp David, the American presidential retreat. Before departing Washington on Friday, Kishida stated that it is time to make a decision on the release date of the treated water, which has yet to be determined owing to the controversy surrounding the proposal.
Since the government revealed the release plan two years ago, it has been met with considerable criticism from Japanese fishing organisations, which are concerned about further harm to their seafood’s reputation as they work to recover from the catastrophe. Concerns have also been expressed by groups in South Korea and China, turning the situation into a political and diplomatic crisis.
According to the government and the plant’s operator, Tokyo Electric Power Co., the water must be evacuated to create a place for the plant’s decommissioning and to prevent unintentional leaks from the tanks because much of the water is still polluted and requires more treatment.
Japan has received IAEA cooperation to promote openness and trust, as well as to verify that TEPCO’s strategy satisfies international safety requirements. The administration has also increased its domestic and foreign efforts to promote the plan’s safety.
In a final assessment issued in July, the IAEA found that the TEPCO plan, if carried out exactly as planned, will have little impact on the environment and human health, urging Japan to proceed.
While seeking clarification from the fishing community, the administration has also sought to clarify the strategy to South Korea in order to prevent the problem from interfering with their relationship-building efforts. In the face of escalating Chinese and North Korean threats, Japan, South Korea, and the United States are trying to strengthen trilateral ties.
South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol’s government recently showed support for the Japanese plan, but he faces criticism at home. During a joint news conference at Camp David, Yoon said he backs the IAEA’s safety evaluation of the plan but stressed the need for transparent inspection by the international community.
Kishida said the outreach efforts have made progress, but did not mention a starting date for the water release, which is widely expected to be at the end of August. He said the decision will factor in safety preparations and measures for possible reputation damage on the fisheries.
He is expected to meet representatives from fisheries groups before his ministers decide the date at a meeting next week, Japanese reports say.
During his visit on Sunday, Kishida is expected to see wastewater filtering and dilution facilities and meet with TEPCO president Tomoaki Kobayakawa and other top officials.
A massive March 11, 2011, earthquake and tsunami destroyed the Fukushima Daiichi plant’s cooling systems, causing three reactors to melt and contaminating their cooling water. The water is collected, filtered and stored in around 1,000 tanks, which will reach their capacity in early 2024.
The water is being treated with what’s called an Advanced Liquid Processing System, which can reduce the amounts of more than 60 selected radionuclides to government-set releasable levels, except for tritium, which the government and TEPCO say is safe for humans if consumed in small amounts.
Scientists generally agree that the environmental impact of the treated wastewater would be negligible, but some call for more attention to dozens of low-dose radionuclides that remain in it.
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