Tokyo, Japan – The final approval by Japan’s Nuclear Regulation Authority (NRA) of Tokyo Electric Power Company Holding (TEPCO) plans to discharge radioactive waste water into the Pacific Ocean has no justification, is based on incomplete and limited data and flawed analysis and violates international law, according to Greenpeace East Asia.
Shaun Burnie, a senior nuclear specialist from Greenpeace East Asia, said:
“The decision by Japan’s regulator to deliberately pollute the Pacific Ocean with radioactive waste water is as bad as it sounds. The NRA approval of the TEPCO contaminated water discharge plan is scientifically and technically flawed. It is a decision intended to support the false narrative that decommissioning the destroyed reactors at Fukushima Daiichi is making real progress. In reality the contaminated water plan is a symptom of the wider crisis that the current decommissioning plan is doomed. The discharges into the Pacific will not solve any problems but create many more. The NRA knows that a fundamental reassessment of the decommissioning plan is inevitable, and that will also mean choosing the least environmentally damaging option which is long term storage and processing.”
“The NRA has failed to assess many important issues that are fundamental to any environmental assessment. Further, it disregards the human rights of those most impacted by the 2011 disaster – the citizens of Fukushima prefecture, including fishing communities, as well as neighboring prefectures. It ignores the wider environmental marine impact and the rights of the peoples of the Asia Pacific region who are opposed to the deliberate pollution of the Pacific with radioactive waste,” said Burnie.
Japan is legally required under the UN Convention for the Law of the Sea to conduct a comprehensive Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA). No such assessment has been made or is planned either by Japan’s regulator or the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). There are many legal issues that the NRA has just completely failed to consider.
The opposition to radioactive discharges continues to grow, including the efforts by the 18 nations of the Pacific Island Forum (PIF) to challenge the false scientific rationale for the radioactive pollution plans.
Greenpeace analysis on the Fukushima water crisis includes submissions to the NRA, IAEA, as well as two reports on the technical issues and problems with the management of contaminated water at the site and discharge plans.
Japan plans to dump radioactive water from Fukushima into the Pacific Ocean, but its effects on Pacific nations are not clear.
When the earthquake and tsunami hit Fukushima, Japan in 2011, it resulted in the tragic death of many people, and severe damage to a nuclear power plant, which required a constant flow of cooling water to prevent further catastrophe. More than 1.3 million tonnes of radionuclide-contaminated water have now been retained on-site. The Fukushima plant operator, Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO), with the approval of the Japanese Government, plans to begin releasing this water into the Pacific Ocean starting next year. But compelling, data-backed reasons to examine alternative approaches to ocean dumping have not been adequately explored.
Claims of safety are not scientifically supported by the available information. The world’s oceans are shared among all people, providing over 50 percent of the oxygen we breathe, and a diversity of resources of economic, ecological and cultural value for present and future generations. Within the Pacific Islands in particular, the ocean is viewed as connecting, rather than separating, widely distributed populations.
Releasing radioactive contaminated water into the Pacific is an irreversible action with transboundary and transgenerational implications. As such, it should not be unilaterally undertaken by any country. The Pacific Islands Forum, which meets on July 12, has had the foresight to ask the relevant questions on how this activity could affect the lives and livelihoods of their peoples now and into the future. It has drawn on a panel of five independent experts to provide it with the critical information it needs to perform its due diligence.
No one is questioning the integrity of the Japanese or International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) scientists, but the belief that our oceans’ capacity to receive limitless quantities of pollutants without detrimental effects is demonstrably false. For example, tuna and other large ocean-going fish contain enough mercury from land-based sources to require people, especially pregnant women and young children, to limit their consumption. Tuna have also been found to transport radionuclides from Fukushima across the Pacific to California. Phytoplankton, microscopic plant-like life that floats free in the ocean, can capture and accumulate a variety of radioactive elements found in the Fukushima cooling water, including tritium and carbon-14. Phytoplankton is the base for all marine food webs. When they are eaten, the contaminants would not be broken down, but stay in the cells of organisms, accumulating in a variety of invertebrates, fish, marine mammals, and humans. Marine sediments can also be a repository for radionuclides, and provide a means of transfer to bottom-feeding organisms.
The justification for dumping is primarily based on the chemistry of radionuclides and the modelling of concentrations and ocean circulation based on assumptions that may not be correct. It also largely ignores the biological uptake and accumulation in marine organisms and the associated concern of transfer to people eating affected seafood. Many of the 62-plus radionuclides present in the Fukushima water have long periods over which they can cause harmful effects, called half-lives, of decades to millennia. For example, Cesium-137 has a half-life of 30 years, and Carbon-14, more than 5,700 years. Issues like this really do matter, as once radioactive materials enter the human body, including those that release relatively low-energy radiation (beta particles), they can cause damage and increase the risk of cancers, damage to cells, to the central nervous system and other health problems.
The Fukushima nuclear disaster is not the first such event, and undoubtedly won’t be the last. The challenges of cleaning-up, treating and containing the contaminated cooling water is also an opportunity to find and implement safer and more sensible options and setting a better precedent to deal with future catastrophes. The Pacific region and its people have already suffered from the devastation caused by United States, British and French nuclear testing programmes. Documented problems have led to international agreements to curtail such testing. In this case, the members of the Pacific Islands Forum are key stakeholders that are finding a unified voice against the planned dumping of radionuclides and other pollutants into the ocean that surrounds their homes, and holds their children’s futures.
The world’s oceans are in trouble and experiencing mounting stress from human-induced impacts tied to global climate change, overfishing, and pollution, with consequential cumulative effects on living resources and the people who depend on them. Pollution, particularly from land-based sources, is one of the greatest threats and challenges to ocean resource sustainability and associated elements of human health.
Japan and TEPCO plan to begin dumping radioactively contaminated water into the Pacific Ocean in 2023. A more deliberative and prudent approach would adhere to the precautionary principle – that if we are not sure no harm will be caused, then we should not proceed. The rush to dilute and dump is ill-advised and such actions should be postponed until further due diligence can be performed. Sound science, and a much more careful consideration of the alternatives, and respect for the health and well-being of the peoples of the Pacific region, all demand it. Far better and transparent communications are needed to provide accurate and adequate information for leaders, resource managers and stakeholders to use in their deliberations on the way forward. If the Island nations lead, other nations are sure to follow.
Robert H. Richmond, PhD is a Research Professor and Director of the Kewalo Marine Laboratory, University of Hawaii at Manoa. He is also a Pew Fellow in Marine Conservation, Aldo Leopold Fellow in Environmental Leadership and Fellow of the International Coral Reef Society. He is part of the advisory panel to the Pacific Islands Forum on the Fukushima dumping, who funded this research. He gratefully acknowledges the contributions of the other panel members, Dr Arjun Makhijani, Dr Ken Buesseler, Dr Ferenc Dalnoki Veress, and Dr Tony Hooker.
Pacific Elders oppose the discharge of Fukushima wastewater into the Pacific Ocean saying it is unacceptable and contravenes international and regional agreements
We note, with deep concern, Japan’s decision to release treated radioactive water from the destroyed Fukushima nuclear plant into the Pacific Ocean.
According to reports, the release of more than a million tonnes of water, which has been filtered to reduce radioactivity, could start in 2023.
