{"id":162513,"date":"2023-07-07T08:00:00","date_gmt":"2023-07-07T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.mediaintel.asia\/?p=920990"},"modified":"2023-07-07T08:00:00","modified_gmt":"2023-07-07T00:00:00","slug":"un-report-on-japans-fukushima-water-plans-fails-to-placate-opponents","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.chinalegalblog.com\/en\/2023\/07\/07\/un-report-on-japans-fukushima-water-plans-fails-to-placate-opponents\/","title":{"rendered":"UN report on Japan\u2019s Fukushima water plans fails to placate opponents"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"MediaIntel.Asia\"<\/a><\/div>\n

The publication this week of the UN nuclear watchdog\u2019s positive assessment of Japanese plans to pump more than 1m tonnes of water from the wrecked Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant into the ocean has failed to placate opponents.
\nChina is fiercely opposed to the plans, despite a report by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) backing the scheme, while the support of the government of South Korea has failed to quell widespread public opposition to the idea in the country.
\nThe government in Seoul said on Friday that it \u201crespected the IAEA\u2019s review of plans by Japan and the plant\u2019s operator, Tokyo Electric Power (Tepco) to pump water from the plant into the Pacific over the next 30 to 40 years\u201d.
\nThe discharge would have \u201cnegligible consequences\u201d for South Korea, it said in an attempt to win over a deeply skeptical public. The country\u2019s ban on food and seafood products from the Fukushima region will remain in place, however.
\nBut South Korea, whose conservative president, Yoon Suk Yeol, is attempting to mend diplomatic fences with Japan over the countries\u2019 wartime legacy, is a lone voice of support in the region.
\nOn the same day, China announced a ban on food imports from 10 of Japan\u2019s prefectures over \u201csafety concerns\u201d, and said it would conduct stringent radiation tests on food from the rest of the country.
\n\u201cThe Japanese side still has many problems in the legitimacy of sea discharge, the reliability of purification equipment and the perfection of monitoring programmes,\u201d Chinese customs said.
\nThe IAEA review brought Japan closer to the start of the long operation to pump the water \u2013 a mixture of groundwater, rain that seeps into the area, and water used for cooling damaged nuclear fuel \u2013 into the ocean, with reports suggesting it will begin in August.
\nAbout 1.3m tonnes of water stored in huge tanks on the site has been filtered through Tepco\u2019s advanced liquid processing system (Alps) to remove most radioactive elements except for tritium, an isotope of hydrogen that is difficult to separate from water.
\nThe treated water will be diluted with seawater so that the concentration of tritium is well below internationally approved levels before being released into the ocean 1km from the shoreline via an undersea tunnel.
\nThe water became contaminated when it is used to cool fuel rods that melted after the plant was hit by a powerful earthquake and tsunami in March 2011, triggering a triple meltdown at the Fukushima plant.
\nJapan\u2019s top government spokesman, Hirokazu Matsuno, responded to criticism of the plan by pointing out that Fukushima Daiichi would pump far less tritium into the ocean than Chinese and South Korean nuclear facilities.
\nJapan\u2019s standard for the release of tritium, at below 22 trillion becquerels a year, is far stricter than that of its neighbours, Matsuno said.
\nAccording to Japan\u2019s trade and industry ministry, the Yangjiang nuclear plant in China discharged around 112 trillion becquerels of tritium in 2021, while the Kori power station in South Korea released about 49 trillion becquerels.
\nThat is unlikely to placate opponents in Fukushima, where fishing communities have warned that the water discharge will undo more than a decade of work to repair the damage the meltdown inflicted on the reputation of the region\u2019s seafood, which is subject to one of the world\u2019s strictest radiation testing regimes.
\n\u201cWe here in Fukushima have done absolutely nothing wrong, so why do they have to mess up our ocean?\u201d said Haruo Ono, a fisher in Shinchimachi, 34 miles north of the Fukushima Daiichi plant. \u201cThe ocean doesn\u2019t belong to only us humans \u2013 and it isn\u2019t a rubbish tip.
\n\u201cIt\u2019s been 12 years [since the meltdown] and fish prices are rising, so we were finally hoping to really get down to business. Now they\u2019re talking about releasing the water and we\u2019re going to have to go back to square one again. It\u2019s unbearable.\u201d
\nFisheries cooperatives in three prefectures were due to submit a petition with 33,000 signatures on Friday expressing their opposition to the water discharge.
