Fukushima: the era of intentionally dumping toxic waste should be over
In 2011, less than an hour after Northeast Japan was devastated by the largest earthquake in the country’s history, a tsunami hit the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant and triggered a triple reactor meltdown. Now, a decade on from the disaster, more than 1 million tonnes of liquid sits in storage tanks near the reactors. On the 13th April 2021, Japan announced that it will release the contaminated water into the Pacific Ocean.
This decision disregards the human rights and interests of the people in Fukushima, wider Japan and the Asia-Pacific region. China’s Ministry of Ecology and Environment has urged Japan to consider all safe ways of disposal to deal with the issue, and promises to evaluate the possible impact of nuclear-contaminated wastewater on the marine environment and to strengthen the monitoring of radiation in the area.
Japan argues that the ecological and public health risk from the planned release is low, but the water release is still entirely unnecessary and avoidable. Unless and until the wastewater is independently certified as free of radionuclides, it should not be released into our one global ocean.
Ten years after Fukushima – women and children still suffer most
The disaster took the lives of almost 20,000, and displaced more than 160,000 people from their homes. But it is women and children who “have borne the brunt of human rights violations resulting from it,” according to a report by Greenpeace.
In addition to policy failures in the immediate aftermath of the disaster, the current government’s plans to resettle residents to heavily contaminated areas in Fukushima has led to further women’s and children’s rights violations. The government has cut subsidies being paid to evacuees and financial incentives are being used to persuade people to move back to areas that are not proven to be safe.
Women are not, however, the voiceless victims of this disaster. In recent years, thousands of mothers have together filed lawsuits against the Japanese government to fight for the continuation of housing support and fair compensation. They also demand accountability for the disaster from the government and Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO), the company running the Fukushima Daiichi plant.
"I want to stand in court, knowing that I am right to evacuate my child," says Ms Sonoda, who moved with her child from Fukushima to the UK. "We are right.”
Resistance to Fukushima’s wastewater dump
Japan has tried to assure residents that the release from Fukushima will be gradual, over the course of several decades. Nevertheless, local fishermen, several neighbouring countries, and many environmental activists remain fiercely opposed.
The water will be treated before being discharged, but it will still contain tritium, a radioactive hydrogen isotope that has been represented on a government website by a cute fish-like creature with rosy cheeks. The character has been named Tritium-kun – or Little Mr Tritium – an apparent reference to Pluto-kun, who appeared in the mid-1990s to soften the image of plutonium on behalf of Japan’s nuclear industry.
But while Little Mr Tritium was created to diffuse anxiety around the issue, South Korea seeks to take the issue to an international tribunal and possibly to seek an injunction, while Zhao Lijian, a spokesperson at the Chinese foreign office, said: “The ocean is not Japan’s rubbish bin, the Pacific Ocean is not Japan’s sewers.”
While insular nationalism is on the rise in many parts of the world, the Fukushima water release demonstrates how interconnected our global ecosystems are. The well-being of people all over the world depends on respecting and preserving natural resources, and for this reason we must fight to stop Japan from dumping nuclear waste.
Written by Caitlin - Conscience Collective
