Japanese utility giant Tokyo Electric Power Company might dump radioactive water, left over from the destroyed Fukushima Dai-Ichi nuclear power plant, into the Pacific Ocean as part of a $200 billion cleanup effort.
Thursday marked the 10-year anniversary of the Fukushima nuclear disaster, caused by a 2011 earthquake and tsunami, which was the worst nuclear accident since the one at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in 1986. Thousands of engineers, scientists, and others are still working on the nuclear cleanup.
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Part of that includes finding a way to remove and safely store 880 tons of highly radioactive uranium fuel, as well as a larger mass of concrete and metal that fuel melted into during the accident. The job could take up to 40 years, according to the Japanese government.
“The feeling we have is, you think the summit’s right there, but then, you reach it and can see another summit, further beyond,” Naoaki Okuzumi, the head of research at Japan’s lead research institute on decommissioning, told Reuters.
Environmental and fishing groups oppose the idea of dumping the water into the ocean, but it’s a proposal that would likely meet global guidelines.
The water would be filtered to reduce radioactivity, and the process would begin in 2022 at the earliest. The water would be diluted inside the plant before release, so it becomes 40 times less concentrated, according to the Yomiuri Shimbun. The whole process would take about 30 years.
There’s been a growing urgency over what to do with the water as space to store the liquid, including daily groundwater and rain seeping into the plant, is running out.
Most of the radioactive isotopes have been removed using a complex filtration process, but the isotope tritium can’t be removed, so the water has been stored in huge tanks that will fill up by 2022, according to the BBC.
Environmental groups have raised concerns over the potential harms of dumping the water into the ocean, while fishing groups argue that the move will prompt consumers to reject buying products from the region.
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However, some scientists argue that the water would quickly be diluted into the vastness of the ocean and that tritium has a low risk to human and animal health.
Regardless, Japanese leaders said a decision must be made quickly, and one is expected by the end of March.
