Fukushima Disposal Plans Put Tokyo in Hot Water

Japan’s plan to release more than 1 million tons of treated radioactive water from the Fukushima nuclear power plant into the Pacific Ocean has set off a firestorm among neighboring countries and raised concern among international nuclear safety experts.

The U.N. nuclear watchdog International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) released a report last week that said the plan met international standards, though the atomic agency did not endorse or recommend the Japanese disposal idea. IAEA Director-General Rafael Grossi said Japan must make the final decision on whether to proceed with the water disposal plan, which is expected to start as early as August. The report assessed that the discharge would have “negligible radiological impact on people and the environment.”

“We do not take sides,” Grossi told Reuters. “I’m not on the side of Japan or on the side of China or on the side of Korea. The standards apply to all the same way.” 

A spokesperson from the Chinese Foreign Ministry said on July 7 that the IAEA’s report failed to address international concerns on the impact of treated wastewater on people and the environment, urging Japan to “give up using the IAEA report as the ‘greenlight’” and handle the contaminated water in a responsible way. The same day, China’s General Administration of Customs announced that it would continue its previous ban on imported food from Fukushima and nine other regions, as well as increase regulation of imported food from other parts of Japan.

Similar sentiments have festered in South Korea despite the current Korean administration’s support of the plan. Hundreds gathered in Seoul last weekend to protest against the Fukushima water disposal plan while opposition lawmakers spoke with Grossi in a tense meeting to voice their concerns. South Korea also plans to stick with its ban on all seafood imports from eight Japanese regions around Fukushima, which has been in place since 2013. Fish markets in South Korea have increased testing of seafood for radiation, and shoppers are hoarding salt as fears have grown over the Fukushima water release. 

The plan, however, has found some backing in other countries such as the United States, which praised Japan for working with the IAEA to conduct a “science-based and transparent process.” The European Union is soon expected to lift all restrictions on food imports from Japan, while Taiwan lifted its ban in 2022.

Japanese officials continue to defend the neutrality of the IAEA report against claims that Tokyo pressured the agency to publish only positive reviews of the plan. A spokesperson from the Japanese Embassy in Washington told Foreign Policy the IAEA’s report was a result of independent and neutral review that shows Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO), the Fukushima plant operator, has demonstrated a “high level of accuracy in their measurements and technical competence.”

“The Government of Japan will continue to provide necessary information to the international community, including neighboring countries, in a transparent manner, and will make efforts to foster further international understanding of the handling of ALPS treated water,” he said.

Rafael Grossi, director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, holds an empty bottle after feeding flounder in a fish tank filled with treated wastewater at a lab while visiting the damaged Fukushima nuclear power plant in Japan on July 5.Hiro Komae/POOL/AFP via Getty Images

A massive earthquake and tsunami destroyed the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant in 2011, causing the reactor cores to overheat and contaminate water with highly radioactive material. Ever since, workers have pumped more water into the plant to cool the reactor cores and gathered the contaminated water into more than 1,000 tanks that the Japanese government says must now be disposed of to prevent any accidental leaks.

But marine biology and radiochemistry experts say the IAEA’s assessment is by no means comprehensive and note that the current lack of data raises questions over Japan’s handling of the disposal. 

Much of the discussion surrounds a radioactive material in the water called tritium, which cannot be removed by the treatment system and must be diluted before being dumped into the ocean. But experts said their worry is not necessarily about the levels of tritium entering the marine ecosystem, but the other radioactive material not cited in the report, including iodine-129 and cobalt-60.

“There is a tremendous difference among different radionuclides in their bioaccumulation or environmental behavior. This is often overlooked,” Wen-Xiong Wang, the chair professor of environmental toxicology at City University of Hong Kong, said. 

Although tritium’s water-like nature means that it does not easily accumulate in the ocean, cobalt-60 is 300,000 times more likely to accumulate with other seafloor sediments, and strontium-90 behaves similarly to calcium and can end up in fish bones, said marine radiochemist Ken Buesseler, who has conducted research at the Fukushima site and continues to follow the site’s progress.

IAEA spokesperson Fredrik Dahl said that the IAEA will continue to independently sample and analyze the treated water, seawater, and fish, as well as review the sampling done by TEPCO but maintains that current radioactive levels meet safety standards.

TEPCO released data in 2018 that revealed the presence of more dangerous radioactive elements, requiring more than 70 percent of the tanks to undergo secondary treatment to reduce radioactive concentrations. While these concentrations are “orders of magnitude lower than tritium,” they are “highly variable from tank to tank,” according to a 2020 study published by Buesseler in Science Magazine. And he said that there are still many tanks that have either never been analyzed or reported by TEPCO.

“I’m not saying [radioactive] levels will exceed standards, but how will [the Japanese government] know? Their assessment plan of what’s in the tank is woefully inadequate,” Buesseler, who currently works as a senior scientist at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, said. “They talk about measuring tritium, cesium, but very little else, and they haven’t demonstrated that they can do those measurements adequately with enough sensitivity.”

A spokesperson from the Japanese Embassy in Washington said all monitoring results made by TEPCO, IAEA, and third party laboratories are made public.

Buessler and other experts urged the Japanese government to consider other alternatives, such as solidifying the wastewater into concrete, which would trap the tritium and also help expand the sea wall that would serve as a tsunami barrier.

“This is the kind of ‘trust us we’ll take care of it plan,’ and I just feel like they haven’t built up that level of trust to be given approval,” Buesseler said.