On Thursday (October 19), a team of scientists gathered fish samples from the port town near Japan’s wrecked Fukushima nuclear power plant for the first time since the leak of treated radioactive effluent into the sea.
Scientists from China, South Korea, and Canada are attempting to examine the impact of the plant’s recent release of treated radioactive water into the sea, which began in August.
Beijing has subsequently criticized the move, prompting the government to restrict all imports of marine items from Tokyo due to food safety concerns.
Concerning the samples gathered
The samples were collected in the presence of an International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) team, while scientists from three countries observed the delivery fresh off the boat at Hisanohama port, about 50 kilometers south of the plant, which was destroyed by an earthquake and tsunami in 2011.
The IAEA team is now on an eight-day tour to inspect the collection and processing of saltwater and marine sediment near the plant. According to the UN nuclear watchdog, the samples will be submitted to laboratories in each country for independent testing.
“The Japanese government has requested that we do this and one of the reasons they want us to do this is to try and strengthen confidence in the data that Japan is producing,” said Paul McGinnity, an IAEA marine radiology scientist overseeing the survey.
The IAEA chose six fish species – olive flounder, crimson sea bream, redwing searobin, Japanese jack mackerel, silver croaker, and vermiculated puffer fish – because they are known to have higher levels of radioactivity than other species, according to McGinnity, who attributes this to the areas in which the fishes move around.
The fish will now be transported to a Fisheries Agency facility in Chiba, near Tokyo, where they will be examined by specialists from the UN nuclear watchdog. “I can say that we don’t expect to see any change starting in the fish,” the IAEA scientist added.
He did, however, see a slight increase in tritium levels, which cannot be eliminated from Fukushima wastewater by the plant’s treatment system and may be detected in locations close to the discharge points, but otherwise, the levels of radioactivity are expected to be similar to those measured before the discharge last year.
Fukushima nuclear power plant water release
After more than a million metric tons of water, enough to fill 500 Olympic-sized swimming pools, was polluted through contact with fuel rods at the reactor following the 2011 tragedy, Fukushima Daiichi began releasing treated wastewater into the sea on August 24.
While the IAEA reviewed the safety of the wastewater release, which will be done in stages, and concluded that it would have no effect on the environment, marine life, or human health, not everyone was convinced, prompting hundreds of people in Japan and South Korea to take to the streets in protest in August.