On August 24th, release of nuclear wastewater from the site of the former Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power plant (FDNPP) officially began after years of planning and careful work on the part of TEPCO (the company who ran the plant), the Japanese Government, and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). The power plant, itself damaged during the 2011 Tōhoku Earthquake and related Tsunami, has been the site of exhaustive cleanup, including removal of topsoil in the surrounding area, and installation of protective shielding on the former reactors.
One major hurdle in the decommissioning and maintenance of the Fukushima Daiichi site has been, and continues to be the continued cooling of nuclear fuel to prevent further meltdowns at the site of the damaged reactors. To accomplish this, TEPCO and the Japanese Government have been using water as a means of cooling reactor rods. This produces a massive amount of wastewater that has been stored on site since the meltdown in specialized containers. The site produces an estimated ~250m3 of contaminated water per day.
In preparation for the eventual need for discharge of this massive amount of water, the IAEA, TEPCO, and Japanese Government had developed the ALPS (Advanced Liquid Processing System) which removes a wide spectrum of radionuclides that were introduced to the water in the cooling process, along with other specialized facilities for filtering out Cesium and Strontium. The main contaminant that cannot be removed is Tritium (hydrogen-3), which cannot be removed completely with technology available today. Water currently being released at the FDNPP is being released in a massively diluted form, at a concentration of 1,500 Becquerels/Liter (Bq/L). The WHO’s drinking water guidelines currently recommends that a limit of 10,000 Bq/L should not be exceeded.
While the release of the contaminated water might not in itself harmful when consumed due to its low concentration, one major concern that many have expressed is the buildup of hazardous radionuclides in organisms and the threats that the release of the contaminated wastewater will have on marine ecosystems at large. Contaminants may become concentrated in the tissues of organisms which eat other organisms such as filter feeders (ex. krill) which could concentrate contaminants to levels that would be harmful to humans. The IAEA has already released several reports on the status of contaminants in the water and continues to monitor the situation as releases of the wastewater continue. The Governments of Korea and China have expressed concerns on the impact of the release of wastewater from the FDNPP, with China imposing a total ban on all Japanese seafood. While the general scientific consensus points to the discharge being safe, much needs to be done to ensure the proper discharge occurs at a safe rate and is managed correctly.
