{"id":45155,"date":"2021-04-13T02:22:49","date_gmt":"2021-04-13T02:22:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=45155"},"modified":"2021-04-13T02:22:49","modified_gmt":"2021-04-13T02:22:49","slug":"japan-to-release-contaminated-fukushima-water-into-sea","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=45155","title":{"rendered":"Japan to release contaminated Fukushima water into sea"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Government pledges to make water safe before release, but plan draws swift condemnation.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Japan will release more than one million tonnes of contaminated water from the ruined Fukushima nuclear power station back into the sea, the government has said, in a decision that drew swift condemnation from environmental groups and is likely to anger fishing groups and neighbouring countries on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

The work to release the water will begin in about two years, the government said and the whole process is expected to take decades.<\/p>\n

Tokyo Electric Power, which operates the plant, will handle the process.<\/p>\n

\u201cOn the premise of strict compliance with regulatory standards that have been established, we select oceanic release,\u201d the government said in a statement after relevant ministers formalised the decision.<\/p>\n

The water, equivalent to about 500 Olympic-sized swimming pools<\/a>, needs to be filtered again to remove harmful isotopes and will be diluted to meet international standards before any release into the ocean.<\/p>\n

An aerial view of the tsunami-crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in Okuma town, Fukushima prefecture, taken in February showing the storage tanks for the contaminated water [Kyodo\/via Reuters]<\/figure>\n

Greenpeace Japan said it \u201cstrongly condemned\u201d the decision.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Japanese government has once again failed the people of Fukushima,\u201d Kazue Suzuki, a climate change and energy campaigner at Greenpeace Japan, said in a statement. \u201cThe government has taken the wholly unjustified decision to deliberately contaminate the Pacific Ocean with radioactive wastes. Rather than using the best available technology to minimize radiation hazards by storing and processing the water over the longer term, they have opted for the cheapest option.\u201d<\/p>\n

On Monday, the environmental group said it had gathered 183,754 signatures from Japan and South Korea in a petition against the plan.<\/p>\n

Greenpeace International\u2019s Executive Director Jennifer Morgan said the planned discharge would also be a violation of Japan\u2019s obligations under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) and that the move would be \u201cstrongly resisted\u201d in the months ahead.<\/p>\n

Not acceptable<\/h2>\n

The announcement of the plan, 10 years after the nuclear power station was devastated in a tsunami triggered by one of the most powerful earthquakes ever recorded, is also another blow to the fishing industry in Fukushima<\/a>, which has opposed the release for years.<\/p>\n

Five special rapporteurs from the United Nations said in March that the contaminated water remained a risk and that the ocean discharge plan could not be an \u201cacceptable solution\u201d.<\/p>\n