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New Public TV Documentary on Fukushima: Meltdown: Cooling Water Crisis

A shocking new 49-minute documentary from Japan’s public television broadcaster NHK titled “MELTDOWN: Cooling Water Crisis,” reveals new information on how corporate policy undermined efforts to keep the three destroyed Fukushima-Daiichi reactors stable one week after the triple reactor meltdown disaster began. See video here. Hear an interview related to the film here.

December 20, 2021 by Nukewatch Leave a Comment

Ignoring Outcry, Mockery, Japan Intends 2023 Start of Fukushima Wastewater Dumping

Nukewatch Quarterly Winter 2021-2022

On October 18, Japan’s Prime Minster Fumio Kishida said there would be no postponement of its plan to pollute the Pacific Ocean with 1.27 million metric tons of radioactive cooling water from Fukushima’s destroyed reactors. Kishida said releasing the “heavily diluted” waste water would begin in the spring of 2023. The dispersal is expected to continue for decades as the accumulation of radioactive cooling water increases by 150 tons every day. The water becomes severely contaminated after being poured over large volumes of roiling, not, melted uranium and mixed uranium/plutonium fuel under Fukushima-Daiichi’s three destroyed nuclear reactors.

The International Atomic Energy Agency’s Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi was openly mocked with laughter by the dignitaries at COP26 on November 4. The adamantly pro-nuclear Grossi had said before the large audience, “No one died from radiation at Fukushima,” provoking the laughs. “I don’t know why you’re laughing, it’s a fact,” he griped. Earlier Grossi warmed up the crowd with this thigh-slapper: “We control this activity so it does not cause any harm.” Grossi’s job is difficult since under its United Nations Statute, the IAEA has only one objective: “The Agency shall seek to accelerate and enlarge the contribution of atomic energy … throughout the world.”

Japan’s April decision to further pollute the Pacific caused an uproar in dozens of Pacific rim of countries. South Korean officials denounced Kishida’s declaration the same day, saying that it represents a “grave threat” to the marine environment. South Korea continues to ban seafood imports from the Fukushima region and has repeatedly condemned the dumping plan, which a senior South Korean foreign ministry official said, “could affect our people’s health and security as well as the ocean environment.”

Alternatives to the ocean dumping include long-term tank storage, more thorough filtering, or evaporation, and in 2019 Japan’s own ministry of economy and industry recommended including evaporation in its list of waste water options.

China’s Global Times reported in October that Liu Jiangyong, vice dean of the Institute of Modern International Relations at Tsinghua University, asked if the wastewater will be processed and will have no impact on the marine environment and food web as the Japanese government claimed, why can’t the water be recycled on land? Japan can’t answer any of these questions, said Liu. The ideal plan would be for Japan to process the wastewater to a safe level and recycle it, rather than dump it into the sea, said Liu.

A June letter to Japan’s permanent mission to the United Nations signed by a group of 70 groups, including Nukewatch, warned: “The dumping of radioactive water into the Pacific is also a violation of international law. The 1972 Convention on the Prevention of Marine Pollution by Dumping of Wastes and Other Matter and the London Protocol prohibit dumping of any concentration of radioactive material into the sea.”

In May, three human rights experts appointed by the UN’s Human Rights Council issued a statement that expressed “deep regret” at Japan’s dumping plan and “reminded Japan of its international obligations to prevent exposure to hazardous substances, to conduct environmental impact assessments of the risks that the discharge of water may have, to prevent transboundary environmental harms, and to protect the marine environment.”

Tokyo Electric Power Co. (Tepco), operators of the Fukushima complex, announced August 24 it would construct a tunnel underwater to release the 1.27 tons of radioactive water into the Pacific Ocean. Tepco said it would start building at least one 8-foot diameter half-mile-long tunnel in March 2022 by hollowing out bedrock on the seabed near the No. 5 reactor at Fukushima, Japan Times reported.

Critics around the world immediately denounced the plan as an attempt to avoid any oversight, monitoring, or independent inspection of the radioactive materials in the waste water.

