UN nuclear agency team watches Japanese lab workers prepare fish samples from damaged nuclear plant
Scientists from the U.N. nuclear agency have watched Japanese lab workers prepare samples of fish collected at a seafood market near the Fukushima nuclear plant to test the safety of treated radioactive wastewater released from the damaged plant into the sea
ONJUKU, Japan (AP) — Scientists from the U.N. nuclear agency watched Friday as Japanese lab workers prepared samples of fish collected at a seafood market near the Fukushima nuclear plant to test the safety of treated radioactive wastewater released from the damaged plant into the sea.
The discharge of wastewater began on Aug. 24 and is expected to continue for decades. It has been strongly opposed by fishing groups and neighboring countries, including China and Russia, which have banned all imports of Japanese seafood.
Japan's government and the plant operator, Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings, say the discharge is unavoidable because wastewater storage tanks at the plant will be full next year. They say the water produced by the damaged plant is treated to reduce radioactivity to safe levels, and then diluted with massive amounts of seawater to make it much safer than international standards.
On Friday, a team from the International Atomic Energy Agency watched as fish samples were prepared at the Marine Ecology Research Institute in the coastal town of Onjuku near Tokyo. The team is in Japan to inspect the collection and processing of seawater, sediment and fish samples from the area of the plant, which was damaged by a massive earthquake and tsunami in March 2011 that knocked out its cooling systems and caused three reactors to melt.
