FUKUSHIMA – Japan wants to win the world’s trust that it is doing the right thing – neither wilfully poisoning the Pacific Ocean nor trying to pull the wool over people’s eyes regarding the safety of its seafood with its treated nuclear wastewater release.
On Sunday, The Straits Times was among the first media outlets – domestic and foreign – to visit the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant since the discharge began three days earlier, in a process that will end with its full decommissioning only in 2051.
As at 5pm on Sunday (4pm Singapore time), 76 hours after the gates were opened, operator Tokyo Electric Power Co (Tepco) had released 1,420 tonnes of water that had been treated to remove radioactive materials except tritium.
Also on Sunday, Japan said tests of seawater off the coast did not detect any radioactivity. A day earlier, inspections of fish samples from waters near the plant also found no detectable traces of tritium, a hydrogen isotope that most scientists say is harmless and naturally discharged without accumulating in the body.
Tepco has even successfully used the water, cleansed by a process known as the Advanced Liquid Processing System (ALPS), to breed healthy flounder, abalone and seaweed.
Yet, the blowback has been swift since the discharge began. China imposed a blanket ban on all Japanese seafood, while Hong Kong and Macau stiffened restrictions in what Japanese newspaper editorials have lambasted as “economic coercion”.
These regions are a minority, among only nine to have retained import restrictions since the March 11, 2011 disaster. But they hit Japan where it hurts: China accounted for 22.5 per cent and Hong Kong, 19.5 per cent, of seafood imports in 2022, the annual Fisheries White Paper said.
And even where their governments have not imposed bans, leery consumers in the region, including in Singapore, have also vowed to steer clear of seafood from Japan, at least for now.
To counter these narratives, United States Ambassador to Japan Rahm Emanuel, who is due to visit Fukushima this week, said he would “eat local fish” – just as the late prime minister Shinzo Abe made Fukushima rice a daily staple to prove a point.
Amid the brouhaha, water was being discharged as planned at Tepco’s Fukushima Daiichi plant – a drab coastal compound of six nuclear reactors – on Sunday, with the audible sounds of seawater gushing in through large pipes to be used for dilution. Much has changed since this reporter’s last visit in 2018, with more than 1,000 giant water tanks now dotting the site.
In total, 1.34 million tonnes of wastewater has accumulated, and the pressing lack of space has been a major obstacle to dismantling the plant. Just 380 of the 1,000 cherry blossoms trees that turn the facility pink in spring remain, the rest axed over contamination and the need to make space for tanks.
In the clearest sign that decontamination was progressing, protective gowns were no longer necessary over clothing, though masks and gloves were mandatory. The radiation dose during the six-hour media visit, as per the reading on my dosimeter, was less than that one would have received during a dental X-ray, according to Japan’s National Institutes for Quantum and Radiological Science and Technology.
Yet Japan and Tepco, despite sound scientific evidence in their favour as endorsed by the neutral International Atomic Energy Agency, are struggling to shape the narrative, dampen the water-cooler talk and stamp out fake news.
https://news.google.com/rss/articles/CBMigQFodHRwczovL3d3dy5zdHJhaXRzdGltZXMuY29tL2FzaWEvZWFzdC1hc2lhL2phcGFuLWhvcGVzLXRvLXdpbi10aGUtd29ybGQtcy10cnVzdC1vdmVyLWZ1a3VzaGltYS13aXRoLWhhcmQtc2NpZW5jZS1vYmplY3RpdmUtZmFjdHPSAQA?oc=5
2023-08-27 15:23:00Z
CBMigQFodHRwczovL3d3dy5zdHJhaXRzdGltZXMuY29tL2FzaWEvZWFzdC1hc2lhL2phcGFuLWhvcGVzLXRvLXdpbi10aGUtd29ybGQtcy10cnVzdC1vdmVyLWZ1a3VzaGltYS13aXRoLWhhcmQtc2NpZW5jZS1vYmplY3RpdmUtZmFjdHPSAQA
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