“…to dump it into an ocean, where we share the same tides, current, and fish, it is a level up from urgent for us,” said Henry Puna, secretary general of the Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat, noting that even basic concerns had not yet been addressed. “Currently we are not satisfied there will be no harm to our Blue Pacific,” he told Civil Beat in September.

A regional collective of young activists called Youngsolwara Pacific has condemned the dumping plan and Japan’s lack of consultation. Likewise, a senior South Korean foreign ministry official told China’s Global Times in October that, “Japan’s decision was made without enough consultations with neighboring nations.” Talei Luscia Mangioni, a researcher at Australian National University and Youngsolwara Pacific member, said “… this is an act of transboundary harm. ” And it is typical, she said, considering the history of nuclear powers that “have treated the Pacific as a sacrifice zone.”

In Iitate village 24 miles from Fukushima’s meltdowns, Nobuyoshi Ito, a former computer engineer, has been measuring the radioactive properties in the food and soil for nearly a decade. Mr. Ito always carries a monitor and is constantly recording radiation levels, “trying to determine what is and isn’t safe to eat, and where it is and isn’t safe to go,” CBS News reported last August. While the town’s evacuation orders are gone, Ito says people — especially children — shouldn’t return. “It will take 300 years to restore the village to its original state, and it will continue to emit radiation for 300 years,” he said.

On September 22, the United States lifted its weak restrictions on imported food stuffs from Japan, and food products free of inspection now include even rice harvested in Fukushima. According to Japan’s farm ministry, the US is the 3d-largest importer of its food products and were worth $1.09 billion in 2020. Fourteen countries continue to maintain their food import bans. FDA officials say they’d determining a “very low risk” to US consumers from radioactive contaminants in the foods. — JL

Filed Under: Environment, Fukushima, Newsletter Archives, Nuclear Power, Quarterly Newsletter, Radiation Exposure, Radioactive Waste

August 2, 2021 by Nukewatch Leave a Comment

Uproar over Japan’s Decision to Disperse Fukushima Waste Water

Nukewatch Quarterly Summer 2021
By John LaForge

Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga’s Cabinet on April 13 “gave permission” to Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco) to release over 1.25 million metric tons (1.38 million US tons) of Fukushima’s radioactive waste water into the Pacific Ocean.

Japan’s cabinet said the waste water will be diluted with additional seawater before being pumped into the ocean, and that the dumping will start in two years. The government said the dispersal will continue for at least 30 years, painting a picture of indefinitely perpetuating Fukushima’s globalized pollution.

Harsh rejection of the decision was immediate and widespread, coming from Russia, China, North and South Korea, the Philippines, New Zealand, Mexico, the Dominican Republic, Nicaragua, Honduras, Guatemala and several Pacific Island nations, as well as the fishing industry, marine scientists, and environmentalists.

Greenpeace Japan said in a press release the decision itself and any such dumping would violate international maritime law and that the planned release “completely disregards the human rights and interests of the people in Fukushima, wider Japan, and the Asia-Pacific region.”

The Biden Administration and the International Atomic Energy Agency both announced support for the decision, but criticism came from around the world, with South Korea and China considering law suits.

South Korean President Moon Jae-in told officials look into petitioning the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea or filing an injunction there over Japan’s decision, Al Jazeera reported.

According to a statement by the Chinese Foreign Ministry, Beijing also considers Japan’s plan to be a “possible violation of international law,” the French news service AFP reported.

China and Japan both demanded apologies after Chinese foreign ministry representative Zhao Lijian posted this famous Japanese woodblock print altered to show radioactive waste being poured into the ocean. The image of “The Great Wave off Kanagawa” made in the 19th century by artist Hokusai, was changed to illustrate Japan’s April 13 decision to pump its huge volume Fukushima waste water into the Pacific beginning in 2023. Japanese Foreign Minister Toshimitsu Motegi said April 26 that he was lodging a protest, seeking both an apology and the cartoon’s removal. “It is the Japanese government which needs to revoke its wrong decision and apologize,” Zhao said the next day.

