This past week news was released on how the Japanese government will soon have to dump the contaminated water that has built up over the past 10 years at the Fukushima Daiichi power plant into the ocean. Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga has said that the plant is dangerously close to running out of space for containing this radioactive water waste. Currently there are more than one million tons of radioactive water stored at the plant to keep the ‘reactor cores’ chilled. The Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster took place in 2011 as a result of the Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami and is said to be one of the largest nuclear disasters to date. An article from The Sun stated, “It's thought that the about 1,000 tanks used to store the water will be full by 2022.”
As reported by The Japan Times, Prime Minister Suga has stated that releasing the waste into the ocean is ‘unavoidable.’ Though officials have argued that the contaminated water will not be harmful to humans, the waste includes a substance called tritium that can be inhaled or absorbed. Tritium emits radioactive ions that have cancer-causing effects. Not only this, but dumping this contaminated water into the ocean also has the potential to negatively impact marine environments and wildlife. Radioactive waste has the ability to kill fish that it comes in contact with and contaminate the plants that they eat.
Research done from various nuclear waste dumps that have occurred in the Pacific Ocean, Irish, and Barents Seas has proven that radioactive substances can travel with ocean currents and become embedded in marine sediment. Unfortunately, it is still relatively unknown on how large of an impact radioactive waste can have on our marine environment long term. Prime Minister Suga is said to be making final decisions on the release of the Fukushima Daiichi waste in the next few weeks. He claims that they have been making many efforts to dilute the water, therefore making it less harmful by decreasing the amount of dangerous chemicals. Along with this, the Japanese government plans to release the water into the Pacific Ocean over the span of 30 years, rather than all at once in order to minimize the potential damages that it may cause.
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