Japanese officials are trying to decide what to do with thousands of tons of radioactive water from the damaged Fukushima nuclear power plant.
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The water remains a big problem however. Currently, the water is being stored in 900 large tanks near the nuclear center.
Conflicting opinions between two groups have kept Japanese officials from doing anything about the water.
Radiation experts advise the government to slowly release the water into the Pacific Ocean. They note that special treatment has removed the radioactivity from the water except for tritium, a radioactive form of hydrogen. The experts say tritium is safe in small amounts.
But local fisherman oppose the release of the water into the sea. They say people will not buy fish from waters near Fukushima if the water is released.
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The earthquake and waves caused the electricity to go out in many places including Fukushima. As a result, the cooling system failed in three of the six nuclearreactors which caused the nuclear fuel to overheat and partly melt structures in the power plant.
Radiation entered the air and contaminated water flowed into the sea.
That event hurt the livelihoods of people throughout the area. Although there are about 1,000 fishermen in the area today, only half still fish and they go out only two times a week because demand is low.
To be sold, the fish have to meet, what might be, the world’s most demanding requirements. Laboratory workers at Onahama test the fishermen’s catch, recording who caught the fish and where. And fish from the area is sold with official “safe” stickers.
Fifteen months after the disaster in 2012, only three kinds of fish could pass the safety inspection. Now the number has increased to over 100.
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“A release only based on scientific safety, without addressing the public’s concerns, cannot be tolerated in a democratic society,” he said. He said a release when the public is not prepared would only make things worse.
Kikuko Tatsumi is a representative of a consumer group and serves on a government expert panel with Sekiya. The group has been trying to decide what to do with the water for longer than one year.
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Water from the center is a continuing problem
The Associated Press reports the amount of radioactive water at Fukushima is growing by 150 tons a day. This is because new water is used to cool the damaged reactors and ground water also enters the reactor area through cracks.
The water is a costly problem for the utility company Tokyo Electric Power Co, or TEPCO which owns Fukushima. Last year, another group of government experts recommended that TEPCO should dilute the water by about 50 times and release it into the sea over time. The process could take 10 years to complete.
Read more at What to Do with Radioactive Water from Fukushima