Part of the reason for the backlash is that 70 percent of the waste water now stored in over 1,000 giant tanks is still contaminated with dozens of highly radioactive materials.* Tepco’s Advanced Liquid Processing System (ALPS) — a novel filter system that the company claimed would remove 62 isotopes from the water — has not worked. The company says it will re-filter the waste before it starts pouring it into the Pacific.

“This water is contaminated with such radionuclides as cesium-137, carbon-14, tritium (some of which will form the more dangerous ‘organically bound tritium’), strontium-90, cobalt-60, iodine-129, plutonium-239, and more than 50 other hazardous radionuclides,” reported Rick Steiner, a marine biologist in Anchorage and former University of Alaska professor of marine conservation, in the Anchorage Daily News April 25.

Likewise, physicist Iain Darby and researcher Azby Brown with Safecast wrote in Japan Times, “In late 2018, the company admitted that 70 percent of the tanks — more than 750,000 tons of treated water — still contained above-limit levels of strontium-90, ruthenium-106, cobalt-60, and many other radionuclides that the system had failed to adequately remove.” Safecast is an international nonprofit that conducts citizen monitoring of environmental radiation and other hazards.

Apologies to artist P. Chappatte on this page as we added the Fukushima banner to his 2006 cartoon.

Japan’s Nuclear Regulatory Agency said that radioactivity in the released yet continuously accumulating waste water will be “within international limits,” and Deputy Prime Minister Taro Aso went so far as to say the waste would be “safe to drink.” (See p. 4) However, Prof. Steiner also reported that Tepco had admitted its waste water contains significant amounts of radioactive carbon-14. “As carbon-14 has a half-life of 5,730 years, and is known to bio-accumulate in marine ecosystems and cause cellular and genetic impairment, this is a very serious concern. Fukushima carbon-14 will be added to the elevated radioactive carbon-14 load in the oceans from nuclear weapons tests last century — “bomb carbon” — now found in organisms even in the deepest part of the ocean, the Marianas Trench,” he wrote.

Japan’s dumping decision means that alternatives recommended by experts were rejected in favor of the cheapest choice. Other options include expansion and long-term tank storage to allow the waste’s radioactivity to decrease, replacing the ALPS filter with a system that removes tritium and all the rest, or evaporation of the waste water.

Kazue Suzuki, a climate and energy campaigner at Greenpeace Japan, said the government had “discounted the radiation risks and turned its back on the clear evidence that sufficient storage capacity is available on the nuclear site as well as in surrounding districts.”

Korean experts warned that “radioactive materials not properly filtered and discharged into the sea could be hazardous to those living in Korea and its neighboring China,” the Korea Herald reported. Choi Yoon, a professor at South Korea’s Kunsan National University, told Al Jazeera April 24, “When radioactive materials such as cesium or tritium flow into the ocean, they are absorbed into living things, mainly plankton. And through the food chain, radioactive materials accumulate in bigger fishes that eat lots of plankton or smaller fishes.”

“Through the sea’s currents, it can affect fishes near the Korean Peninsula, East Asia and even the entire world although the degree of dilution may vary,” Yoon said.

From the South Pacific the Guardian reported that Motarilavoa Hilda Lini, a Vanuatu [Pacific island nation] stateswoman and member of the Nuclear-Free and Independent Pacific movement said, “If it is safe, dump it in Tokyo, test it in Paris, and store it in Washington, but keep our Pacific nuclear-free.”

Only 30 percent of 1.25 million metric tons of Tepco’s filtered radioactive waste water, which passed through the Advanced Liquid Processing System, has been cleared of high-risk radioactive materials. Dangerous isotopes have been found in up to 875,000 metric tons of the stored waste. Ingestion of “strontium-90 increases the risk of developing leukemia and bone cancer, according to a report by the Korea Energy Information Culture Agency,” the Korea Herald warned.

Suzuki, with Greenpeace Japan, said, “The Japanese Government has taken the wholly unjustified decision to deliberately contaminate the Pacific Ocean with radioactive wastes.” The group’s international executive director Jennifer Morgan added that the plan for wastewater disposal “is a violation of Japan’s legal obligations under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, and will be strongly resisted over the coming months.”

