Japan starts discharge of second treated batch of Fukushima water

Tepco says it intends to discharge approximately 460 tons of treated water daily

Japan began the release of a second batch of treated water from the damaged Fukushima nuclear facility on Thursday, according to the plant’s operator.

Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings (Tepco) started the process at around 10.20am local time, Japan’s Kyodo news agency reported.

“We would like to continue approaching this with the utmost caution,” Kenichi Takahara, a spokesperson for Tepco, said. “It is crucial to maintain a strong determination to safely proceed ... while making every effort to avoid causing dissatisfaction.”

Tepco said it intends to discharge approximately 460 tons of treated water daily, dispersing it approximately one km offshore through an underwater tunnel for less than three weeks.

This current scheme marks the second of four rounds scheduled to take place by the end of March next year. The objective is to discharge approximately 31,200 tons of such treated water, containing an estimated total of around five trillion becquerels of tritium – a quantity significantly below the annual limit of 22 trillion becquerels, according to Japan Times.

Tepco’s goal is to manage the disposal of roughly 1.34 million tons of water, which amounts to nearly 98 per cent of the storage capacity.

This substantial volume of water is currently held in over 1,000 tanks at the plant, and the plan is to complete this disposal process over the course of the next three decades.

Late in August, Japan started the discharge of water from the Fukushima nuclear plant into the ocean, a move that sparked intense condemnation from China. In response, China implemented a ban on all seafood imports from Japan.

Japan has been persistently advocating for Beijing to rescind this ban and initiate evidence-based discussions involving experts from both nations.

Fukushima’s first wastewater release began on 24 August and ended on 11 September. During the 17-day first release, Tepco said it discharged 7,800 tons of treated water from 10 tanks.

Earlier last month, it was reported that fishermen and residents from Fukushima, along with people from five other prefectures along Japan’s northeastern coast, filed a lawsuit seeking an immediate cessation of the release of treated radioactive wastewater from the damaged Fukushima nuclear plant into the ocean.

In the lawsuit, the 151 plaintiffs, two-thirds from Fukushima and the rest from Tokyo and four other prefectures, say the discharge damages the livelihoods of the fishing community and violates residents’ right to live peacefully, their lawyers said.

Japan prime minister Fumio Kishida, along with three cabinet ministers, had Fukushima fish sashimi at a lunch meeting on 30 August in an apparent effort to dispel safety concerns following the controversial release of treated radioactive wastewater from the Fukushima nuclear power plant.

Mr Kishida and his ministers had sashimi of flounder, octopus and seabass, caught off the Fukushima coast.