We reiterate the observation by Secretary-General Henry Puna: “Our ultimate goal is to safeguard the Blue Pacific – our ocean, our environment, and our peoples- from any further nuclear contamination. This is the legacy we must leave for our children”.
Pollution of our ocean, and especially radioactive pollution, is unacceptable and contravenes international and regional agreements including the London Convention on the Prevention of Marine Pollution by Dumping of Wastes and Other Matter, and the South Pacific Nuclear-Free Zone Treaty of Rarotonga.
A principal objective of the London Convention is to protect the marine environment from pollution, including man-made radioactivity. Under the Treaty of Rarotonga, States Parties are obligated to prevent the stationing of any nuclear explosive device; to prevent the testing of any nuclear explosive device; not to dump radioactive wastes and other radioactive matter at sea, anywhere within the South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone, and to prevent the dumping of radioactive wastes and other radioactive matter by anyone in the territorial sea of the States Parties.
We see many strong reasons to oppose the discharge of Fukushima wastewater into the Pacific Ocean. The climate and biodiversity emergencies we currently face are already presenting severe threats to our waters, and so a decision by any government to deliberately contaminate the Pacific with radioactivity because it is the most cost-effective option seems perverse.
Japan has failed to consult with affected coastal countries, especially northern the Pacific Island States and no environmental impact assessment has been conducted. Furthermore, Japan has obligations not to allow pollution from their own waters to pollute international waters or the waters of other countries. When Pacific Islands Forum Leaders met with Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide at the 9th PALM Meeting in July 2021, they highlighted the priority of ‘ensuring international consultation, international law, and independent and verifiable scientific assessments with regards to Japan’s announcement’.
We feel this constitutes a disregard for the human rights of both Japanese citizens, as well as those in the wider Asia Pacific region, including indigenous peoples, and it is justifiably being challenged, not least by UN Human Rights Special Rapporteurs.
Japan is under an international legal obligation to take all measures possible to avoid transboundary pollution from radioactivity, and develop alternatives to dumping in the Pacific by continued storage and treating the water to remove radioactive, including carbon- 14 and tritium.
We observe that the International Atomic Energy Agency has stated that the discharges will be done safely and in line with international practice. It continues to play the same historical role as set down in its 1957 statute of supporting and promoting the interests of the nuclear industry, not protecting the environment or public health. Radioactivity discharged from a pipeline poses potentially a greater coastal threat to the marine environment than deep-sea dumping from a ship.
We welcome the recent appointment of an independent panel of global experts2 on nuclear issues to support Pacific nations. Their technical advice, based on scientific evidence, will help inform consultations with Japan over its intentions to discharge treated nuclear wastewater.
This story was originally published at Pacific Elders’ Voice on 30 March 2022, reposted via PACNEWS.
Wed 15th September 2021—Pacific nations continue to raise questions and concerns in closed briefing sessions around plans by Japan to discharge over a million tonnes of treated water from the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant into the Pacific Ocean.
The Government of Japan committed to ongoing dialogue with Forum Members as a priority follow up to the PALM9 Summit in July. This followed Japan’s announcement in April of plans to begin discharge in 2023, for a period of up to 40 years. The announcement drew strong global response, including from the Forum Chair and Leaders.
In his opening comments at the third briefing on Tuesday afternoon, Secretary General of the Pacific Islands Forum Henry Puna noted the issues require “open and frank consultation” along with sustained dialogue at the political and technical level.
Japan officials presented a status update on the ALPS (Advanced Liquid Processing System) Treated Water, interim measures regarding the planned discharge, and outcomes of the latest International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) visit to Fukushima.
While appreciative of the information being shared by Japan, Secretary General Puna reiterated the region’s unequivocal need for information as being key to safeguard the Blue Pacific as a nuclear-free zone. “I appeal to the Government of Japan to continue to share the relevant information in its totality, and within agreed timelines.”
“Importantly for us in the Blue Pacific, our fears really lie in the transboundary nature of the impacts. We require nothing less than full and complete disclosure of all information and evidence to enable us to fully understand the nature and extent of the impact, and to enable us to make a comprehensive and unbiased assessment of the impacts of the proposed ALPS water discharge.”
As reiterated by Forum Foreign Ministers on 27 July, the region is actively pursuing efforts to advance Forum Leaders’ commitments to international consultation, international law, and independent expertise to provide guidance and verifiable scientific assessments. To accelerate efforts, the Forum will engage independent experts to support the region’s efforts over the next months.
Thanking the Government of Japan, Secretary General Puna said he is hopeful there will be ways to address Pacific concerns to reach “solutions that are based on science, and consistent with legal and moral obligations.”
Water samples detect low levels of Fukushima-related contamination
March 28, 2019
… The sampling, conducted by residents of St. Lawrence Island, documents the Fukushima plume’s northern edge arriving in the Bering Sea for the first time, and shows levels of cesium-137 higher than they were before the 2011 nuclear power plant accident in Japan, Alaska Sea Grant agent Gay Sheffield said…
…Ungott has been collecting seawater samples for several years off the coast of Gambell. He sends them to Sheffield in Nome who then ships them to the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts for analysis. During 2014, 2015 and 2017, the lab found very low levels of cesium-137, similar to those prior to the Fukushima nuclear accident. No testing was done in 2016 due to lack of funding.
The 2018 results, however, showed the presence of cesium-137 at levels slightly higher than before accident…
…The level of cesium-137 measured in the 2018 seawater sample was found to be 2.4 becquerels per cubic meter (Bq/m3). That’s above pre-accident levels, but still thousands of times lower than what the EPA considers unsafe for drinking.
Historically, cesium-137 levels in the Pacific Ocean were below 2.0 Bq/m3. The EPA considers drinking water containing levels of cesium-137 up to 7,400 Bq/m3 to be safe for human consumption….
… While the Bering Sea test results are not indicating a health concern, Ungott said he hopes more testing will be carried out.
“We need to know if our marine mammals that we hunt are catching some of this stuff or not,” he said.
Fukushima contaminants found as far north as Alaska’s Bering Strait
March 28, 2019
ANCHORAGE, Alaska (Reuters) – Radioactive contamination from Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant hit by a tsunami in 2011 has drifted as far north as waters off a remote Alaska island in the Bering Strait, scientists said on Wednesday.
Analysis of seawater collected last year near St. Lawrence Island revealed a slight elevation in levels of radioactive cesium-137 attributable to the Fukushima disaster, the University of Alaska Fairbanks Sea Grant program said.
“This is the northern edge of the plume,” said Gay Sheffield, a Sea Grant marine advisory agent based in the Bering Sea town of Nome, Alaska…
…LONG-TERM STUDY
The results reported on Wednesday came from a long-term but small-scale testing program.
Water was sampled for several years by Eddie Ungott, a resident of Gambell village on the northwestern tip of St. Lawrence Island. The island, though part of the state of Alaska, is physically closer to Russia than to the Alaska mainland, and residents are mostly Siberian Yupik with relatives in Russia.
Fukushima-linked radionuclides have been found as far away as Pacific waters off the U.S. West Coast, British Columbia and in the Gulf of Alaska.
Until the most recent St. Lawrence Island sample was tested by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, the only other known sign of Fukushima radiation in the Bering Sea was detected in 2014 by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
NOAA scientists found trace amounts of Fukushima-linked radionuclides in muscle tissue of fur seals on Alaska’s St. Paul Island in the southern Bering Sea. There was no testing of the water there, Sheffield said.