For years leading up to Japan’s announcement, government officials, Tepco and nuclear power lobbyists have claimed that tritium, the radioactive form of hydrogen, is not harmful in small amounts. This statement is untrue; see “Reassessing” below and “UN Experts” on p. 3.

In dozens of reports on Japan’s decision, officials repeatedly acknowledged that radioactive tritium is routinely released into public waters by operating reactors, and that this has been a permitted industrial practice for six decades.

The “we do this all the time” admissions appeared to be presented as a kind of reassurance, as if polluting the Great Lakes and major rivers like the Ohio, Missouri, Arkansas, Tennessee, and Mississippi is blasé. It continues because the nuclear industry and most government and regulatory agencies deny a connection between environmental radioactive pollution and the alarming rate of cancer incidence in humans.

*See:

• Ken Buesseler, “Opening the floodgates at Fukushima,” Science, Aug. 7, 2020; DOI: 10.1126/science.abc1507

• “Mix of contaminants in Fukushima wastewater, risks of ocean dumping,” Science Daily, Aug. 6, 2020
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/08/200806153610.htm

• “Fukushima nuclear plant owner apologizes for still-radioactive water,” Reuters, Oct. 11, 2018; https://www.reuters.com/article/us-japan-disaster-nuclear-water/fukushima-nuclear-plant-owner-apologizes-for-still-radioactive-water-idUSKCN1ML15N

• “Treated water at Fukushima nuclear plant still radioactive: Tepco,” Mari Yamaguchi, AP, Japan Times, Sept. 29, 2018; https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2018/09/29/national/treated-water-fukushima-nuclear-plant-still-radioactive/#.XAQcOGhKiUk

• “Treated water at Fukushima nuclear plant still radioactive,” Seattle Times, September 28, 2018; https://www.seattletimes.com/business/water-stored-at-fukushima-nuclear-plant-still-radioactive

• “All options need to be weighed for Fukushima plant tainted water,” editorial, Ashi Shimbun, Sept. 6, 2018;
http://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/AJ201809060020.html

• “Residents blast water-discharge method at Fukushima plant,” The Asahi Shimbun, August 31, 2018
http://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/AJ201808310042.html

 

Filed Under: Fukushima, Newsletter Archives, Quarterly Newsletter, Radiation Exposure, Radioactive Waste

August 2, 2021 by Nukewatch Leave a Comment

Tracking Health Casualties from Fukushima

Nukewatch Quarterly Summer 2021
By Joseph Mangano

The recent 10-year mark since the three catastrophic reactor meltdowns at Fukushima-Daiichi poses questions, such as “How many people were harmed by the huge amount of radioactivity released?”

The answer, according to many nuclear proponents: zero. The response to that answer? “Prove it.”

From the outset, the crescendo of cheerleaders asserting Fukushima harmed nobody has been loud and steady. No cancer cases, no cancer deaths. As the reactors exploded, as thousands streamed out of the area, and as enormous volumes of contaminated water poured into the Pacific Ocean, the party line has remained unchanged.

Is there any proof, any data, any evidence, supporting this belief? Only one study is under way in Japan, which identified several hundred local children who developed thyroid cancer since 2011. But researchers at the Medical University of Fukushima are quick to explain that the big number, in a disease rarely seen in children, is due only to more extensive testing, not radiation exposure. 

Any objective researcher would not accept this as “proof” and would call for studies that go beyond child thyroid cancer. The meltdown is arguably the worst environmental disaster in history. Fallout affected all of Japan, and traveled thousands of miles. But studying effects on human health is left to independent researchers.

Fukushima and the United States

The Radiation and Public Health Project (RPHP) has published 38 peer-reviewed journal articles on health effects of nuclear power emissions. RPHP members believe relatively small doses of exposure affect human health — a fact supported by hundreds of studies in the National Academy of Science’s Committee on the Biological Effects of Ionizing Radiation (BEIR) reports.

While Japan was the site of the disaster, and thus hardest-hit, exposure and health data from that nation has been largely unavailable. I and my colleague Dr. Janette Sherman (who died in 2019), have responded by building a database in the United States for the past 10 years.

