The handling of nuclear-contaminated wastewater from Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant has been contentious. The report from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has been questioned, and its director-general has absurdly suggested that the nuclear-contaminated wastewater from the Daiichi plant can be drunk or used for swimming.
Japan, however, insists on shifting the blame onto others, disregarding international opposition and human health, and stubbornly promoting the plan to discharge the nuclear-contaminated wastewater into the sea. The issue concerns the global marine environment. Are Japan’s arguments for its plan to discharge nuclear-contaminated wastewater into the sea always right, while those who raise reasonable questions simply wrong?
The Permanent Mission of the People’s Republic of China to the United Nations and other International Organizations in Vienna just released a working paper on the disposal of nuclear contaminated water of Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant. The points of doubt raised in the paper are reasonable and well-argued, demonstrating the responsibility of a major country. Among them, there are several important questions that Japan must answer seriously without shirking its responsibilities.
First, why is Japan determined to set an international precedent by insisting on discharging nuclear-contaminated wastewater into the ocean, while refusing to consider other disposal methods, including geological disposal, vapor release, hydrogen release, and underground burial, among others? What the international community expects to see is a thorough argument of the pros and cons of various disposal plans, not Japan unilaterally choosing the sea discharge plan with the least economic cost, shifting the risk of over 1.3 million metric tons of nuclear-contaminated wastewater to all of humanity.
Furthermore, according to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, governments have an obligation to conduct comprehensive environmental impact assessments, including the impact of transboundary marine pollution. Why hasn’t Japan taken all necessary measures to ensure that activities under its jurisdiction do not cause pollution damage to other countries and their environments, and ensure that the pollution caused does not extend beyond the areas where it exercises sovereign rights?
It’s disappointing that Japan has consistently evaded the issue, ignored full dialogue and international cooperation with potentially affected countries, and abandoned the adoption of an open and transparent approach to publishing relevant environmental information.
It should halt its nuclear-contaminated wastewater discharge plan, cooperate and communicate with other countries, accept stringent international supervision, and ensure the scientific, safe and transparent disposal of nuclear-contaminated wastewater
Right is right, and wrong is wrong. Japan has not fulfilled its international obligations. Indisputably, the international community, including China, is concerned about the marine environment and human health, and the doubts raised are rational and objective. There is no so-called “blind opposition”, and there is even less interest in inciting anti-Japanese sentiments.
Japan emphasizes that after treatment of the nuclear-contaminated wastewater, the tritium concentration is only one-seventh of the World Health Organization’s drinking water standards. The nuclear-contaminated wastewater from Fukushima includes more than 60 types of radioactive nuclides, including tritium, carbon-14, cobalt-60, strontium-90, iodine-129, and extremely toxic plutonium and curium, among other transuranic nuclides. In fact, according to Japan’s published data, nearly 70 percent of the radioactive nuclides in the nuclear-contaminated wastewater treated by the Advanced Liquid Processing System (ALPS) still exceed the discharge limit, which also proves that it cannot effectively remove radioactive nuclides such as tritium and carbon-14. Some long-lived nuclides will spread with ocean currents, forming a bioaccumulation effect, which will increase the total amount of radioactive nuclides in the environment, posing a threat to the marine environment and human health.
Furthermore, the effectiveness and maturity of the ALPS technology have not undergone third-party evaluation and have experienced multiple failures. Japan’s sea discharge will continue for 30 years or even longer. In the subsequent long-term operation, will the performance effectiveness and reliability of the ALPS further decline due to equipment aging? Japan has yet to provide sufficient scientific evidence on the long-term reliability of the ALPS system, which is also a significant concern for the international community. As the working paper pointed out, if the “treated water” is truly safe and harmless, why doesn’t Japan dispose of it within its own territory? Why not use it for industrial and agricultural water within Japan?
In order to gain the respect of the international community, Japan must present a comprehensive environmental monitoring plan for the discharge of nuclear-contaminated wastewater. As the working paper advocates, the IAEA should take the lead as soon as possible in establishing an independent and effective long-term international monitoring mechanism, with the full participation of third-party laboratories from Japan’s neighboring countries. Japan must fully cooperate with the mechanism led by the agency for long-term monitoring and subsequent review and evaluation tasks, continue to carry out long-term reliability monitoring of the ALPS, and timely and transparently publish data and information to neighboring and other relevant countries and accept supervisory inspections. Until the long-term monitoring mechanism is established, Japan should not start discharging into the sea; and later, if an anomaly is detected in the data of the nuclear-contaminated wastewater discharge, Japan must immediately stop the discharge. Can Japan willingly accept such objective and rational monitoring requirements?
Finally, it’s necessary for Japan to explain to the world the simple scientific fact that there is an essential difference between the nuclear-contaminated wastewater from Fukushima and the tritium wastewater normally discharged from nuclear power plants. Particularly in terms of treatment, the discharge of water during the normal operation of a nuclear power plant follows international standards and has a mature and reliable treatment system. The safe and controllable operation of nuclear power plants worldwide over many years has proved this. The nuclear-contaminated wastewater from Fukushima comes from the cooling water of the melted and damaged reactor core and the ground water and rainwater that seeps into the reactor, containing various radioactive nuclides present in the melted reactor core, which are more difficult to treat.
The planet does not belong to one country. The international community, including China, urges Japan not to place its interests above the global marine environment and human health, but to fulfill its international moral responsibilities and legal obligations. It should halt its nuclear-contaminated wastewater discharge plan, cooperate and communicate with other countries, accept stringent international supervision, and ensure the scientific, safe and transparent disposal of nuclear-contaminated wastewater.
Whether Japan can transcend its own interests and resolve the nuclear-contaminated wastewater crisis is a test. It will either carve out a good reputation for generations or become infamous for millennia. It all hinges on a single decision.
The author is a board member of the Chinese Association of Hong Kong and Macao Studies.
The views do not necessarily reflect those of China Daily.