The people of St. Lawrence Island, who live well to the north of St. Paul Island, had expected Fukushima radionuclides to arrive eventually, she said.
“They fully anticipated getting it. They didn’t know when,” she said. “The way the currents work does bring the water up from the south.”
The decision by the government and the tsunami-devastated plant’s operator to release contaminated water into the Pacific was ‘driven by short-term cost-cutting’, a new study has found
Greenpeace has slammed a plan by the Japanese government and an electric utility company to release into the ocean highly radioactive water from the tsunami-devastated Fukushima Daiichi power plant, saying in a new report the decision was “driven by short-term cost-cutting”.
Released on Tuesday, the Greenpeace study condemns the decision taken after the disaster to not develop technology that could remove radioactivity from the groundwater, which continues to seep into the basement levels of three of the six nuclear reactors at Fukushima.
An estimated 1.09 million tonnes of water are presently stored in more than 900 tanks at the plant, which was destroyed by an earthquake and tsunami in March 2011, with up to 4,000 tonnes added every week.
The decision by the government and the plant’s operator, the Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco), to avoid developing the relevant technology “was motivated by short-term cost-cutting, not protection of the Pacific Ocean environment and of the health and livelihoods of communities along the Fukushima coast”, said Kazue Suzuki, campaigner on energy issues for Greenpeace Japan.
“We have raised the water crisis with the UN International Maritime Organisation and firmly stand with local communities, especially fisheries, who are strongly opposed to any plans to discharge contaminated water into their fishing grounds.”
The backlash against the plan jointly put forward by the government and Tepco began late last year after the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) held public hearings in Tokyo and Fukushima designed to convince local people that releasing the water into the ocean would have no impact on marine or human life.
Anti-nuclear and environmental groups had obtained data leaked from government sources, however, that showed that the water was still contaminated, triggering public anger. Tepco was forced to admit late last year that its efforts to reduce radioactive material – known as radionuclides – in the water had failed.
The company had previously claimed that advanced processes had reduced cancer-causing contaminants such as strontium-90, iodine-129 and ruthenium-106 in the water to non-detectible levels.
Despite the much-vaunted Advanced Liquid Processing System (ALPS) plant at Fukushima, Tepco has confirmed that levels of strontium-90, for example, are more than 100 times above legally permitted levels in 65,000 tonnes of water that have already been through the ALPS system.
n one of the hearings, Tatsuhiko Sato, a resident of Naraha who only returned to his home last spring because of contamination from the nuclear accident, accused Tepco of “not gathering all the data” and failing to adequately investigate reports that dangerous levels of radionuclides were still in the water after it was treated.
Local fishermen used the public hearing to express their “strong opposition” to plans to release the water, with one, Tetsu Nozaki, pointing out that while levels of radiation in locally caught fish and shellfish have been at or below normal levels for the past three years, releasing contaminated water would “deal a fatal blow” to the local fishing industry.
There has also been anger in some nearby countries, with environmental groups demonstrating in Seoul in November and Korea Radioactive Watch declaring that releasing the water “will threaten the waters of South Korea and other neighbouring nations”.
The issue was also part of a referendum held in Taiwan in November, with voters asked whether the government should maintain the ban on imports of food and products from areas of Japan that were most seriously affected by radiation from the disaster.
Japan’s trade ministry, however, still refuses to rule out the possibility that the water will be poured into the Pacific.
“We have established a committee to discuss the treatment of the water that is presently being stored and those discussions are still going on,” Shinji Hirai, director of the ministry’s Nuclear Accident Response Office, told the Post.
“There are five proposals being discussed, including releasing the water into the ocean or storing it underground, and we have not set a deadline for the committee to reach a decision.”
He declined to comment on the findings of the Greenpeace report.
But others have welcomed the new study, with Caitlin Stronell, spokeswoman for the Tokyo-based Citizens’ Nuclear Information Centre, also expressing opposition to plans to dump the water into the ocean.
“There needs to be a lot of consultations before any decision is reached on what to do and it cannot simply be the government making an arbitrary decision,” she said. “The whole story of the Fukushima disaster has been one of lies and half-truths from the authorities and it is very hard to trust anyone in Tepco or the government on this issue.
“People’s opinions have been completely disregarded in the rush by the government to tell us how everything is just fine and we believe the people from the region, those who have lost the most, cannot be overlooked or neglected.”
The Greenpeace report concludes that the water crisis at the plant will remain unresolved for the foreseeable future – and that the only viable option to safeguard local communities and the environment is to continue to store the water.
“The Japanese government and Tepco set an objective of ‘solving’ the radioactive water crisis by 2020 – that was never credible,” said Shaun Burnie, a nuclear specialist with Greenpeace Germany.
“The reality is that there is no end to the water crisis at Fukushima, a crisis compounded by poor decision-making by both Tepco and the government. Discharging into the Pacific is the worst option and must be ruled out.”
Tokyo, 22 January 2019 – The nuclear water crisis at the Fukushima Daiichi plant has been compounded by multiple technical failures and flawed decision making driven by short term cost cutting by the Japanese government and TEPCO, a new Greenpeace Germany analysis concludes.
The report details how plans to discharge over 1 million tonnes of highly contaminated water into the Pacific Ocean was proposed by the same Government task force that ignored alternative options that would have avoided threatening further contamination of the ocean.
“The decision not to develop water processing technology that could remove radioactive tritium was motivated by short term cost cutting not protection of the Pacific ocean environment or the health and livelihoods of communities along the Fukushima coast,” said Kazue Suzuki, Energy Campaigner at Greenpeace Japan. “We have raised the water crisis with the UN International Maritime Organization and firmly stand with local communities, especially fisheries, who are strongly opposed to any plans to discharge contaminated water into their fishing grounds.”
The report concludes that the water crisis remains unresolved, and will be for the foreseeable future. The only viable option to protect the environment and the communities along the Fukushima coast being long term storage for the contaminated water.
The discharge option for water containing high levels of radioactive tritium was recommended as least cost by the Government’s Tritiated Water Task Force and promoted by Japan’s Nuclear Regulation Authority (NRA). The Task Force concluded in 2016 that “sea discharge would cost 3.4 billion yen (US$30 million) and take seven years and four months to complete. It concluded that this was cheapest and quickest of the five methods.” However, technical proposals for removing tritium were submitted to the same Government Task Force by multiple nuclear companies with estimated costs ranging from US$2-US$20 billion to US$50-US$180 billion depending on the technology used. These were dismissed as not viable but without detailed technical consideration.
TEPCO has claimed since 2013 that its ALPS technology would reduce radioactivity levels “to lower than the permissible level for discharge.” However, in September 2018 TEPCO admitted that the processing of over 800,000 tons of contaminated water in 1000 storage tanks, including strontium, had failed to remove radioactivity to below regulatory limits, including for strontium-90, a bone seeking radionuclide that causes cancer. TEPCO knew of the failure of the technology from 2013. The Greenpeace report details technical problems with the ALPS system.
The Fukushima Daiichi site, due its location, is subject to massive groundwater contamination which TEPCO has also failed to stop. Each week an additional 2-4000 tonnes of contaminated water is added to the storage tanks.
“The Japanese government and TEPCO set an objective of ‘solving’ the radioactive water crisis by 2020 – that was never credible. TEPCO has finally admitted that its ALPS technology has failed to reduce levels of strontium, and other hazardous radioactivity, to below regulatory limits,” said Shaun Burnie, nuclear specialist with Greenpeace Germany.
