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Japan faces decision over contaminated Fukushima nuclear plant water

34 Comments
By Aaron Sheldrick

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34 Comments
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So, make a decision.

7 ( +8 / -1 )

there has been renewed focus on safeguarding the venues.

So screw the workers?? No matter if the Olympics are going to be held nearby or not, safeguarding the public SHOULD have been priority number one all along!

If there are questions or problems, the venues should NEVER have been proposed and placed in those locations!

11 ( +11 / -0 )

 Photography was highly restricted and no conversations were allowed with the workers.

This is right inline with the cover up efforts. What are they hiding?

13 ( +13 / -0 )

If they took the water by tanker out into the Pacific and dumped it thru a long pipe, it wouldn’t need to be diluted first. The ocean currents would do that quite effectively.

5 ( +5 / -0 )

Japan doesn't face a decision.

Japan Inc. already made this decision.

This water will be dumped into the sea, and to hell with the consequences. In the meantime, Tepco will continue neck-deep in the trough of corporate socialism, and bleed the taxpayer white with no-bid, top-drawer fees for "clean-up" which clearly isn't happening.

And the Japanese taxpayer will say "shoganai" and continue to vote for this corrupt cabal.

7 ( +7 / -0 )

A choice between evaporation and ocean dumping suggests they should maybe do both at the same time.

Would evaporation require more space for the creation of artificial lakes somewhere? Only pure water would actually evaporate, I guess. The sludge left at the bottom would be a problem, but it would certainly reduce the overall storage space necessary, and in the meantime several half lives would hopefully have taken place among the radioactive elements within.

2 ( +2 / -0 )

Why cant they recycle the contaminated water they already have through the melted core for cooling, why do they need fresh water continuously just for cooling.?

The heads of Tepco who were in charge prior to this disaster, the govt officials who allowed this to be built and continued to operate with out the proper precautions should all be in a special prison and only allowed to drink and bath in this contaminated water for the rest of their lives.

1 ( +1 / -0 )

When Tokyo won the bid to host the 2020 Summer Olympics Prime Minister Shinzo Abe declared that Fukushima was "under control" in his final pitch to the International Olympic Committee.

Another in a long list of blatant lies. As usual, this guy comes out of the swamp again smelling like roses.

3 ( +4 / -1 )

Is there any concern over biological amplification?

I remember learning about the decimation of the bird population in the Santa Barbara Channel Islands in elementary school caused by the DDT that was dumped in the ocean. Unfortunately in this case, the solution to pollution was not dilution. Also, are any of you big on swordfish?

0 ( +0 / -0 )

They'll dump it, guaranteed. And immediately after, when other nations rightly ban seafood products from the areas that collect and or dump the waste, they'll cry victim and say it is "illegal" and "regrettable" and "unfair". And only yesterday we have the usual suspects on here talking about how Abe said "radiation in A country is 100 times that of Fukushima" as though the words of government and TEPCO are those of god and must be believed, and other countries have no right to question them.

If they dump it, ALL seafood products from Japan should be banned immediately, for safety reasons in some cases, but also as a penalty for dumping their private waste in the océans. Japan and others have gone on and on for décades about how cheap and environmentally friendly nuclear power is, and how they "had no idea" they were building a nuclear reactor on top of shifting plates (when there is proof they knew), and have likewise had décades to come up with solutions for this kind of problem. The fact that they have not should not be the world's problem.

5 ( +8 / -3 )

Aw c'mon just dump it like you are gonna do anyway. Just bow and get the "Shikattaganai" over with.

5 ( +6 / -1 )

Woo.....Radiation...danger....death..... Hiroshima...Nagasaki.....Chernobyl....

Get real! Its an extremely low level of contamination of a fairly harmless form of radiation.

The PROBLEM is people’s perception. Customers won’t buy fish from Japan, fishermen lose money.

They will eventually slowly release it into the ocean where it will do no harm whatsoever.

Probably starting just after the Olympics. ;)

-4 ( +1 / -5 )

I don't think they have a choice. There is more water to deal with and they have almost run out of space . . . .

1 ( +1 / -0 )

Photography was highly restricted and no conversations were allowed with the workers.

So take everything the gov and TEPCO says with a grain of salt.

