Photo/Illutration IAEA Director-General Rafael Grossi speaks after visiting an interim storage facility in Okuma, Fukushima Prefecture, on Feb. 19. (Akira Hatano)

OKUMA, Fukushima Prefecture—The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) gave a clean bill of health on Feb. 19 to an interim storage site here where soil contaminated from the 2011 nuclear accident was taken to. 

Director-General Rafael Grossi toured for the first time the soil storage facility and the site where the soil has been used as a base for roads in a recycling demonstration project.

After the tour, Grossi told reporters that the radiation levels were low and the soil was shielded by normal soil, and that he was able to confirm that the work meets the IAEA’s safety standards.

Meanwhile, regarding the disposal plan for the soil outside the prefecture by 2045, Grossi said that the deadline was the Japanese government's timetable.

He went on to say that how to proceed and how to explain are purely domestic issues, and that the deadline may be postponed, or be moved up, but what the IAEA must do is ensure safety.

Also, he was asked by a reporter if the spread of soil by the final disposal and recycling violates the basic rules of radiation safety to reduce the amount of radiation exposure and the number of people who are exposed to “as low as reasonably possible.”

Grossi said that transporting the soil doesn’t contradict radiation safety rules. He also said he will ensure that processing the soil is conducted in accordance with the safety standards in other areas as well, in conjunction with the Environment Ministry.

To lower the radiation levels, decontamination work such as scraping the topsoil has been carried out in areas contaminated by the accident at Tokyo Electric Power Co.’s Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant in the prefecture.

The equivalent volume of 11 Tokyo Domes of the soil and waste generated by the decontamination work (14 million cubic meters) has been sent to the interim storage site, which straddles the towns of Okuma and Futaba in the prefecture.

The Japanese government has stipulated that the soil and waste be disposed of outside Fukushima Prefecture by 2045, in the revised special measures law concerning the handling of radioactive materials.

The government also plans to reduce the amount that will be sent to the final disposal sites, by recycling the soil along with soil with lower radiation levels generated by the decontamination work and using it in public works projects.

The IAEA evaluated the preparations by the Environment Ministry for recycling the soil as meeting the requirements of its safety standards in its report released in September last year.

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