“The reality is there is no end to the water crisis at Fukushima, a crisis compounded by poor decision making by both TEPCO and the government. Discharging into the Pacific is the worst option and must be ruled out. The only viable option, and it’s not without risks, is the long term storage of this water in robust steel tanks over at least the next century, and the parallel development of water processing technology.”
Greenpeace offices are calling on the government and TEPCO to urgently reassess options for the long term management of highly contaminated water at Fukushima Daiichi. Paramount in any future decision making should be the protection of the environment and the interests of the those in the front line – the communities and fishing industries of Fukushima’s Pacific coast.
I came across this article from Majia Nadesan on Majia’s Blog, which I find interesting and which I would like to share with you here.
Majia Nadesan is the author of “Fukushima and the Privatization of Risk”, an excellent book about the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster. https://www.palgrave.com/br/book/9781137343116
Strange Disjuncture Between Warming Water and Land Temperatures in Alaska and Bering Sea
Friday, December 28, 2018
I couldn’t help but think of the effect of Fukushima Daiichi’s continuous stream of contaminated radioactive water in the Kuroshio Current when I read this article about a disjuncture between warming seas and cooler land temperatures in the Arctic region:
Robert Lee Hotz (2018, December 22-23 Weekend edition). Warming seas send waves through U.S. fishing. The Wall Street Journal, A1, A10.
Fishermen and marine scientists who study Alaska fisheries are used to natural variations in ocean circulation patterns. But starting in 2000, warm and cool spells lasted longer, federal weather records show. Temperatures rose to records and plnuged to bitter lows.
In 2016, St. Paul Island in the Bering Sea registered its warmest year on record, 4.9 degrees Fahrenheit above average. Last year, spring and summer temperatures across the Arctic generally were cooler, but the annual average surface temperature was the second highest on record, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s annual Arctic Report and the Alaska Climate Research Center at the University of Alaska.
“That was highly unusual and was not something we had ever seen in the Bering Sea before,” says Janet Duffy-Anderson who helps monitor the commercial fishery for the NOAA Alaska Fisheries Science Center in Seattle….
This year, the winter ice that normally coves the northern Bering Sea never formed…
I recall describing my concerns about the Kuroshio current in 2015 (here) in response to this article in the New York Times:
The Pacific Ocean Becomes a Caldron, The New York Times, By JOHN SCHWARTZ NOV. 2, 2015 http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/03/science/global-warming-pacific-ocean-el-nino-blob.html?emc=edit_th_20151103&nl=todaysheadlines&nlid=32962000 ….
There has been considerable debate whether radioactive elements in sea water from Fukushima are sufficient in concentration to raise the sea temperature, particularly in comparison to previous nuclear assaults from atmospheric testing and dumping.
I don’t know the answer to this question but the ongoing flood of contaminated water and the worsening environmental conditions and animal mortality events since 3-11 have made me wonder….
BACKGROUND INFORMATION
Here is an excerpt from my book Crisis Communication, Liberal Democracy and Ecological Sustainability published in 2016 by Lexington Press on Fukushima’s radioactive water problem:
Fukushima’s Radioactive Water Problem
Fukushima’s radioactive water problem is unprecedented. TEPCO requires an endless stream of workers to manage contaminated water, which presents significant long-term challenges in addition to those posed by removing melted fuel from damaged reactors and spent fuel pools:
The situation, however, remains very complex, with the increasing amount of contaminated water posing a short-term challenge that must be resolved in a sustainable manner. The need to remove highly radioactive spent fuel, including damaged fuel and fuel debris, from the reactors that suffered meltdowns poses a huge long-term challenge.[i]
Contaminated water production at the Daiichi site poses long-term risks to the Pacific eco-system.
Damage by the March 11, 2011 earthquake, tsunami, and explosions problematized delivery of cooling water to melted fuel in reactors and spent fuel pools.
The plant manager resorted to using ocean water to cool melted fuel, a course of action that TEPCO officials had decided against, but was deployed as a desperate measure to halt uncontained nuclear fission in reactors and spent fuel pools.
Water used to cool fuel could not be recaptured, resulting in highly radioactive water contaminating the aquifer and Pacific Ocean.
Fukushima’s plant manager, Masao Yoshida, estimated that the level of radioactivity in the water flowing directly into the sea during the early days of the disaster exceeded 1,000 millisieverts.[ii]
Kyodo news reported on March 26, 2011 that “Levels of radioactive materials soaring in sea near nuke plant” citing data provided by Japan’s Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency that found radioactive Iodine-131 in seawater sampled 300 meters south of plant, at a concentration 1,250.8 times the legal limit.[iii]
Dr. Ken Buesseler of Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts measured levels of radioactive cesium in the ocean off of Fukushima at 100,000 Becquerels per cubic meter in early April of 2011.[iv] Buesseler reported in a 2013 presentation at MIT that prior to Fukushima, the Pacific Ocean measured ½ to 2 Becquerels per liter of cesium.[v]
The French Institute for Radiological Protection and Nuclear Safety (IRSN) declared Fukushima as the world’s worst nuclear contamination event ever for the ocean, reporting that from 21 March to 27 July, 27.1 petaBecquerels of Cesium-137 contaminated the ocean.[vi] Remember that one petaBecquerel is equivalent to a million billion Becquerels, or 10^15.[vii]
Cesium, among other radionuclides, is water-soluble and was likely transported across the Pacific Ocean by the Kuroshio Current,[viii] a fast moving current that every second carries approximately 50 million tons of sea water past Japan’s southeast coast.[ix] Relatively few figures are available for radioisotope contamination other than cesium.
A study of Iodine-129 levels in samples collected in June 2011 from the Western Pacific Ocean measured almost three orders of magnitude higher than pre-Fukushima background levels.[x]
A separate study published in Environmental Science Technology in 2012 reported that radiostrontium levels in surface seawater persisted through 2011 and were in some areas comparable, to or even higher, than those measured for Cesium-137 in December of 2011.[xi]
TEPCO has tried a variety of approaches to containing the contaminated water. During the summer of 2011, TEPCO installed concrete panels designed to seal water intakes of units 1 through 4 in order to prevent contaminated water from reaching the ocean.
In October 2011, TEPCO installed a steel water shield wall between the units and the ocean. TEPCO subsequently created a groundwater bypass system to reroute fresh water from flowing into the site and restored and improved its drainage system.
TEPCO has also worked on creating an ice wall that would prevent highly contaminated water in the basement of the wrecked reactors from flowing into the sea.[xii] All of these efforts have failed to prevent ongoing contamination of the Pacific Ocean.
In 2013, Prime Minister Abe promised the government would take “firm measures” to address water contamination at Fukushima Daiichi.[xiii] Yet, two years later in 2015, TEPCO still injects hundreds of tons of water into demolished reactor buildings 1-4 to cool uncontained melted fuel.[xiv]
TEPCO simultaneously pumps hundreds of tons of contaminated water out from the ruined reactor buildings, but its efforts to keep up with water saturation have been stymied by the sheer volume of ground water inundating the site, largely from an underground river running at about 1,000 tons daily, with TEPCO announcing that approximately 400 tons of that penetrates reactor buildings 1 – 4. [xv]
Water saturation from the underground river and TEPCO’s injections contribute to ground liquefaction, which poses direct risks to the reactor buildings and common spent fuel pool. Contaminated ground water is also flowing into the ocean.[xvi]
In February of 2015, TEPCO admitted that radioactive water from unit 2 had been flowing unfiltered into the ocean since May 2014.[xvii] Local fisherman who had given consent for TEPCO to dump uncontaminated ground water were outraged, but Yuji Moriyama, a TEPCO spokesman stated “the utility did not disclose the information because there is no evidence of environmental impact.”
