Japan dumps millions of gallons of radioactive water – Fishermen: ‘We strongly protest and urge you to stop dumping into the sea’
By Tsuyoshi Inajima
5 April 2011 Tokyo Electric Power Co. is pumping millions of gallons of radioactive water into the sea from its crippled Fukushima Dai-Ichi station, and Japan has asked Russia to send a ship capable of processing nuclear waste. The company known as Tepco will discharge 10,000 tons (2.6 million gallons) of water from a treatment building until 6 p.m. local time to make room to store fluids that are more highly contaminated, Hidehiko Nishiyama, Japan’s main spokesman on nuclear safety, said today. Another 1,500 tons from pits outside two reactors will be drained over five days, he said. “There was no choice but to take this step to prevent highly radioactive water from spreading into the sea,” Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano said at a media briefing in Tokyo today. “The fact that radioactive water is being deliberately dumped into the sea is very regrettable, and one we are very sorry about.” High radiation levels have hindered efforts to restart cooling pumps that were knocked out 25 days ago after Japan was struck by its strongest earthquake on record and a tsunami, triggering the world’s worst nuclear crisis since Chernobyl in 1986. Tepco shares slumped to the lowest in 60 years today. The contaminated water is unlikely to harm the environment as it will be diluted in the sea, said Brendan Kennedy, a member of the Australian Institute of Nuclear Science and Engineering Inc. and a professor of chemistry at the University of Sydney. … The Fukushima Prefectural Federation of Fisheries Co- operative Associations has written to Tepco asking it to stop dumping radioactive water into the sea because it may damage their fishing ground forever. …
Japan Dumps Toxic Water in Sea, Seeks Russia Processing Ship 
By Yasumasa Song and Stuart Biggs
4 April 2011 A fishing industry group in northern Japan protested Tokyo Electric Power Co.’s decision to dump radioactive water into the sea in Fukushima, saying it may damage their fishery forever. Tepco, as the utility is known, began releasing water yesterday off the coast near its Dai-Ichi plant. It plans to dump 11,500 tons (3 million gallons) containing about 100 times the regulatory limit of irradiated iodine in an area about 220 kilometers (135 miles) north of Tokyo. The government approved the measure so that Tepco can drain turbine buildings of water so radioactive it burned workers two weeks ago. Fish sales in Japan have slumped since the magnitude-9 earthquake on March 11 triggered a tsunami that knocked out power at the nuclear plant, leaving its cooling systems unable to prevent a partial meltdown. Radioactive material has leaked into the air and sea ever since, forcing the government to ban milk and fish shipments from Fukushima. “We lost lots of loved ones, ships, ports, facilities and on top of that, we are suffering from marine damage caused by the incident at Tokyo Electric Power Co.’s Dai-Ichi nuclear power plant,” Tetsu Nozaki, chairman of the Fukushima Prefectural Federation of Fisheries Co-operative Associations, said in a letter to Tepco shown to the media today. “We strongly protest and urge you to stop dumping into the sea.” Tepco will discharge 10,000 tons of water from its waste treatment facility and another 1,500 tons accumulated in pits outside reactors No. 5 and 6, Masateru Araki, a company spokesman, said yesterday. Filtering radiation from the water would take too long and its release will help protect equipment in the buildings housing the reactors, another spokesman said yesterday. “There was no choice but to take this step to prevent (other) highly radioactive water from spreading into the sea,” Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano told reporters today. “The fact that radioactive water is being deliberately dumped into the sea is very regrettable and one we are very sorry about.” Radioactive iodine and cesium were found in fish caught off the coast of Ibaraki, north of Tokyo, the Yomiuri newspaper reported today, citing the Hiragata Fishermen’s Union in Ibaraki city, Ibaraki prefecture, just south of the damaged power plant. … Radioactive iodine in seawater near the plant was 630 times the regulatory limit on April 3, Tepco said in a statement. The sample was taken 330 meters south of where the water was discharged. … Concerns about radioactive fish have caused sales to drop, even after the government ordered a stop to fishing off the coast of Fukushima. At the Tsukiji fish market in central Tokyo, sales of fresh fish fell to an average 583 metric tons per day in the week ended March 17, 28 percent lower from a year earlier. Sales dropped by 44 percent in the week to March 24. Total trading volumes fell by 25 percent and 23 percent, according to official data. …
Fishing Group Protests Fukushima Radioactive Dump as Tokyo Sales Plummet 
By Jon Hamilton
5 April 2011 Every day, hundreds of tons of fish and seaweed are bought and sold at Tokyo’s seafood markets. The markets are still bustling, but prices have fallen sharply amid concerns that some products might be contaminated with radioactive material leaking from Japan’s troubled Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant. How likely is that? NPR posed the question to Masashi Kusakabe, director of the Nakaminato Laboratory for Marine Radioecology not far from Tokyo. The research center is devoted to figuring out precisely what happens to radioactive material that gets into the ocean. Kusakabe says what’s been getting into the Pacific Ocean near Fukushima is mostly radioactive iodine. It dissolves in water, and experiments have shown that the iodine tends to concentrate in algae. Then it gets even more concentrated as it works its way up the food chain. Kusakabe says that might sound bad, “but the iodine we’re talking about now is iodine -131, which has a very short half-life at eight days.” Every eight days, half of the iodine goes away. So after a few weeks, there’s not much iodine-131 left in a fish. Kusakabe says radioactive cesium is a lot worse: Its half-life is measured in decades, not days. But so far, much less cesium has gotten into the ocean at Fukushima. Also, the ocean is so vast that radioactive materials are heavily diluted by the time they travel even a few miles. So the Japanese fish most likely to become contaminated are the ones that spend their entire lives right near the Fukushima power plant. And the government isn’t letting fishing vessels anywhere near the place. …