Exposure data was first. Airborne fallout arrived on the US west coast four days after the meltdowns, and moved across the continent. Environmental Protection Agency measurements of gross beta radiation in the air from March 17 to April 30 were highest in Alaska, California, Hawaii, Oregon, and Washington (7.35 times higher than the year before, vs. just 2.38 times higher for the rest of the US.

Precipitation was next. Airborne radiation enters the food chain and human bodies from rain and snow. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration data showed that in Washington state, precipitation rose from 7.76 to 12.48 inches from March/April 2010 to March/April 2011. In Oregon, the jump between the two periods was from 7.46 to 10.31 inches. These large increases made these two states the rainiest area of the country — in an area hardest-hit by Fukushima fallout.

Large rises in radiation and precipitation made the five Pacific states the focus of our studies.

Quick Publication, Quick Backlash

Finding health data was next. Most official statistics require several years to be made public; but with the constant “no cancers at Fukushima” in our ears, Dr. Sherman and I moved quickly.

One immediately available source was the Centers for Disease Control’s weekly estimate of deaths in 38 US cities, 30% of the nation. In the 14 weeks after Fukushima fallout arrived, deaths rose 4.46% compared to the same period in 2010. The change for the prior 14 weeks was 2.34%.

Projecting these changes to the entire US, suggested 14,000 additional deaths had occurred. Our article on the findings was published in the International Journal of Health Services in December 2011. We noted that RPHP founders Jay Gould and Ernest Sternglass had shown a similar spike after the Chernobyl meltdown of 1986, and estimated 15,000 excess deaths in the United States (American Medical Association News, August 1988).

The response was immediate and strong. Angry responses were published in the journal — none of which explained the unusual increase. Some took to blasting the research on social media. Final figures showed 9,000 excess deaths — with the greatest gaps in the hard-hit Pacific states.

Focus Shifts to Infants

We shifted our work to infants, who are more susceptible to radiation than adults. We followed our first article with three more in rapid order (March 2013, December 2013, and March 2015), each published in the Open Journal of Pediatrics, and each addressing infant health changes on the west coast.

In the five states, newborns born with hypothyroidism, which can be caused by radioactive iodine, jumped 16%, from 281 to 327 cases, in the period March 17 to December 31 (2010 vs. 2011). In the rest of the US, cases fell 4%. The biggest jump was in the first 10 weeks after Fukushima (28%). Rises were statistically significant.

Medical staff check radiation levels in Koriyama, Japan, in April 2011. Reports from the period noted: “Radioactive iodine found in breast milk of Japanese mothers,” The Independent, April 20, 2011. Photo: Aflo/Rex Features.

Even so, the number of cases was small. We asked the California screening program to do a special program, in which we could analyze the “borderline” newborn hypothyroid cases — those who had a high thyroid stimulating hormone level but didn’t quite qualify as confirmed cases. We found confirmed plus borderline cases rose 27% from March 17 to December 31 (2010 vs. 2011) — with a much larger number of cases (2,137 in 2011).

The next frontier was birth defects. Radiation exposure is well known to raise risk of defects in newborns, and the CDC published statistics for five of them — anencephaly, cleft palate, down syndrome, Gastroschisis, and Spina Bifida. The number of newborns born April through November with any of these anomalies jumped 13%, from 600 to 672, from 2010 to 2011. In the rest of the US, the number declined 4% — making the difference significant. Rises occurred in each state, for each defect, for babies born prematurely or full-term.

Infant Deaths and Child Cancers

In addition to immediate effects on newborns, higher numbers of infant deaths and child cancers would be expected. We plan to continue our work by focusing on these populations in the five Pacific states.

The study of Fukushima casualties is just beginning. A full review will eventually include adults, which will take decades. Of course, Japan will have the most serious hazards, as its people received the greatest radiation doses. Studies will be needed there, and throughout the world, before the full health story of the 2011 meltdowns is known.

— Joseph Mangano, MPH MBA, is executive director of the Radiation and Public Health Project and author of Mad Science: The Nuclear Power Experiment (OR Books 2012).

