Tokyo [Japan], July 5: Plans by the Japanese authorities to discharge treated cooling water from the destroyed Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant are consistent with international standards, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said in a report presented in Tokyo on Tuesday.
Discharging the water "would have a negligible radiological impact to people and the environment," IAEA head Rafael Grossi told journalists on presenting the report to Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida. Grossi specifically addressed the impacts on seawater, fish and sediments of the hydrogen isotope tritium, the central concern.
Filtering tritium out of the water is seen as impossible. The Japanese government said it would study the IAEA report before taking a final decision on discharging the water. The aim is to start discharging this summer.
In Beijing, the Chinese authorities rejected the IAEA report. "The report is not a permit for Japan to discharge to the sea and cannot prove that sea discharge is the safest and most reliable option to dispose of nuclear-contaminated water," Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning told journalists in Beijing.
China once again urged Japan to study other disposal plans with a view to effectively disposing of the water "in a scientific, safe, and transparent manner," Mao said. She said that Japan had "restricted the authorization of the IAEA working group from the very beginning." The Japanese Foreign Ministry denied as "absolutely untrue" reports that the government had made a large donation to the IAEA to settle differences of opinion between the IAEA and experts from other countries.
It also denied that the outcome of the IAEA report had been fixed from the start. The 1.3 million tons of wastewater, currently stored in about 1,000 huge tanks, is to be filtered and diluted before being released through an underwater tunnel that extends 1 kilometre into the sea.
Source: Qatar Tribune