By KEITARO FUKUCHI/ Staff Writer
August 24, 2023 at 17:00 JST
Tokyo Electric Power Co. releases treated water from its Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant on the afternoon of Aug. 24. (Takeshi Iwashita)
Tokyo Electric Power Co. on Aug. 24 began the highly contentious process of discharging treated radioactive water from its crippled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant into the ocean.
The water, which had all radioactive elements, except tritium, removed under safety standards entered the sea around 1 p.m.
Video footage of a remote-control room within the nuclear plant showed workers shouting out and repeating instructions, activating the pump to begin the discharge, and observing meters indicating the level of water flow.
TEPCO officials said a morning measurement of tritium in the water showed levels under the standard of 1,500 becquerels per liter that the utility had set for the water discharge.
Over the next 17 days or so, TEPCO will release about 7,800 tons of treated water.
Groundwater and rainwater continue to flow into damaged reactor buildings at the plant and become contaminated.
A total of about 1.34 million tons of water is now stored in tanks on the Fukushima plant grounds.
The water has been treated by the Advanced Liquid Processing System (ALPS), which removes radioactive substances other than tritium.
Despite the government’s assurances that the water to be released meets safety standards, fishermen and other local industries, as well as China, have expressed opposition to the discharge plan.
Over the next month, TEPCO will measure tritium levels on a daily basis near the water-release outlet about 1 kilometer off the coast.
“In addition to those who will actually handle the operations, we are preparing to release information without delay,” Junichi Matsumoto, the TEPCO official in charge of the water-discharge project, said at a news conference before the process started.
After the government gave the official green light for the plan, TEPCO began diluting treated water from storage tanks by about 1,200-fold and checking the tritium level.
That water collects in an upstream tank and the overflow goes to a downstream tank. From there, the water flows through a 1-km tunnel before reaching the ocean.
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