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Members of Greenpeace Korea protest Japan’s plan to release radioactively contaminated water into the ocean in front of the Japanese Embassy in Seoul in July 2020. (provided by Greenpeace)

On April 13, the Japanese government made the decision to release contaminated water currently being stored at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant into the ocean. The process is scheduled to start in two years and span around 30 years.

The current amount stands at 1.25 million tons and is only expected to grow, which makes it impossible to gauge how much will actually be dumped into the sea.

Japan has ignored warnings that the decision could threaten people’s lives and the environment in general. Claiming that its decision “conforms to international standards,” it has dismissed the voices of concern as an “emotional” response. South Korea’s objections, in particular, have been written off as a reflection of “anti-Japan sentiments.”

The Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant is currently undergoing decommissioning after its operations were halted by an explosion following the Tohoku earthquake in 2011. The amount of contaminated water continues to grow even now as rainwater and underground water infiltrate the water cooling the nuclear fuel that melted due to the accident.

For some time, the Japanese government has been boasting that a single round of purification with its advanced liquid processing system (ALPS) for multinuclide removal has reduced radioactive substances besides tritium to below the threshold.

But that confidence took a severe hit in 2018 when Japanese news outlets reported that potentially fatal radioactive substances such as cesium, strontium and iodine were present above threshold levels in around 70 percent of the contaminated water.

It remains in that state even today. The only difference is that the previously used term “tritium water” has been replaced with “ALPS-treated water.”

The Japanese government acknowledges that radioactive materials are present but claims it can reduce them to below threshold levels with a second purification process. The Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) stressed that there was “no issue scientifically,” claiming a second purification of around 2,000 tons — 0.16 percent of the total contaminate water — reduced radioactive substances below the threshold.

It isn’t just Japan that is telling people not to worry. Some eminent nuclear energy professors in South Korea have joined the chorus. They point to graphs drawn up by TEPCO and insist that we should “stop making such a fuss,” warning of the potential, needless losses for fishers and the seafood industry.

But people need to make a fuss: the victims who suffered severe health damage from humidifier disinfectant, the workers dying of leukemia in dust-free semiconductor factories, the people living in a society where children are not free to romp around because of fine particle dust, the people who are witnessing the disaster of climate change unfolding in real time.

And supposing that the radioactive substances are reduced to below the threshold, does that make them all right? Highly toxic substances like cesium, strontium and iodine are not supposed to be released into the sea from even ordinary nuclear power plants.

At this very moment, we are being exposed to radiation — in nature, in our food, in X-rays and so forth. It’s common sense that we should be strict about managing additional risks.

Commenting on the contaminated water before the National Assembly, South Korean Minister of Foreign Affairs Chung Eui-yong said Monday, “There is nothing to necessarily object to if they’re following the appropriate procedures according to International Atomic Energy Agency standards.”

I was quite taken aback to hear this. Had he forgotten all about what we fought so hard to achieve earlier in the Moon Jae-in administration with our 2019 World Trade Organization (WTO) dispute?

The case was brought by Japan against South Korea’s measures banning seafood imports from the Fukushima region. Unusually, South Korea won the case in the Appellate Body — the final hearing — after having lost in the initial hearing.

Japan insisted that the import ban was unjustified, claiming that a sample study of seafood from Fukushima showed substances such as cesium at below-threshold levels similar to those in other countries.

In response, South Korea characterized the special environment in Japan, with the leaking of radioactive material after the nuclear disaster, as posing as a “potential risk” that differed from other countries.

With its argument that its government has an obligation to minimize risk factors threatening its public’s lives and health, it won over the WTO and achieved an invaluable result. This signaled that even the WTO, which had valued trade relationships over the environment and health, had begun reading the changes in the times.

The Japanese government needs to find a safer way than the ocean release plan, and its South Korean neighbors need to insist even more strongly upon this. It is a basic human right to be able to live a healthy life without fear.

Kim So-youn

By Kim So-youn, Tokyo correspondent

Please direct comments or questions to [english@hani.co.kr]