Japan Fishermen Reject Release of Fukushima Water to Ocean

Tepco Irradiated Water Find May Signal Problem for Bypass Plan

Tokyo Electric Power Co. (9501) found irradiated water near a storage tank that leaked last month at the Fukushima plant, complicating its plan for a pipeline to cut the volume of radioactive water it’s forced to manage. Inspectors found 650 becquerels per liter of beta radiation, which includes the contaminant strontium-90, Mayumi Yoshida, a spokeswoman for the utility known as Tepco, said today by phone. That’s more than 21 times government safety guidelines covering sea water near the plant for strontium-90, which has been linked to bone cancer.The samples were taken Sept. 4 from a newly dug monitoring well near the storage tank area where Tepco on Aug. 20 reported a leak of about 300 metric tons of water that had been used to cool reactor fuel. That area is important to Tepco’s bypass plan and had been thought free of contaminants.

Tepco is seeking permission from area fishermen to pump groundwater flowing toward the plant around its reactors and into the ocean. The objective is to cut the amount of water flooding reactor building basements. Since the groundwater would pass through the plant’s tank areas before entering the bypass system’s intake wells, the tainted water found this week could pose a contamination risk.

“It might be a problem,” Yoshida said. “We are investigating further.”

Tepco said it had explained to fisheries associations that the water in the bypass system wouldn’t touch contaminated areas and therefore can be safely pumped into the sea. Tepco has held at least four meetings with the various cooperatives.

Bypass Plan

The new contamination discovery could make it more difficult for Tepco to convince fishermen’s groups to sign off on the bypass. The utility’s disclosure in July that irradiated water is leaking into the Pacific has set back efforts by Fukushima fishermen to convince consumers their product is safe. Japanese government estimates put the leak at about 300 tons a day.

South Korea expanded an import ban on Japanese fisheries products today to include all items from Fukushima and seven other nearby prefectures, regardless of whether they showed contamination, according to an e-mailed statement from the Prime Minister’s Office.

“The measure comes as our people’s concerns are growing over the fact that hundreds of tons of radiation-contaminated water are leaked daily from the site of Japan’s nuclear accident in Fukushima,” Yonhap reported earlier today, citing the Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries.

The Fukushima site now has more than 338,000 metric tons of water stored in more than 1,000 tanks, with additional water remaining untreated in reactor basements and service tunnels.

Levels of toxic water are rising at a rate of 400 tons a day as groundwater seeping into basements mixes with cooling water that has been in contact with highly radioactive melted reactor cores. The bypass system would reduce the amount of contaminated water being stored by 100 tons a day, Tepco has said.

To contact the reporters on this story: Jacob Adelman in Tokyo at jadelman1@bloomberg.net; Yuji Okada in Tokyo at yokada6@bloomberg.net