3 ( +4 / -1 )

TEPCO has opened English-language Twitter and Facebook accounts,

Now there is one friend request I won't be accepting!

3 ( +3 / -0 )

Instead of the Pacific Ocean, how about considering one of their many lakes?

-1 ( +0 / -1 )

Dump it in Inawashiro, It'll get filtered locally.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

@Mr Kipling

Your comments are not in line with scientific observations...

2 ( +4 / -2 )

Yes dump it already!

It has been diluted several times over. Other countries have done the same in the past under similar circumstances.

-6 ( +2 / -8 )

Coming soon? Japan will make a decision

0 ( +0 / -0 )

why do they need fresh water continuously just for cooling.?

There's a limit to the amount of contamination that can be managed using chemicals so that's why you need fresh water otherwise it becomes supersaturated beyond treatment making the problem much much worse.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Japanese authorities always tell others. (Be it a person or a country ) to follow the rules or admit to when they make a mistake. What I do not get is WHY cannot they (the Japanese government and the authorities) follow what they tell others to do!! Seriously people there is a serious double standard here!! I am 100% sure IF this was in South Korea and they were about to dump this kind of problem into the ocean Japan and its government would be up in arms over it!!

Is there ANYONE on here that will disagree with me??

1 ( +4 / -3 )

If the water is cleaned from radioactive particles, only tritium will be released. Like it is done by any other nuclear power plant around the world - of which some release more Bequerel than now planned at Fukushima. The undertaking is basically nothing but an image problem which of course will be exploit by some countries or people.

Here is a neutral fact report about it: https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=&sl=de&tl=en&u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww1.wdr.de%2Fwissen%2Ftechnik%2Ffukushima-radioaktives-wasser-meer-100.html

Once the release started, there will be numerous NGOs measuring the radioactivity, there will be numbers and they will be tiny - if at all sticking out of random noise - but boosted up by certain people.

2 ( +2 / -0 )

Stop nuclear plants thats all. Imagine the people working there ???.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Kurisuke...

Your comments are not in line with scientific observations

Sorry to disappoint, but they are. The panic crowd are the ones not in line.

0 ( +1 / -1 )

Think of the reverse situation. What would Japan do if another nearby country was making noises about dumping tons of radioactive water into seas nearby. They wouldn’t stand for it for one second. Should be the same in this case - Japan has to come up with a better solution within its own borders and forget about the Olympics. Should a two week sporting event in Tokyo really be the reason for polluting the ocean for future generations of its citizens?

0 ( +1 / -1 )

What would Japan do if another nearby country was making noises about dumping tons of radioactive water into seas nearby.

If it was Abe and Trump was doing the dump, he would completely support it - especially if it needed money. If it was an "Asian" country, like South Korea, or, heaven forbid, North Korea or China, it would be WWIII!

0 ( +1 / -1 )

The decision was made months ago. Then again, you could say the decision was made years ago. They've been sitting on their hands waiting for this day. There are alternatives to dumping this radioactive water in the sea, but they have avoided doing anything about it until they have no choice than to dump it in the sea because it's the cheap alternative. It is well known that tritium can be removed from water, despite what these mullets keep saying. However, the process is costly, so it was ignored. There was a report a few months ago admitting the water has not been properly filtered and contains many more isotopes than just tritium, but that information seems to have been buried and forgotten. The fact the visitors were restricted to take photos and were not allowed to interview any staff members clearly points to some kind of cover up. They have kept all foreign reporters and experts out of the clean up and have refused any international help or advice from international experts. The conflicting reports and media sanctioning make their actions extremely suspicious. There was another report two years ago stating the ice-wall was not working and radioactive water has been leeching into the sea and groundwater since day one. What are they trying to hide? An international regulatory needs to be given full access to the site to make non-biased assessments of this disaster. It's quite obvious Japan can not be trusted.

1 ( +1 / -0 )

Well, As a fisherman on Hawaiian island I can tell all that the amounts of pelagic species

like tuna have decreased to 5% of what is was . I feel the radioactive water destroys the eggs

that drift about the currents. Sad story. I love tuna.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Hmm... wonder how long it will take to evaporate ?

0 ( +0 / -0 )

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