Filed Under: Fukushima, Newsletter Archives, Nuclear Power, Quarterly Newsletter, Radiation Exposure, Radioactive Waste

August 2, 2021 by Nukewatch Leave a Comment

UN Experts ‘Deeply disappointed’ by Decision to Discharge Fukushima Water

Nukewatch Quarterly Summer 2021
By the United Nations News

Three independent UN human rights experts expressed deep regret on [April 15] over Japan’s decision to discharge potentially still radioactive Fukushima nuclear plant water into the ocean, warning that it could impact millions across the Pacific region. 

“The release of one million tonnes of contaminated water into the marine environment imposes considerable risks to the full enjoyment of human rights of concerned populations in and beyond the borders of Japan,” said Marcos Orellana, Special Rapporteur on toxics and human rights, Michael Fakhri, Special Rapporteur on the right to food, and David Boyd, Special Rapporteur on human rights and the environment in a joint statement.

Given the warnings from environmentalists and some governments that the discharge would affect many people as well as the environment at large, the experts called the Government’s decision “very concerning.”

It comes after years of discussions with communities including the fishing sector (which was already severely hit by the 2011 disaster), environmental NGOs, neighboring countries, and civil society. “The decision is particularly disappointing as experts believe alternative solutions to the problem are available,” the letter said.

Noting that the water may contain quantities of radioactive carbon-14, as well as other radioactive isotopes, independent experts raised their concerns with the Japanese Government that discharging radioactive water to the Pacific Ocean threatens the health of people and planet. 

Meanwhile, in reply to expert concerns, the Japanese Government has suggested that the treated water stored in the tanks was not contaminated.

However, the experts upheld that the ALPS [Advanced Liquid Processing System] water processing technology had failed to completely remove radioactive concentrations in most of the contaminated water stored in tanks at Fukushima-Daiichi.

“A first application ALPS failed to clean the water below regulatory levels and there are no guarantees that a second treatment will succeed,” they said, adding that the technology did not remove radioactive tritium or carbon-14. 

Isotope concerns

While Japan said that the tritium levels are very low and do not pose a threat to human health, scientists warn that in the water, the isotope organically binds to other molecules, moving up the food chain affecting plants and fish and humans.

Moreover, they say the radioactive hazards of tritium have been underestimated and could pose risks to humans and the environment for over 100 years. 

“We remind Japan of its international obligations to prevent exposure to hazardous substances, to conduct environmental impact assessments of the risks that the discharge of water may have, to prevent transboundary environmental harms, and to protect the marine environment,” the experts concluded.

Special Rapporteurs are independent experts appointed by the Geneva-based UN Human Rights Council to examine and report back on a specific human rights theme or a country situation. The positions are honorary and the experts, who serve in their personal capacities, are not paid for their work. 

— UN News, April 15, 2021

Filed Under: Environment, Fukushima, Newsletter Archives, Nuclear Power, Quarterly Newsletter, Radiation Exposure, Radioactive Waste

August 2, 2021 by Nukewatch Leave a Comment

Fukushima Waste Water: “The ocean is not Japan’s trash can”

Nukewatch Quarterly Summer 2021
By Robert Hunziker
 “A Japanese official said it’s okay if you drink this water. Then please drink it,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said at a news briefing.
— Washington Post, April 14, 2021

By now, the world knows all about the decision by Japan to dump radioactive waste water into the Pacific Ocean beginning in two years. According to Japan’s Deputy Prime Minister Taro Aso, the treated and diluted water will be “safe to drink.” Mr. Aso claimed further that Japan should have started releasing it into the ocean earlier. (“China to Japan: If Treated Radioactive Water From Fukushima is Safe, ‘Please Drink It,’” Washington Post, April 15, 2021)

In response, Chinese Foreign Minister Lijian Zhao said, “The ocean is not Japan’s trash can.”

Mr. Zhao may have stumbled upon the best solution to international concerns about Tepco’s (Tokyo Electric Power Company) planned dumping of radioactive waste water into the Pacific. Instead, Tepco should remove it from the storage tanks at Fukushima Daiichi and deliver it to Japan’s water reservoirs where, similar to the ocean, it will be further diluted, although not quite as much. After all, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and the Japanese government are full of praise and confidence about how “harmless” the radioactive water will be. Let Japan drink it and/or use it for crop irrigation.