The water contained 29,400 Becquerels of radioactive cesium per liter and an additional 52,000 Becquerels of beta-emitting radionuclides, such as Strontium-90.
Strontium levels in sea and ground water may actually rise over time, if the conditions modeled in two German risk studies apply to Fukushima.
The “German Risk Study, Phase B” found that a core meltdown accident could result in complete failures of all structural containment, causing melted fuel to exit the reactor foundation within five days and that ground water leaching would occur even in the absence of a full melt-through situation.[xviii]
A second German risk analysis, “Dispersion of Radionuclides and Radiation Exposure after Leaching by Groundwater of a Solidified Core-Concrete Melt,” found that even in the event of an intact building foundation, passing groundwater would be in direct contact with fuel, causing leaching of fission products. [xix]
The study predicted concentrations of Strontium-90 in river water would spike relatively suddenly, but maintain extraordinarily high levels of contamination for years, with “the highest radionuclide concentration of approx. 1010 Bq/m3 is reached by Sr-90 after some 5000 days.”
The study’s experimental conditions are roughly similar to Daiichi’s site conditions, including groundwater emptying into an adjacent river, whereas Daiichi is physically situated above an underground river emptying into the sea.
Ground water contamination has also been rising steadily at the Daiichi site, especially since the summer of 2013.[xx] TEPCO reported that samples from the well between the ocean and unit 1 measuring a record 5 million Becquerels per liter of radioactive Strontium-90 alone in July 2013.[xxi]
In January 27, 2015, TEPCO measured 31,000,000 Bq/m3 of Strontium-90 in boring well nearest unit 2, a level which was more than 10 percent more than reported in December of 2014.[xxii] By February of 2015, TEPCO was reporting even higher levels of Strontium-90 in the same location, with the highest sample measured at 590,000,000 Bq/m3 of Strontium-90.[xxiii]
The spiking strontium levels are consistent with the predictions of the German melt-through scenario.
TEPCO has also detected increased radionuclide contamination in the Fukushima port. On June 19, 2015 TEPCO’s reported that it had detected Strontium-90 measuring 1,000,000 Bq/m3 in two locations in Fukushima Daiichi’s port located near the water intake for reactors 3 and 4, exceeding the previous reported high of 700,000 Bq/m3.[xxiv]
The highest Strontium level measured in Fukushima’s port jumped still more in data reported in July 17, 2015 to 1,500,000 Bq/m3.[xxv]
TEPCO is also facing severe problems filtering and storing the contaminated water it does pump out from the ground and ruined buildings. In May of 2013 The Asahi Shimbun reported the TEPCO was going to begin dumping groundwater at the Daiichi site because its storage capacities for contaminated water were nearly exhausted. [xxvi]
There was considerable resistance from local fisherman because TEPCO lacked the capacity to remove Strontium-90 from captured water and even the filtered water was quite contaminated. At that time in 2013, filtered water measured 710 million Becquerels per liter while unfiltered water was reported as twice as radioactive, from tritium and strontium. TEPCO was not able to eliminate Strontium until the fall of 2014.[xxvii]
In 2015 the NRA approved a plan to allow TEPCO to dump decontaminated groundwater into the sea if the water registered less than 1 Becquerel per liter of cesium, less than 3 Becquerels per liter of beta emitters such as Strontium-90, and 1,500 Becquerels per liter of tritium.[xxviii]
TEPCO has attempted to store as much water as possible but press releases and news coverage addressing water storage at the plant suggest that official announcements of dumped water are the tip of a larger deluge….
[ii] T. Sugimoto and H. Kimura (1 December 2012) ‘TEPCO Failed to Respond to Dire Warning of Radioactive Water Leaks at Fukushima’, The Asahi Shimbun, http://ajw.asahi.com/article/0311disaster/fukushima/AJ201212010037, date accessed 2 December 2012.
[iii] “Levels of radioactive materials soaring in sea near nuke plant” Kyodo (March 26, 2011). http://english.kyodonews.jp/news/2011/03/81163.html
[iv] Cited in H. Tabuchi (25 June 2012) ‘Fears Accompany Fishermen in Japanese Disaster Region’, The New York Times, http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/26/world/asia/fears-accompany-fishermen-in-japanese-disaster-region.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_20120626, date accessed 26 June 2012.
[v] Buesseler, K. (2013, October 24). Japan’s continuing nuclear nightmare: Experts discuss Fukushima and its aftereffects. Massachusetts Institute of Technology Center for International Studies. Available http://techtv.mit.edu/collections/mit-cis/videos/26614-japan-s-continuing-nuclear-nightmare.
[vi] ‘Fukushima Nuclear Pollution in Sea was World’s Worst: French Institute’ (28 October 2011), Japan Today, http://www.japantoday.com/category/national/view/fukushima-nuclear-pollution-in-sea-was-worlds-worst-french-institute, date accessed 29 October 2011.
[vii] ‘Fukushima Disaster Produces World’s Worst Nuclear Sea Pollution’, (28 October 2011), The Maritime Executive, http://www.maritime-executive.com/article/fukushima-disaster-produces-world-s-worst-nuclear-sea-pollution, date accessed 29 October 2011.
[viii] Pascal Bailly Du Bois, Pierre Garreau, Philippe Laguionie, Irene Korsakissok (2014) Comparison between modelling and measurement of marine dispersion, environmental half-time and 137Cs inventories after the Fukushima Daiichi accident. Ocean Dynamics, 64(3), 361.
[x] S. Tumey, T. Guilderson, T. Brown, T. Broek, K. Buesseler, “Input of Iodine-129 into the western pacific ocean resulting from the Fukushima Nuclear Event,” Journal of Radioanalytical and Nuclear Chemistry, 296 (2013): 957–962. 10.1007/s10967-012-2217-9
[xi] P. Povinec, K. Hirose, and M. Aoyama (18 September 2012) ‘Radiostrontium in the Western North Pacific: Characteristics, Behavior, and the Fukushima Impact’, Environmental Science & Technology, 46.18, 10356–10363.
[xiv] R. Yoshida (21 May 2013) ‘Fukushima No. 1 Can’t Keep its Head above Tainted Water’, Japan Times, http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2013/05/21/reference/fukushima-no-1-cant-keep-its-head-above-tainted-water/#.UZpke8oQNX9, date accessed 21 May 2013.
