Radioactive Water Fukushima Forever

Green Light Given To Japan To Release Tainted Water

I am no scientist. My credentials do not exist.

I spent some time protesting against the use of Nuclear Power back in the 70s.

The tragic earthquake and tsunami that took place in 2011. Those images are burnt into my consciousness.

Japan is still left with a great deal of rebuilding in that region.

Meanwhile, the decommissioning of the Nuclear Power Plant in Fukushima continues. Water used to operate the plant and to cool the reactor is now stored in the tanks pictured above. There is enough glowing H2O to fill 500 Olympic-sized swimming pools.

Is that a drop in the ocean?

With Japan being given the go-ahead to release this water, it soon will be dropped into the ocean. This will happen very soon. The Radioactive Summer of 2023.

Japan is set to begin pumping out more than a million tonnes of treated water from the destroyed Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant this summer, a process that will take decades to complete.

Tritium seems to be the issue. Japan’s argument is pretty silly.

The Japanese government says the planned discharge of tritium-tainted wastewater from Fukushima will be 6.5 times less than China's plants.

Good to hear Japan will not be releasing as much as China.
That does not make me feel any better about this atomic water being dumped in the Pacific.

Scientific opinions vary as they usually do.

Professor Robert Richmond from the University of Hawaii said that tritium can concentrate in the food web and damage DNA. He also questions the efficacy of dilution as a pollution solution.

Professor David Krawczyk from the University of Auckland said tritium is naturally produced and already present in significant quantities in the world's oceans. He says that Fukushima's tritium discharge is the least bad option among all available alternatives. Well, the least bad option….not a GOOD option.

The fishing folks in Japan believe it is not going to improve the sales of their catch from the region.

Consumers are going to move away from fish caught in this region for their own safety.

But of course, no one is listening to the people out on the boats.

It’s summer in Japan.

A summer of nuclear waste slowly leaked back into the Pacific.

This will take many years to release all of this water.

The impact will initially be felt by the local fisherman.

No one knows how it will impact fishing and the environment decades later.

From 1946 to 1993 nuclear waste was allowed to be dumped at sea, under ‘strict’ guidelines.

It is now banned.

What could possibly go wrong?