Japan has approximately 100,000 dams — roughly 3,000 of which are over 50 feet tall — for flood control, water supply, and hydroelectric power. Some are used exclusively for irrigation of crops. These reservoirs are more than adequate to handle Tepco’s “harmless” radioactive waste water. In a straightforward approach, Japan should use water trucks to haul the Fukushima radioactive water to various dam reservoir locations throughout the country. The bigger the reservoir, the better it’ll be for dumping and dilution purposes.

For example, one of the largest drinking water reservoirs in Japan is Ogouchi Reservoir, which holds 189 million tons of drinking water for Tokyo. Tepco is currently storing 1.3 million tons of the waste water at Fukushima Daiichi and nearing full capacity. The Ogouchi alone should be able to handle at least 1/4 and maybe up to 1/2 of the radioactive water without any serious consequences, especially as both the IAEA and the government of Japan have clearly given thumbs-up. No worries, it’s safe.

The citizens of Tokyo should be okay with this plan since their own government and the IAEA and the United States have reassured the world that dumping Fukushima’s radioactive water into a large body of water is safe — in fact, safe enough to drink. Voila! Problem solved!

With the blessing of the IAEA and the United States, via Biden’s Climate Envoy John Kerry, Japan’s government plans to start releasing radioactive water from Fukushima Daiichi’s water storage tanks into the sea effective 2022, allegedly removing the toxic deadly isotopes like cesium-137, leaving behind less deadly toxic tritium. Why not dump that “harmless water” (according to Japan’s own statements) into their water systems rather than into the sea? It doesn’t make sense to dump drinkable water (according to Japan’s Deputy Prime Minister) that simply needs a bit of dilution in a larger body of water, like the sea, when reservoirs are nearby to put it to good use and of adequate size to effectively dilute the toxic water, similar to the ocean.

Identical to all radioactive substances, tritium is a carcinogen (causes cancer), a mutagen (causes genetic mutation), and a teratogen (causes malformation of an embryo). The good news: tritium emits relatively weak beta radiation and does not have enough energy to penetrate human skin. The main health risks are ingesting or breathing the tritium-laced water in large quantities.

Cancer is the main risk for humans ingesting tritium. When tritium decays it emits a low-energy electron that escapes and slams into DNA, a ribosome, or some other biologically important molecule. Unlike other radionuclides, tritium is usually part of water, so it ends up in all parts of the body and therefore, it can promote any kind of cancer. (“Is Radioactive Hydrogen in Drinking Water a Cancer Threat?” Scientific American, Feb. 7, 2014)

Some evidence suggests beta particles emitted by tritium are more effective at causing cancer than high-energy radiation such as gamma rays. Low-energy electrons produce a greater impact because at the end of their atomic-scale trip, they deliver most of their ionizing energy in one relatively confined track, rather than shedding energy all along their path like a higher-energy particle. Of course, scientists say any amount of radiation exposure poses a health risk. (How Radiation Threatens Health, Scientific American, March 15, 2011)

“Tritium is very mobile and can enter biological systems and has the potential to damage living cells.”(Kevin Bundy, et al, “Tritium, Health Effects and Dosimetry,” Encyclopedia of Sustainability Science and Technology, 2012 edition)

“Tritium can potentially be hazardous to human health because it emits ionizing radiation, exposure to which may increase the probability that a person will develop cancer during his or her lifetime. For this reason, it is very important that human exposure to any radioactive material, such as tritium, is minimized within reason.” (Health Physics Society, “Tritium,” Fact Sheet, rev. January 2020)

Perhaps Tepco, the government of Japan, the United States, and the IAEA are counting on the hedged statement in the previous paragraph as their primary rationale for dumping radioactive waste into a larger body of water: It’ll be “minimized within reason.” Hmm.

