After a strong protest from fisheries cooperatives, Tokyo Electric Power Co. will postpone the planned release of radioactive water into the sea from the stricken Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant.
After a strong protest from fisheries cooperatives, Tokyo Electric Power Co. will postpone the planned release of radioactive water into the sea from the stricken Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant. The decision came after Ikuhiro Hattori, chairman of the national federation of fisheries cooperatives, and other officials from the group protested TEPCO's plan in a meeting with Toshio Nishizawa, company president, on the morning of Dec. 8."We will weigh the issue of discharge after taking into consideration the opinion of the national federation of fisheries cooperatives," said Junichi Matsumoto, a TEPCO spokesman. "But keeping the storage of contaminated water by building more and more tanks will be unrealistic." The federation was notified of TEPCO's plan to discharge radioactive water accumulating in turbine buildings for the reactors and other facilities into the Pacific Ocean after treating it to reduce radiation levels. But the company did not include the release in its midterm plan for the operation of the plant it submitted to the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency later that day. The existing tanks at the plant hold about 100,000 tons of water and are expected to be full by March. TEPCO discharged water contaminated with low-level radiation in April, drawing criticism from the fisheries industry and foreign governments.