[xv] Nagata, K. (2013, August 20). TEPCO yet to track groundwater paths. Liquefaction threat adds to Fukushima ills. The Japan Times. Available http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2013/08/20/national/tepco-yet-to-track-groundwater-paths/#.U2XHpF7K3yi
[xvi] Nagata, K. (2014, March 6). Solving Fukushima water problem a long, hard slog. The Japan Times. Available http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2014/03/06/national/solving-fukushima-water-problem-a-long-hard-slog/#.U2XIE17K3yh
[xvii] Fisheries ‘shocked’ at silence over water leak at wrecked Fukushima No. 1 plant,” Japan times (February 25, 2015) http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2015/02/25/national/tepco-admits-failed-disclose-cesium-tainted-water-leaks-since-april/#.VPOfiOHWyDl
[xviii] Gesellschaft fur Reaktorsicherheit (GRS) Deutsche Risikikostudie Kernkraftwerke, Phase B Report GRS-89 cited in Bayer, A., Al-Omari, I., & Tromm, W. (1989). Dispersion of radionuclides and radiation exposure after leaching by groundwater of a solidified core-concrete (No. KFK-4512). Available http://www.irpa.net/irpa8/cdrom/VOL.1/M1_97.PDF.
[xix] Bayer, A., Al-Omari, I., & Tromm, W. (1989). Dispersion of radionuclides and radiation exposure after leaching by groundwater of a solidified core-concrete (No. KFK-4512). Available http://www.irpa.net/irpa8/cdrom/VOL.1/M1_97.PDF
[xx] “TEPCO Announced Record Cesium Level Found in Groundwater Beneath Fukushima Levee” The Asahi Shimbun (February 14, 2014): http://ajw.asahi.com/article/0311disaster/fukushima/AJ201402140041). The article said that cesium found in groundwater under a coastal levee near unit 1 spiked from 76,000 Becquerels per liter on February 12, 2014 to 130,000 Becquerels per liter on February 13, reaching the highest level of cesium ever detected at that location.
[xxiii] Iori Mochizuki (Fukushima Diary 590,000,000 Bq/m3 of Strontium-90 measured from groundwater of Reactor 2 seaside).
[xxiv] Lori Mochizuki, “1,000,000 Bq/m3 of Sr-90 detected in seawater of Fukushima plant port / Highest in recorded history,” Fukushima Diary (June 20, 2015) http://fukushima-diary.com/2015/06/1000000-bqm3-of-sr-90-detected-in-seawater-of-fukushima-plant-port-highest-in-recorded-history/ and TEPCO document http://www.tepco.co.jp/nu/fukushima-np/f1/smp/2015/images/2tb-east_15061901-j.pdf.
[xxv] Iori Mochizuki, “Highest Strontium-90 density detected in seawater of Fukushima plant port / 1,500,000 Bq/m3,” Fukushima Dairy (July 18, 2015). http://fukushima-diary.com/2015/07/highest-strontium-90-density-detected-in-seawater-of-fukushima-plant-port-1500000-bqm3/ TEPCO document available here: http://www.tepco.co.jp/nu/fukushima-np/f1/smp/2015/images/2tb-east_15071701-j.pdf
[xxvii] Yoshida ‘Fukushima No. 1 Can’t Keep its Head Above Tainted Water’.
[xxviii] NRA signs off on TEPCO plan to release decontaminated groundwater into sea January 22, 2015 http://ajw.asahi.com/article/0311disaster/fukushima/AJ201501220054).
One nuclear specialist argued that the Japanese government’s reported plan “cannot be considered an action without risk to the marine environment and human health”
by Jake Johnson, staff writer on Thursday, October 18, 2018
In a move that has sparked outrage from local residents and dire health warnings from environmentalists, the Japanese government is reportedly planning to release 1.09 million tons of water from the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant into the Pacific Ocean despite evidence that it contains “radioactive material well above legally permitted levels.”
While both the Japanese government and Tokyo Electric Power Co. (Tepco)—the company that runs the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant—have claimed that radioactive material in the water has been reduced to indetectable amounts and that only “safe levels of tritium” remain, documents obtained by the London-based Telegraph suggest that the cleaning system being used to decontaminate the water “has consistently failed to eliminate a cocktail of other radioactive elements, including iodine, ruthenium, rhodium, antimony, tellurium, cobalt, and strontium.”
“The government is running out of space to store contaminated water that has come into contact with fuel that escaped from three nuclear reactors after the plant was destroyed in the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami that struck northeast Japan,” the Telegraph reported. “Its plan to release the approximately 1.09 million tons of water currently stored in 900 tanks into the Pacific has triggered a fierce backlash from local residents and environmental organizations, as well as groups in South Korea and Taiwan fearful that radioactivity from the second-worst nuclear disaster in history might wash up on their shores.”
One document the Telegraph obtained from the government body charged with responding to the 2011 Fukushima disaster reportedly indicates that the Japanese government is perfectly aware that the Advanced Liquid Processing System (ALPS) is failing to eliminate radioactive materials from the water stored at the Fukushima site, despite its claims to the contrary.
Last September, the Telegraph notes, “Tepco was forced to admit that around 80 percent of the water stored at the Fukushima site still contains radioactive substances above legal levels after the Ministry of Economy, Trade, and Industry held public hearings in Tokyo and Fukushima at which local residents and fishermen protested against the plans.”
Shaun Burnie, a nuclear specialist with Greenpeace, argued that even so-called “safe” levels of tritium are harmful to humans and marine life.
“Its beta particles inside the human body are more harmful than most X-rays and gamma rays,” Burnie told the Telegraph, adding that there “are major uncertainties over the long-term effects posed by radioactive tritium that is absorbed by marine life and, through the food chain, humans.”
The Japanese government’s reported plans to release the water into the Pacific despite these warnings “cannot be considered an action without risk to the marine environment and human health,” Burnie concluded.
Fukushima Daiichi still leaking radioactivity into Pacific Ocean. That expensive Ice wall turned out to be a slushy. Keep trying. Better yet, shut down before meltdown.
Fukushima Daiichi still leaking radioactivity into Pacific Ocean. That expensive Ice wall turned out to be a slushy. Keep trying. Better yet, shut down before meltdown.
More than seven years after the March 2011 Fukushima nuclear crisis, radioactive water is continuing to flow into the Pacific Ocean from the crippled No. 1 plant at a rate of around 2 billion becquerels a day, a study has found.
The amount of leaking cesium 137 has decreased from some 30 billion becquerels in 2013, Michio Aoyama, a professor at the Institute of Environmental Radioactivity at Fukushima University, said in his study, which was presented Wednesday at an academic conference in Osaka.
The study said the concentration of radiation — 0.02 becquerel per liter of seawater found in samples collected near a coastal town 8 km south of the No. 1 plant — is at a level that does not affect the local fishing industry.
The radioactive water is generated in a process to cool melted nuclear fuel at three damaged reactors at the complex. The reactors experienced core meltdowns after the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami.
“It can be assumed that there is a path from the complex to the ocean” through which contaminated water flows, Aoyama said.
The water accumulates in the basements of the buildings at the site after being used to cool the melted fuel.
Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings Inc., the operator of the Fukushima complex, has been trying to prevent contaminated water from increasing within the facilities by building an underground ice wall in an effort to block ground water. It has also built a seawall aimed at preventing contaminated water from entering the ocean.
Fukushima Daiichi’s Ongoing Assault Against the Ocean
The Asahi Shimbun has a very interesting article today about Fukushima Daiichi’s very expensive ice wall that was designed as a barrier preventing contaminated ground water from flowing into the sea:
This is a very interesting article worth reading carefully.
What it says is that the ice wall reduced the amount of contaminated water reaching the ocean by approximately 95 tons a day.