\nWhile their government has given Japan breathing room, many South Koreans remain skeptical of Tokyo\u2019s safety assurances. Some are panic-buying salt amid contamination fears, while a Gallup poll conducted in June found that 78% of South Koreans were either \u201cvery worried\u201d or \u201csomewhat worried\u201d about potential harm to the marine environment.
\n\u201cIt\u2019s much more difficult to make sales now, as customers are asking more questions as they worry a lot,\u201d said Jin Wol-sun, a stallholder at Seoul\u2019s Noryangjin market, where market officials carried out random radiation tests on seafood in an attempt to reassure shoppers.
\nRafael Mariano Grossi, the head of the IAEA, conceded there had been a lack of unanimity among the IAEA scientists, who come from 11 countries, including China, involved in the safety review. One or two \u201cmay have expressed concerns\u201d over the plan, he said in an interview with Reuters. \u201cI heard that being said \u2026 but again, what we have published is scientifically impeccable.\u201d
\nChina\u2019s state-run Global Times newspaper on Thursday said Liu Senlin, a Chinese expert in the IAEA\u2019s technical working group, was disappointed with the \u201chasty\u201d report and had said the input from experts was limited and only used for reference.
\nOther experts openly voiced concerns about the impact the discharge could have on marine and human life, and accused Tepco and the IAEA of cutting corners.
\n\u201cWe have repeatedly pointed out to Tepco and IAEA substantive concerns we have with Japan\u2019s approach and flaws in their methodology,\u201d said Ferenc Dalnoki-Veress, an adjunct professor at Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey.
\nDalnoki-Veress, a member of a panel of scientists that advised the Pacific Islands Forum, cited Tepco\u2019s controlled tritium-exposure experiments on fish, which he said included only three species that were being fed on commercial fish pellets rather than exposed smaller fish, which would normally be their food source.
\n\u201cWe have repeatedly offered to help advise on how to conduct these experiments, but each time Tepco rejected them,\u201d he said. \u201cWe take as proof that they are not truly interested in collecting relevant data that may demonstrate and confirm concerns regarding their present plans.\u201d
\nThe \u201cdumping\u201d of treated water into the ocean, he said, would cause potentially irreversible damage to the local fishing industry.
\n\u201cWhen we think about the effect of radiation we can\u2019t just think about the effect on the environment, we have to consider the effect on cultures, societies and peoples who suffer psychological effects, a sense of fear, and reputational damage. Trust has been broken, and it will be difficult to repair.\u201d
\nShaun Burnie, a senior nuclear specialist with Greenpeace who regularly visits Fukushima, said claims that tritium posed no risk to human health were \u201cscientifically bankrupt\u201d.
\n\u201cThe concern is not over external exposure,\u201d Burnie said. \u201cIt is internal exposure to organically bound tritium that is the problem \u2013 when it gets inside fish, seafood, and then humans. When tritium gets inside cells, it can do damage.
\n\u201cTepco and the Japanese government are making a conscious decision to increase marine pollution with radioactivity, and they have no idea where that will lead.\u201d
\nThis article was amended on 7 July 2023. An earlier version misnamed Rafael Mariano Grossi as \u201cEmanuel Grossi\u201d.
\nAgencies contributed to this report.<\/p>\n

This data comes from MediaIntel.Asia's Media Intelligence and Media Monitoring Platform<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The publication this week of the UN nuclear watchdog\u2019s positive assessment of Japanese plans to pump more than 1m tonnes of water from the wrecked Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant into the ocean has failed to placate opponents.
\nChina is fiercely …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":253,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[144,693,288,194,1597,615,334],"tags":[3686,3472,1884,3610,10457,10388,2127,10315,8864,10327,10341,8820,3549],"class_list":["post-162513","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-china","category-japan","category-medicine","category-news-chinese-law","category-pollution","category-south-korea","category-university","tag-boycott","tag-chinese","tag-climate-change","tag-diplomacy","tag-earthquake","tag-esg","tag-import","tag-media-intelligence","tag-news-media","tag-pacific","tag-seafood","tag-tokyo","tag-united-nations"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chinalegalblog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/162513"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chinalegalblog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chinalegalblog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chinalegalblog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/253"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chinalegalblog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=162513"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.chinalegalblog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/162513\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":162514,"href":"https:\/\/www.chinalegalblog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/162513\/revisions\/162514"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chinalegalblog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=162513"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chinalegalblog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=162513"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chinalegalblog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=162513"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}