In fact, as The Hill reports: “The storage tanks now hold seawater that has been used to continue cooling the reactor cores, and this water is contaminated with such radionuclides as cesium-137, carbon-14, tritium (including the more dangerous ‘organically bound tritium’), strontium-90, cobalt-60, iodine-129, plutonium-239 — and over 50 other radionuclides. Some of this has reportedly been removed, but some has not (e.g. radioactive tritium and carbon-14). Tepco, which owns Fukushima and is now responsible for the cleanup (that is likely to last the remainder of this century), didn’t admit until 2018 that the wastewater contains significant amounts of radioactive carbon-14. As carbon-14 has a half-life of 5,730 years, is known to bio-accumulate in marine ecosystems, and to cause cellular and genetic impairment, this is a very serious concern.” (Rick Steiner, “The Danger of Japan Dumping Fukushima Wastewater into the Ocean,” The Hill, April 17, 2021)

According to The Hill, Tepco’s treatment system is subpar and likely not up to the task of thorough filtering.

Ken Buesseler, a marine chemist at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts, asks, “Would this open the door for any country to release radioactive waste to the ocean that is not part of normal operations?” (“Japan Plans to Release Fukushima’s Wastewater into the Ocean,” Science, April 12, 2021)

Reportedly, Japan’s government did not consult its neighbors about the plan. China issued a warning, “The international community is watching,” calling on Tokyo to “fulfill its international responsibilities to the environment.” A harsh South Korean Foreign Ministry complaint said Japan will “directly and indirectly affect the safety of the people and the neighboring environment … difficult to accept … without sufficient consultation of neighbors.” Meanwhile, local Japanese fishermen are fit to be tied because dumping radioactive water into the ocean is essentially a death sentence for their industry.

On the other hand, the IAEA is just fine with the scheme since it meets “global standards.” The agency says it’s normal for nuclear reactors around the world to release some amount of tritium into the seas. There is nothing positive about that, nothing whatsoever.

Tepco has invented a filtering program it named Advanced Liquid Processing System (ALPS) that purportedly “removes 62 isotopes from the water,” all except tritium, which is radioactive hydrogen and cannot easily be filtered out of water. 

Marine scientists and Greenpeace-Japan have repeatedly criticized the adequacy of the ALPS filter/removal process, noting that many highly toxic, deadly radioactive isotopes remained in the waste water. (“Treated water at Fukushima nuclear plant still radioactive,” Seattle Times, Sept. 28, 2018)* Tepco has pledged to re-filter over 70% or 875,000 tonnes of its radioactive waste water.

It is highly unlikely that the international community, other than the United States, will ever be comfortable with Japan’s decision to dump toxic radioactive water into the sea. Therefore, the country should take it upon itself to dispose of all radioactive water in their extensive network of water reservoirs.

Of course, nuclear power advocates argue that it’s insane to dump the radioactive water into any body of water other than the ocean because its massive circulation capabilities will disperse the radioactive water throughout the world. But, that’s precisely what other countries do not want!

Deliberately, Japan has made the problem a simple one to deal with by publicly admitting that the treated water will be harmless, good enough to drink. As follows, they can keep it. Enough said!

Postscript: “Japanese Deputy Prime Minister Taro Aso repeated his claim April 16 that it is safe to drink treated radioactive water accumulating at the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant after China asked him to personally prove it.” (“Taro Aso Repeats Claim That Treated Fukushima Water is Good to Drink,” Jakarta Post, April 16, 2021)

— Robert Hunziker of Los Angeles wrote this comment for CounterPunch, April 23, 2021

*Editor’s note. Please see also: “Opening the floodgates at Fukushima,” Science, Aug. 7, 2020 • “Mix of contaminants in Fukushima wastewater, risks of ocean dumping,” Science Daily, Aug. 6, 2020 • “Fukushima nuclear plant owner apologizes for still-radioactive water,” Reuters, Oct. 11, 2018 • “Treated water at Fukushima nuclear plant still radioactive: Tepco,” Japan Times, Sept. 29, 2018 • “All options need to be weighed for Fukushima plant tainted water,” Asahi Shimbun, Sept. 6, 2018 • “Residents blast water-discharge method at Fukushima plant,” The Asahi Shimbun, Aug. 31, 2018

Filed Under: Fukushima, Newsletter Archives, Quarterly Newsletter, Radiation Exposure, Radioactive Waste

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