UN Approves Japan's Plan to Dump Radioactive Water Into Ocean
Views (55)
Water Ways The United Nations has given Japan the green light to dump into the Pacific Ocean its troves of treated radioactive water from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster in 2011. As Reuters reports, the UN's International Atomic Energy Agency has concluded its two-year study into the Fukushima cooling water — which is enough to fill […]
Japan, however, claims it has done its homework and has been trying to assuage any concerns.
In a press conference in China last month, Japanese officials said that the water has been filtered over the years to remove most radioactive elements except for the hydrogen isotope tritium, which, as the report notes, is difficult to separate from water.
In spite of those assurances, however, detractors are nevertheless concerned about the controversial decision.
Chief among those critics is Beijing, which accused Japan of "completely confusing concepts and misleading public opinion" and the UN of hastily releasing its report.
"If the Japanese side is bent on going its own way," the Chinese foreign ministry said in a statement to the press, as quoted by Reuters, "it must bear all the consequences."
Regardless of the UN's go-ahead, Japan will have the final say in the decision — the concluding outcome of a disaster that occurred well over a decade ago.
0 Likes