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Tanks at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in Japan store water that was treated but is still radioactive. (AP/Yonhap News)

Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) will soon begin construction of an underwater tunnel for the release of radioactive wastewater from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant into the ocean, scheduled for next spring. This comes after the country’s Nuclear Regulation Authority officially approved the plan to release the toxic water into the ocean, while local governments including Fukushima Prefecture also consented to the construction.

TEPCO, the company that operates the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, where radioactive material was leaked during a massive earthquake and tsunami in 2011, announced Tuesday that it received written opinions consenting to the construction of an underwater tunnel for the release of contaminated water into the ocean from local governments including Fukushima Prefecture and Okuma and Futaba, where the plant is located.

While delivering a written opinion, Fukushima Prefecture Governor Masao Uchibori reportedly said, “There are many different opinions still, including those who oppose releasing the contaminated water into the ocean. I ask the government and TEPCO to continue partaking in dialogue.”

Fishers are still staunchly against the release of the contaminated water into the ocean. When Japan’s Nuclear Regulation Authority announced its decision to officially approve the plan to release the toxic water into the ocean from the Fukushima Daiichi site on July 22, Tetsu Nozaki, the president of a cooperative association for fishers in Fukushima Prefecture, expressed his “unwavering stance against the release of the contaminated water into the ocean.”

Once administrative procedures regarding the construction of the underwater tunnel such as approval from the Nuclear Regulation Authority and consent from nearby local governments are completed, construction is likely to begin in earnest. The Yomiuri Shimbun newspaper reported on Wednesday that construction for the tunnel “is scheduled to begin on Thursday at the earliest,” adding that excavators for the digging have been dispatched near the construction site and that construction will take about eight months and a half.

TEPCO plans to newly build a 1-kilometer-long underwater tunnel near the coast where the nuclear plant is located and release the contaminated water through the tunnel for the sake of fishers who may be negatively affected by the release. The tunnel will be three kilometers wide and created by digging through the bedrock near nuclear generators No. 5 and 6 at the Fukushima plant across a length of 1 kilometer. TEPCO surveyed the waters near the nuclear power plant and reportedly came to the conclusion that building a tunnel would be fine.

The Japanese government plans to lower the concentration of radioactive material within the 1.25 million tons of contaminated water being stored in tanks at the first nuclear power plant site in Fukushima, after which it will release the water into the ocean over a period of roughly 30 years starting next spring. The Japanese government also stated that the concentration of tritium, a radioactive substance that cannot be eliminated even with the advanced liquid processing system, will be diluted to below 2.5%.

By Kim So-youn, Tokyo correspondent

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