Japan plans to start releasing treated nuclear wastewater from the tsunami-wrecked Fukushima nuclear power plant into the ocean sometime in late August.
According to Japan’s Asahi Shimbun daily the release, which has caused public outcries across Asia and the Pacific region for some time now, is likely to come shortly after the prime minister, Fumio Kishida, meets the US president, Joe Biden, and the South Korean president, Yoon Suk-yeol.
That meeting is expected next week in the US, where Kishida plans to explain the safety of the water in question.
Japanese authorities and the UN’s nuclear watchdog, International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), have both said publicly the water was safe.
Japan’s nuclear regulator last month granted approval for plant operator Tokyo Electric Power (TEPCO) to start releasing the water.
But in nearby countries, fear that the release may contaminate food that are already stretched and worsen a future threaten by the climate change crisis, remains.
Bottom-trawling fishing was scheduled to start off Fukushima, north-east of Tokyo, in September, and the government aimed to start the water discharge before the fishing season got underway, the newspaper said.
About 1.3m tonnes of water stored in huge tanks on the site has been filtered through TEP- CO’s advanced liquid processing system (ALPS) to remove most radioactive elements except for tritium, an isotope of hydrogen that is difficult to separate from water.
The 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.
The water – enough to fill 500 Olympic-sized swimming pools – becomes contaminated when it is used to cool fuel rods that melted after the power plant was hit by a powerful earthquake and tsunami in March 2011.
Discharging the water is expected to take 30 to 40 years to complete. Objections have come from local Japanese fishing communities and other countries in the region. China has denounced the plan, calling it “extremely irresponsible” when it was announced in 2021.
Hong Kong has threatened to ban food imports from 10 Japanese prefectures if release goes ahead as planned. In July, hundreds of people in Seoul protested on the streets, demanding that Japan scrap its release plans.
Some of the placards read: “We denounce the sea disposal of Fukushima’s nuclear wastewater!” and “We oppose with our lives the sea discharge”.
“It makes little sense to argue that the release is OK because it does not harm humans. Animals also live in the ocean,” The Guardian quoted university student, Kim Han-bi, as saying.
“Other than discharging the water into the sea, there is an option to store the water on their land, and there are other options being suggested,” said Han Sangjin, spokesperson of the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions, whose members accounted for many of the marchers.
Greenpeace Japan, citizen’s groups and Japanese anti-nuclear activists had protested against the Japanese government’s plan to discharge Fukushima’s radioactive water into the Pacific Ocean. Government and people of the Pacific have a reason to be anxious.
History tells us that we’ve had a notorious legacy of nuclear testing within our region.
That is, bigger countries have a known history of treating our land, waters and seas as a convenient dumping ground for waste and dangerous chemicals they would not trash in their backyard.
According to Time, the US conducted 67 nuclear tests in the Marshall Islands between 1946 and 1957 – and disposed of atomic waste in Runit Dome, where it’s still stored.
“That testing led not only to forced relocations, but also to increased rates of cancers. Today there is concern that the dome is leaking and that rising sea levels might impact its structural integrity.”
France also conducted 193 nuclear tests from 1966 to 1996 at Moruroa and Fangataufa atolls in French Polynesia.
At home? Fiji and Fijians, as well as other Pacific Island countries and their peoples have a moral obligation to voice opinions on the wastewater release issue loudly and clearly.
We also have a legal obligation under the Rarotonga Treaty “to prevent the dumping of radioactive wastes and other radioactive matter by anyone”.
We are not to act in a way that would assist or encourage the dumping by anyone of radioactive wastes and other radioactive matter in our seas.
Our leaders have often urged Japan and other shipping states “to store or dump their nuclear waste in their home countries rather than storing or dumping them in the Pacific”.
They should continue to do this. In June, Pacific Islands Forum Secretary-General, Henry Puna said the way forward should involve “comprehensive international consultation” with “affected states”.
He added that this should be done not only through the IAEA platform but through other relevant platforms holding the mandate on ocean and marine environmental protection such as the 1982 UNCLOS and the London Convention and Protocol on the Prevention of Marine Pollution by Dumping of Wastes and Other Matter.
Fiji’s Prime Minister, Sitiveni Rabuka, last week, announced he was “satisfied” with Japan’s efforts to demonstrate that the release will be safe.
He said had read the International Atomic Energy Agency’s report which “works for us” and that he “trusts their expert judgement and monitoring process”.
Apart from a few rebuttals here and there, there’s no real concern shown by the public. I believe anything called “waste” when “dumped” in the Pacific Ocean should concern us or at least demand that we hold forums to debate and air our views. We should not let political views be the only views we hold.
Even if the wastewater released from Japan is safe by international standards why can’t we at least draw some attention to the issue and share information about how our qoliqoli owners perceive this issue?
Even if Government thinks Japanese authorities have followed due process and therefore it might be too much to protest like the Chinese and South Koreans can’t we create avenues that will allow citizens to learn more about the issue?
We should at least connect with others who feel passionate about wastewater dumping in our ocean home.
We should speak out and bear witness to the world. I believe we need more conversation, more citizen action and more oversight so that bigger countries of the world don’t bully us now and in the future.
If Japan’s Kishida can go to the US to explain in person the safety of the water in question then I see why the same can’t be done to us and the most vulnerable states dotting the Pacific Ocean?
The Pacific Ocean is our only home. Our lives depend on it and we need to show that we are serious about its protection.
If we remain silent on things that matter, we lose our voice and our place in the world. Until we meet on this same page same time next week, stay blessed, stay healthy and stay safe.
