![]() Richmond cites studies showing that radionuclides and debris released during the initial Fukushima accident were quickly detected nearly 5,500 miles away off the coast of California. “Anything released into the ocean off of Fukushima is not going to stay in one place.” “It’s a trans-boundary and trans-generational event,” says Robert Richmond, director of the Kewalo Marine Laboratory at the University of Hawaii, and a scientific adviser on the discharge plan to the Pacific Islands Forum. Now, American scientists are raising concerns that marine life and ocean currents could carry harmful radioactive isotopes-also called radionuclides-across the entire Pacific Ocean. On May 15, South Korea’s opposition leader derided Japanese leaders’ claims that the water is safe enough to drink: “If it is safe enough to drink, they should use it as drinking water.” A senior Chinese official recently called it a risk "to all mankind” and accused Japan of using the Pacific as a “sewer.” The head of the Pacific Islands Forum, an organization representing 18 island nations (some already traumatized by decades of nuclear testing in the region) dubbed it a Pandora’s box. While the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)-the UN’s nuclear watchdog-assesses the plan’s safety, some of Japan’s neighbors are criticizing it as unilateral and dangerous. Japan’s discharge plan involves incrementally releasing it over the next three decades, although some experts say it could take longer, given the amount still being produced. That storage space is about to run out, the Japanese government says, leaving no choice other than to begin dispensing the wastewater into the Pacific. Since the accident, over 1.3 million tons of nuclear wastewater have been collected, treated, and stored in a tank farm at the plant. State regulators will review the options the company selects, the MPCA said.Please be respectful of copyright. ![]() Xcel Energy is considering building above-ground storage tanks to store the contaminated water it recovers, and is considering options for the treatment, reuse, or final disposal of the collected tritium and water. “We continue to gather and treat all potentially affected water while regularly monitoring nearby groundwater sources.” “While this leak does not pose a risk to the public or the environment, we take this very seriously and are working to safely address the situation,” Chris Clark, president of Xcel Energy–Minnesota, North Dakota and South Dakota, said in the statement. Xcel said it has recovered about 25% of the spilled tritium so far, that recovery efforts will continue and that it will install a permanent solution this spring. Xcel reported a small tritium leak at Monticello in 2009. The NRC says tritium spills happen from time to time at nuclear plants, but that it has repeatedly determined that they’ve either remained limited to the plant property or involved such low offsite levels that they didn’t affect public health or safety. Since then, it has been pumping groundwater, storing and processing the contaminated water, which contains tritium levels below federal thresholds. 22, the same day it confirmed the leak, which came from a pipe between two buildings. The company said it notified the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the state on Nov. “Now that we have all the information about where the leak occurred, how much was released into groundwater, and that contaminated groundwater had moved beyond the original location, we are sharing this information,” he said, adding the water remains contained on Xcel’s property and poses no immediate public health risk. ![]() “We knew there was a presence of tritium in one monitoring well, however Xcel had not yet identified the source of the leak and its location,” Minnesota Pollution Control Agency spokesman Michael Rafferty said. State officials said they waited to get more information before going public with it. While Xcel reported the leak of water containing tritium to state and federal authorities in late November, the spill had not been made public before Thursday. ![]()
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