A local fishermen’s association in Fukushima Prefecture decided at a Sept. 12 meeting to resume test fishing operations off the prefecture by the end of this month, after deciding members' catches will be safe for consumption.
A local fishermen’s association in Fukushima Prefecture decided at a Sept. 12 meeting to resume test fishing operations off the prefecture by the end of this month, after deciding members' catches will be safe for consumption.
The Soma-Futaba fisheries cooperative association had postponed its initial plan to restart trial operations in early September, after hundreds of tons of radioactive water were found to be flowing from the crippled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant into the sea near the facility.
But more recently, investigations by the Fukushima prefectural government have shown radioactivity levels in fish it plans to start catching, as well as in the sea, are below detection limits. Thus, the association has determined its catches will be safe to eat.
The fisheries union currently plans to resume trawling for 16 marine species, including North Pacific giant octopus, horsehair crabs and “kichiji” rockfish. It also intends to restart seine fishing off the prefecture for young sardines as early as mid-October.
The Soma-Futaba association resumed its test fishing and marketing in June last year, and planned to restart operations again earlier this month.
But, because the Agency for Natural Resources and Energy in August released projections that 300 tons of radioactive water are leaking from the Fukushima plant into the sea each day, the union decided to delay the resumption date.
That marked a disappointment for the Soma-Futaba association, which had 101 members killed in the tsunami on March 11, 2011, spawned by the Great East Japan Earthquake, and its Matsukawaura Port devastated.