OKUMA, Japan— Japan is getting ready to discharge a sizable amount of treated radioactive wastewater into the sea, twelve years after the triple reactor meltdowns at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.

According to Japanese officials, the release is inevitable and should begin soon.

The decommissioning of the plant is a more difficult task than handling the wastewater. The removal of melted nuclear fuel hasn't even begun, and that process hasn't even made much progress.

Journalists from AP saw 30 enormous tanks used to sample and analyze water for safety checks while on site. The final stages of construction are being put into a concrete facility for dilution of the treated and examined water. The water will then be released from there via an underwater tunnel.

The facilities should be ready by spring, according to Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings, the plant's operator. The Nuclear Regulation Authority must grant TEPCO safety authorization. The International Atomic Energy Agency will send a mission to Japan and publish a report prior to the discharge in order to work with Japan to make sure the project complies with international standards.

On March 11, 2011, a magnitude 9.0 earthquake sparked a sizable tsunami that obliterated the plant's power and cooling systems, causing reactors Nos. 1, 2, and 3 to melt and release a lot of radiation. In the basements of the reactor buildings, cooling water that was used to cool the reactor cores mixed with groundwater and rainwater.

The daily production of 130 tons of contaminated water is collected, cleaned, and then stored in tanks, the number of which has grown to about 1,000 and has taken up much of the plant's grounds. Caesium and other radionuclides that exceed allowable limits are still present in about 70% of the "ALPS-treated water," so named because of the devices that were used to filter it.

TEPCO claims that the radioactivity can be lowered to safe levels and that it will make sure that water that has not been sufficiently filtered is treated until it reaches the required level.

Tritium cannot be removed from the water but is regularly released by all nuclear plants and is harmless in small amounts, according to officials. They claim that it will be diluted along with other radioactive isotopes. According to TEPCO, the water release will be gradual, and tritium concentrations won't go above those of the plant before the accident.

Since the disaster in 2011, Fukushima Daiichi has had difficulty managing the contaminated water. According to the government and TEPCO, the tanks need to be removed to make room for decommissioning facilities like storage for melted fuel debris and other highly contaminated waste. The tanks are 96% full and should reach their 1.37 million tons of capacity in the fall.

To reduce the chance that contaminated water would leak in the event of another significant earthquake or tsunami, they also want to release the water in a controlled, treated manner. Through a pipe, it will be transported from the sampling tanks to a coastal pool, where it will be diluted with seawater before being released through an underwater tunnel to a location 0.6 miles (0.9 km) offshore.

The release of contaminated water from the Fukushima nuclear plant is causing more worry in local fishing communities. The owner of a seafood shop in Iwaki, a town south of the plant, Katsumasa Okawa, is optimistic that any further setbacks will be minor and that the releases will allay people's concerns about consuming fish from Fukushima.

To assist Fukushima fisheries and deal with "reputation damage" brought on by the release, the government has set aside 80 billion yen ($580 million). As part of TEPCO's efforts to reassure the public, hundreds of flounder and abalone have been kept in two groups, one in regular seawater and the other in diluted treated water.

The flounder's radioactivity increased while it was in the treated water, but it returned to normal within days of being placed back in untreated seawater. This bolsters his support data showing a minimal effect on marine life from tritium.

Fukushima Daiichi has struggled to handle the contaminated water since the 2011 disaster. The government and TEPCO want to release the water in a controlled, treated way to avoid the risk of leaks in case of another major earthquake or tsunami.

The tanks are 96% full and expected to reach their capacity of 1.37 million tons in the fall. The water will be sent through a pipe from the sampling tanks to a coastal pool to be diluted with seawater and released through an undersea tunnel to a point 1 kilometer (0.6 miles) offshore.

The Fukushima nuclear plant's release of contaminated water is causing local fishing communities more worry. The owner of a seafood shop in Iwaki, which is south of the plant, Katsumasa Okawa, hopes that any additional setbacks will be brief and that the releases will reassure people about eating fish from Fukushima.

TEPCO has kept hundreds of flounder and abalone in two groups, one in regular seawater and the other in diluted treated water, in an effort to reassure the public. 580 million dollars have been set aside by the government to support the Fukushima fisheries and repair "reputation damage" brought on by the release.

The effect of the water on people, the environment, and marine life will be minimal, according to TEPCO officials, and it will be monitored before, during, and after the releases. Simulations indicate that radioactivity does not increase past 3 km (1.8 mi) from the coast.

However, further research is required because there may be worse health effects from ingesting tritium and other radioisotopes through the food chain than from drinking water that contains them. Environmental organizations are against the release and have suggested solidifying the water to store it for a long time, as is done at the Savannah River waste repository in the United States.

880 tons of melted nuclear fuel from three reactors that is fatally radioactive is being removed by TEPCO's decommissioning unit. Robotic probes have provided some data, but it is largely unknown how the melted debris is doing.

A tiny sample from the reactor in Unit 1 was successfully obtained earlier this year by a remote-controlled underwater vehicle. After a two-year delay, the trial removal of melted debris from Unit 2 will start later this year, and the spent fuel removal from Unit 1's cooling pool will begin in 2027 after a ten-year delay. The focus will shift to getting melted debris out of the reactors once all of the spent fuel has been removed.

The objective, according to Ono, is a good "guidepost," but too little is known. The government has maintained its initial decommissioning completion target of 30 to 40 years without specifying what that entails.

According to Ryo Omatsu, a specialist in the legal ramifications of nuclear plant decommissioning, an overly ambitious schedule could cause excessive environmental harm as well as unnecessary radiation exposure for plant workers.

By 2051, according to some experts, it would be impossible to remove all of the melted fuel debris.

Source : AP News