Japan starts 7th discharge of Fukushima nuclear-contaminated wastewater despite opposition

Japan on Friday started the seventh round of release of nuclear-contaminated wastewater from the crippled Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant into the Pacific Ocean.

Despite opposition from local fishermen, and residents as well as backlash from the international community, Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO), the plant's operator, started releasing the radioactive wastewater in the morning, the third round in fiscal 2024.

Just like the previous rounds, about 7,800 tonnes of wastewater will be discharged from about a kilometer off the coast of Fukushima Prefecture via an underwater tunnel until July 16.

According to TEPCO, the company will begin dismantling empty storage tanks after the wastewater has been discharged around January next year.

There are approximately 1,000 storage tanks at the Fukushima plant because of its continued production of wastewater. TEPCO plans to dismantle 21 of these tanks over about one year starting next January, which will free up 2,400 square meters of space.

There is still uncertainty when it comes to the decommissioning schedule of the Fukushima plant and the measures to deal with contaminated wastewater, Masahide Kimura, a member of a Japanese anti-nuclear campaign group, told Xinhua.

The collapse of houses, the destruction of roads and the ground uplift along the coast caused by the recent Noto Peninsula Earthquake have warned us that nuclear power plants should not be operated in Japan, an archipelago prone to earthquakes, Kimura said.

Hit by a 9.0-magnitude earthquake and an ensuing tsunami on March 11, 2011, the Fukushima nuclear plant suffered core meltdowns that released radiation, resulting in a level-7 nuclear accident, the highest on the International Nuclear and Radiological Event Scale.

The plant has been generating a massive amount of water tainted with radioactive substances from cooling down the nuclear fuel in the reactor buildings. The contaminated water is now being stored in tanks at the nuclear plant.

Despite furious opposition both at home and abroad, the ocean discharge of the Fukushima nuclear-contaminated water began in August 2023.