TOKYO, Jan 14 (NNN-NHK) – The Japanese government, yesterday said, a controversial plan to release radioactive wastewater from a crippled nuclear plant, in Japan’s north-east into the Pacific Ocean, will start in the spring or summer.
The schedule of the contentious plan to start releasing toxic water from the disaster-hit Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in Fukushima Prefecture, into the ocean, was confirmed at a meeting of cabinet ministers, at the prime minister’s office yesterday.
During the meeting of relevant cabinet ministers, financial support for fishing communities, which will suffer reputational damage, when the radioactive water is dumped into seas where they fish, was endorsed, as stipulated by a revised policy on the disposal of the treated water.
Japan’s fishing industry vociferously made clear its ardent opposition to the plan, as it will certainly cause further damage to the industry’s reputation, in the already maligned region.
The government believes, a new 50-billion-yen (388.84-million-U.S. dollar) fund, under the revised policy, will somehow help the fishing communities, whose stock, following the release of the toxic water in their fishing areas, will almost certainly be considered tainted, regardless of to what degree the toxic water is treated.
Under the plan, the water, which contains hard-to-remove radioactive tritium, as a result of being used to cool down melted nuclear fuel at the stricken plant, will be discharged through an underwater tunnel into the Pacific Ocean, after being treated.
The plant had its key cooling functions knocked out, after being battered by a massive earthquake-triggered tsunami in 2011, resulting in the worst global nuclear crisis, since Chernobyl in 1986.– NNN-NHK
