Japans prepares plans to release radioactive water into the Pacific

Japan will release one million tons of the water used at the Fukushima nuclear power plant into the sea, the BBC reported, citing Japanese media. The reports add that the water should be diluted to reduce its radioactivity. Nevertheless, environmental groups and organizations in the fishing industry oppose the discharge of the liquid into the sea, although scientists assure that the risk of contamination is low. According to some reports, the water should first be diluted in order to reduce the concentration of the radioactive material by 40 times.

The release is slated to begin in 2022, when the tanks currently storing the water will be full, although the government has not yet made an official decision. Reports of the possible discharge of water from the reactors first appeared last year. At the time, Japan's Environment Minister Yoshiaki Harada said Fukushima operator Tepco was running out of space to store the radioactive water previously used in the nuclear power plant's reactors for cooling and disaster prevention.

"The only way will be to drain it into the sea and dilute it," Minister Harada said in September 2019. Most of the radioactive isotopes have been removed from the water, the BBC notes in its report, but one, tritium, remains. However, scientists say it isn't particularly threatening to humans or animals, especially when diluted into billions of tons of water in the Pacific.

The disposal of the water is a prerequisite for the start of the decommissioning of the Fukushima plant. "To avoid delays in the decommissioning process, we need to make a decision quickly," said Industry Minister Hiroshi Kajiyama. The Fukushima nuclear meltdown was the result of a huge tsunami caused by a magnitude 9 earthquake that killed around 15,000 people. The shutdown of the power plant was estimated at $ 75 billion.