That is a significant amount but raises the question of how many tons of contaminated water continue to penetrate the ice wall. This is what the article reports:
“Contaminated groundwater was cut in half due to the wall,” a TEPCO official said.
TEPCO estimated that the volume of polluted groundwater would have amounted to about 189 tons if the ice wall had not been in place during that period.
The utility also said the amount of polluted groundwater was reduced by about 400 tons a day now due to combined measures, such as the wall and wells pumping up water, compared with before such measures were taken.http://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/AJ201803020042.html
This is getting confusing. TEPCO reduced the ground water by 400 tons a day, using wells and pumping, and is able to filter out 95 tons of what would be 189 tons a day of radioactive water.
But it gets more confusing because the 189 tons of radioactive water produced daily aren’t actually representative of the tons of radioactive water produced when it rains hard, as reported in the article:
The water volume rose to 1,000 tons or so a day in late October when two typhoons struck the area.
So, when it rains hard, which it often does in Fukushima I’ve noted in my nearly daily webcam checks for 7 years, up to a thousand tons of radioactive water can be produced, with the ice wall filtering out approximately 95 tons a day.
That is a lot of very contaminated water that is flowing into the ocean.
The problems with the ice wall were well anticipated, as this article in the Mainichi reported in August 2017 when the wall neared completion:
But while 34.5 billion yen from government coffers has already been invested in the wall, doubts remain about its effectiveness. Meanwhile, the issue of water contamination looms over decommissioning work….. during screening by the NRA, which had approved the project, experts raised doubts about how effective the ice wall would be in blocking groundwater. The ironic reason for approving its full-scale operation, in the words of NRA acting head Toyoshi Fuketa, was that, “It has not been effective in blocking water, so we can go ahead with freezing with peace of mind” — without worrying that the level of groundwater surrounding the reactor buildings will decrease, causing the contaminated water inside to flow out.
At that time, TEPCO reports success in reducing the volume of contaminated water produced everyday from 400 tons to approximately 130 tons.
All these numbers don’t seem to add up cleanly. The one thing clearly concluded is that quite a lot of contaminated water is flowing from the plant directly into the ocean.
This is water contaminated from direct contract with melted nuclear reactor fuel.
What impact will this have on the Pacific Ocean?
I’ve posted on this subject but the truth is that no one really knows what this unprecedented radiological assault will do to an eco-system already imperiled by human degradation.
Recently a friend – Douglas – sent me a link describing decimation of California’s kelp forests.
I’m sure that both these factors may play a role but what is completely marginalized from conversation is the Fukushima Daiichi disaster.
There were plenty of research studies that projected and detected empirically radiological contamination off of North America’s coast as marine currents bring Fukushima Daiichi’s contaminated water across the Pacific and back again, forever adding new contaminants.
We must find a way to prevent the death of life in our oceans or we will soon follow.
The chief of Japan’s nuclear regulator said Thursday water at the crisis-hit Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant that contains radioactive tritium even after being treated should be released into the sea after dilution.
“We will face a new challenge if a decision (about the release) is not made within this year,” Nuclear Regulation Authority Chairman Toyoshi Fuketa told a local mayor, referring to the more than 1 million tons of coolant water and groundwater that has accumulated at the facility crippled by the 2011 disaster triggered by a devastating quake and tsunami.
As local fishermen are worried about the negative impact from the water discharge, the Japanese government and Fukushima plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings Inc. have not made a final decision on the treated water, which is currently stored in tanks.
In his meeting with Yukiei Matsumoto, mayor of Naraha town near the Fukushima plant, Fuketa said, “It is scientifically clear that there will be no influence to marine products or to the environment” following the water release.
The nuclear regulator chief underlined the need for the government and Tepco to quickly make a decision, saying, “It will take two or three years to prepare for the water release into the sea.”
At the Fukushima plant, toxic water is building up partly because groundwater is seeping into the reactor buildings to mix with water made radioactive in the process of cooling the damaged reactors.
Such contaminated water is treated to remove radioactive materials but tritium, a radioactive substance considered relatively harmless to humans, remains in the filtered water as it is difficult to separate even after passing through a treatment process.
At other nuclear power plants, tritium-containing water is routinely dumped into the sea after it is diluted. The regulator has been calling for the release of the water after diluting it to a density lower than standards set by law.
With limited storage space for water tanks, observers warn tritium could start leaking from the Fukushima plant.
On March 11, 2011, tsunami inundated the six-reactor plant, located on ground 10 meters above sea level, and flooded the power supply facilities.
Reactor cooling systems were crippled and the Nos. 1 to 3 reactors suffered fuel meltdowns in the world’s worst nuclear catastrophe since the 1986 Chernobyl disaster.
…There’s some sense that climate change could be causing a “regime shift” and a long-term change in ecosystems, said Peter Hagen, deputy director of a federal fisheries laboratory in Auke Bay, near Juneau.
“There’s a whole question: Is this a new normal? And I don’t think we’ve determined that yet,” Hagen said.
But Hagen and Adkison, the fisheries professor, both pointed out that salmon have proven to be resilient. Fossil records show that big population changes are typical, Adkison said.
“In the salmon business, we’re used to these dramatic fluctuations in productivity,” he said. “If I had to bet, I would favor the short-term fluctuation and I would expect them to eventually rebound. But the current numbers are really low.”
I’ve been following the (reported) acceleration of excess mortality events among animal populations. Here is my 2012 post on the King Salmon that “went missing” that year:
Polar bears, walruses, salmon, sardines, starfish, etc. These and so many other marine and land animal populations experienced precipitous declines due to “inexplicable” wasting syndromes and odd infections that began being reported in great number in 2012.
[when I checked on bee and bat declines I discovered that the Wikipedia article attributes the rapid decline in bats from white fungal disease to 2012 here. In contrast, bee “colony collapse disorder” was named in 2006]
Every animal population imperiled has no doubt suffered in complex ways from human engineering and thoughtlessness, including experiences of habitat loss and rapid deterioration of remaining habitats due to the synergistic effects of countless environmental assaults.
Still, I find it more than coincidental that the acceleration of mass mortality events became markedly evident in 2012.
Fukushima’s ongoing and UNPRECEDENTED RADIOACTIVE CONTAMINATION of the ocean and the general dispersal of industrial pollutants by the Japan’s terrible 2011 tsunami ARE STRANGELY ABSENT from most all news coverage of marine welfare.
Yet, ALL THE SCIENTIFIC DATA available, including data generated by the US Geological Survey and the CTBTO, documented widespread fallout contamination in North America.
Scientific models on ocean dispersion predicted a plume of radioactive contamination would reach North America and add to the coastal fallout from precipitation by 2013. This prediction was tested and found to be true in San Diego, CA.
Fukushima’s ongoing dissemination of radioactive contamination has lessened since 2012 but it has not ceased.
I’m sure that Fukushima isn’t the only source of radioactive contamination from artificially engineered radio-isotopes such as Cesium-137 and Strontium-89 but it is the largest known.
Might it represent a tipping point in ocean life? That question will probably never be answerable empirically because not enough research is investigating impacts.
What is clear however is that the accelerated decimation of animal life on earth will not occur without grave human losses as well. It is my belief that when we destroy the eco-system upon which we depend, we are destroying ourselves.
Unfortunately, our capacity to grapple with the spectre of our destruction is impeded by our capacity to rationalize.
The idea of “population oscillations” is the rationalization deployed most often to account for the dislocations in ecological life observed by scientists and everyday people in touch with their environments.
