{"id":242959,"date":"2023-08-28T12:01:19","date_gmt":"2023-08-28T11:01:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=242959"},"modified":"2023-08-26T05:04:44","modified_gmt":"2023-08-26T04:04:44","slug":"japan-releases-nuclear-wastewater-into-the-pacific-how-worried-should-we-be","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2023\/08\/japan-releases-nuclear-wastewater-into-the-pacific-how-worried-should-we-be\/","title":{"rendered":"Japan Releases Nuclear Wastewater into the Pacific. How Worried Should We Be?"},"content":{"rendered":"

The plan to gradually discharge more than a million tons of treated radioactive water from the crippled Fukushima nuclear plant has started–deeply dividing nations and scientists.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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More than a million tons of treated wastewater are stored in tanks at the plant. Without more storage capacity, Japan says it has no choice other than to release the water gradually into the ocean.
Photograph by The Asahi Shimbun\/Getty<\/p><\/div>\n

24 Aug 2023 – <\/em>Japan has started releasing wastewater into the ocean. But this isn\u2019t the kind of wastewater that flows from city streets into stormwater drains.\u202fIt\u2019s treated nuclear wastewater used to cool damaged reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, stricken by an earthquake over a decade ago.<\/p>\n

Japan claims that the wastewater, containing a radioactive isotope called tritium and possibly other radioactive traces, will be safe. Neighboring countries and other experts say it poses an environmental threat that will last generations and may affect ecosystems all the way to North America. Who is right?<\/p>\n

Following a 9.1-magnitude quake<\/a> off the east coast of Japan’s main island on March 11, 2011, two tsunami waves slammed into the nuclear plant. As three of its reactors melted down, operators began pumping seawater into them to cool melted fuel. More than 12 years later, the ongoing cooling process produces more than 130 tons of contaminated water daily.<\/p>\n

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On February 21, 2021, a Tokyo Electric Power Company employee measures radiation outside its Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, devastated a decade ago by an earthquake. Japan\u2019s planned releases of wastewater used to cool damaged reactors is stirring controversy.
Photograph by Philip Fong, AFP\/Getty<\/p><\/div>\n

Since the accident, over 1.3 million tons of nuclear wastewater have been collected, treated, and stored in a tank farm at the plant. That storage space is about to run out, the Japanese government says, leaving no choice other than to begin dispensing the wastewater into the Pacific.<\/p>\n

Japan\u2019s discharge plan involves incrementally releasing it over the next three decades, although some experts say it could take longer, given the amount still being produced. While the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)\u2014the UN\u2019s nuclear watchdog\u2014assesses the plan\u2019s safety, some of Japan\u2019s neighbors are criticizing it as unilateral and dangerous. A senior Chinese official recently called it<\/a> a risk “to all mankind\u201d and accused Japan of using the Pacific as a \u201csewer.\u201d The head of the Pacific Islands Forum, an organization representing 18 island nations (some already traumatized by decades of nuclear testing in the region<\/a>) dubbed it a Pandora\u2019s box<\/a>. On May 15, South Korea\u2019s opposition leader derided Japanese leaders\u2019 claims that the water is safe enough to drink:<\/a> \u201cIf it is safe enough to drink, they should use it as drinking water.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

Now, American scientists are raising concerns that marine life and ocean currents could carry harmful radioactive isotopes\u2014also called radionuclides\u2014across the entire Pacific Ocean.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a trans-boundary and trans-generational event,\u201d says Robert Richmond, director of the Kewalo Marine Laboratory at the University of Hawaii, and a scientific adviser on the discharge plan to the Pacific Islands Forum. \u201cAnything released into the ocean off of Fukushima is not going to stay in one place.\u201d<\/p>\n

Richmond cites studies showing that radionuclides and debris released during the initial Fukushima accident were quickly detected nearly 5,500 miles away off the coast of California. Radioactive elements in the planned wastewater discharges may once again spread across the ocean, he says.<\/p>\n

The radionuclides could be carried by ocean currents, especially the cross-Pacific Kuroshio current. Marine animals that migrate great distances could spread them too. One 2012 study cites \u201cunequivocal evidence\u201d<\/a> that Pacific bluefin tuna carrying Fukushima-derived radionuclides reached the San Diego coast within six months of the 2011 accident. No less worrying as carriers, Richmond says, are phytoplankton\u2014free-floating organisms that are the basis of the food chain for all marine life and can capture radionuclides from the Fukushima cooling water. When ingested, those isotopes may \u201caccumulate in a variety of invertebrates, fish, marine mammals, and humans<\/a>.\u201d In addition, a study earlier this year<\/a> refers to microplastics\u2014tiny plastic particles that are increasingly widespread in the oceans\u2014as a possible\u00a0\u201cTrojan horse\u201d of radionuclide transport<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Ocean currents could carry treated radioactive wastewater far from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. Scientists in some countries around the Pacific worry about its potential effects on food chains and ecosystems.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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