Populations don’t simply oscillate by chance. Numbers drop and decline in relation to the contingencies of system-environment interactions. Precipitous declines typically result from amplifying feedback loops, often resulting from either over-population or some dramatic change in the environment, such as a sudden and unprecedented onslaught of marine contamination.
Bioaccumulation: Cesium is One Among the 1000 Radionuclides Unleashed by Fukushima Bioaccumulation: http://majiasblog.blogspot.com/2014/11/bioaccumulation-cesium-is-one-among.html
To dump into the ocean a million tonnes of radioactive water should be considered by the international community a crime against humanity and an ecocide against the environment. Whatever they say, whatever they lied, it will never be totally decontaminated and it will never be safe, no matter how many shills on the mainstream media are paid by the nuclear lobby to spin fairy tales in order to brainwash the public about ‘safety’.
The water is being stored in hundreds of large and densely packed tanks at the plant.
Japan cannot agree on what to do with a million tonnes of radioactive water being stored at the destroyed Fukushima nuclear power plant — and there is a chance it could spill if another major earthquake or tsunami were to strike.
The water is being stored in about 900 large and densely packed tanks at the plant, which was overwhelmed by a devastating tsunami more than six years ago.
Making matters worse, the amount of contaminated water held at Fukushima is still growing by 150 tons a day.
The stalemate is rooted in a fundamental conflict between science and human nature.
Experts advising the government have urged a gradual release of the water to the nearby Pacific Ocean. Treatment has removed all the radioactive elements except tritium, which they say is safe in small amounts
Conversely, if the tanks break, their contents could slosh out in an uncontrolled way.
Local fishermen are balking — they say the water, no matter how clean, has a dirty image for consumers.
Fumio Haga, a drag-net fisherman from Iwaki, a city about 50 kilometres down the coast from the nuclear plant, said releasing the water would end the local industry’s fragile recovery.
“People would shun Fukushima fish again as soon as the water is released,” he said.
Experts want a gradual release, but if the tanks break the water would slosh out
A new chairman at TEPCO, the embattled utility that owns the plant, caused an uproar in the fishing community in April when he expressed support for moving ahead with the release of the water.
The company quickly backpedalled, and now says it has no plans for an immediate release and can keep storing water through 2020.
Despite tests, many shoppers avoid Fukushima fish
Today, only about half of the Fukushima region’s 1,000 fishermen go out, and just twice a week because of reduced demand.
They participate in a fish testing program that sees lab technicians mince fish samples, pack them in a cup for inspection and record details such as who caught the fish and where.
The fish that make it to market meet what is believed to be the world’s most stringent requirements.
Only three kinds of fish passed the test when the experiment began in mid-2012, 15 months after the tsunami. Over time, that number has increased to about 100.
The fish that make it to market meet what is believed to be the world’s most stringent requirements, but that message is not reaching consumers.
Fewer Japanese shoppers shun fish and other foods from Fukushima than before, but one in five still do, according to a survey by Japan’s Consumer Agency.
Naoya Sekiya, a University of Tokyo expert on disaster information and social psychology, said the water from the nuclear plant should not be released until people were well-informed about the basic facts, and are psychologically ready.
“A release only based on scientific safety, without addressing the public’s concerns, cannot be tolerated in a democratic society,” he said.
“A release when people are unprepared would only make things worse.”
Frankly speaking, I find it amazing that the people and the media talk so much about Fukushima Daiichi having leaked contaminated water into the Pacific Ocean since March 2011, and about Tepco possible future release of the tritiated water accumulated on site into the Pacific Ocean.
Whereas nobody ever talks about how much contaminated water the Sellafield nuclear fuel reprocessing site on England’s west coast has been releasing into the Irish Sea (then from there flowing into the Atlantic Ocean), and how much contaminated water the La Hague nuclear fuel reprocessing site on France west coast has been releasing into the English Channel (then from there flowing into the Atlantic Ocean.
If you think that Fukushima Daiichi is contaminating the Pacific Ocean since 2011, why are aren’t you aware that Sellafield and La Hague have been contaminating the Atlantic Ocean for decades already?
Both sites having large pipes underwater going far from the land into the sea, both releasing their contaminated water at sea now for decades, with the gracious authorization of the IAEA.
It might be because few people actually know about it, or because it is easier to point the finger to somebody else far away than at home. Of course it also serves the political and economic interests of both England and France to make their people mindful of what’s happening over there in Fukushima while keeping them blind about what’s happening in their own backyards, their media editors knowing very well what issues are to be avoided as too sensitive to be handled.
Of course I am not saying that the radioactive contamination of the Pacific Ocean by Fukushima Daiichi should not be published, not looked into, not adressed.
What I am saying is that the radioactive contamination of the Atlantic by Sellafield and La Hague in parallel should be also published, looked into, as much adressed, not swept under the carpet, and the people well informed about it, especially as this has been going on for decades authorized by the IAEA.
A few related articlesabout Sellafield :
“There is more radioactive plutonium in the sediments off the Sellafield plant in the Irish Sea than at the underwater Russian Novaya Zemlya nuclear weapons test site, according to Greenpeace.
The environmental group yesterday released further data arising from its ongoing survey of the Irish Sea. It has been measuring radioactive contamination in sediments and seaweed along British and Irish coasts for several weeks. Last week it visited Dundalk bay, retrieving seaweed as part of this activity. The data released yesterday related to the plutonium and caesium content of sediment taken adjacent to a Sellafield waste-discharge pipe two kilometres off the Cumbrian coast.”
“A record number of radioactive hotspots have been found contaminating public beaches near the Sellafield nuclear complex in Cumbria, according to a report by the site’s operator.
As many as 383 radioactive particles and stones were detected and removed from seven beaches in 2010-11, bringing the total retrieved since 2006 to 1,233. Although Sellafield insists that the health risks for beach users are “very low”, there are concerns that some potentially dangerous particles may remain undetected and that contamination keeps being found.”
“Greenpeace has warned that the dumping of the reprocessing plant’s liquid waste has made the Irish Sea among the most contaminated waters in the world, even though Ireland itself produces no nuclear energy. Irish fishermen have been angered by catches of unsaleable mutated fish and by findings that they have been exposed to low-level radiation.”
“Radioactive waste from the Sellafield nuclear plant in Cumbria is contaminating shellfish hundreds of kilometres away on the west coast of Scotland, according to a new scientific study.
Scottish researchers discovered traces of radioactive carbon discharged from Sellafield in the shells of mussels, cockles and winkles as far north as Port Appin in Argyll, 160 miles from the notorious nuclear plant.”
Conclusion from my friend Pierre Fetet (Fukushima’s blog) :
“There are several differences between La Hague and Fukushima (for Sellafield, I do not know enough):
At La Hague, for example, there is an authorization to reject 50,000 billion Bq of Tritium per day.
While in Fukushima, it is not known at all how much is continuously discharged into the sea in terms of radioactivity, except that it is 300 tons per day of contaminated water and that is not authorized by anyone.
The big difference is that in France that crime is allowed but confidential and that in Fukushima that crime is suffered and mediatized.
But you’re right Hervé, people are not aware and remain uninformed of what is really going on.”
Annual Radionuclide Releases Report in terabecquerel (1 terabecquerel = 1 000 000 000 000 becquerels )
nuclear-news 