Antonio Hermosín Gandul and Yoko Kaneko |
Soma (Japan) EFE).- After more than a decade weighed down by the 2011 nuclear crisis, the fishermen of Fukushima now fear that the imminent spillage of residual water from the damaged atomic plant into the Pacific will torpedo their efforts to return to normality.
Restrictions on local fishing in the aftermath of the atomic accident were fully lifted in 2021, though catch limitations for sustainability reasons and nuclear stigma keep fishing activities well below pre-disaster levels.
The fishermen of Fukushima, once one of the most renowned fishing grounds in Japan, now see a new blow to their reputation coming: the discharge into the ocean of tons of radioactive and purified water from the plant, a measure to which they strongly oppose. firmness despite the compensation and security guarantees offered by the Japanese authorities.
A difficult stigma to erase
At the Soma fish market, about 50 kilometers north of the crashed atomic plant, the biggest day’s catch is octopus, squid and flounder. Dozens of workers quickly unload the fresh fish and transport it in buckets and boxes to the wholesale market in a warehouse a few meters from where the trawlers moor.
The marine products caught here, as well as in other parts of the Fukushima coast, have been the subject of constant radioactivity analysis since 2011 by the Japanese authorities. The results, which are made public, show levels within national limits in practically all the samples.
Despite this monitoring and successive information campaigns to erase the radioactive stigma attached to fish and other foods originating in this region, they are still viewed with mistrust by consumers throughout Japan and are even scarce in local supermarkets.
“We feel that there is still a negative influence,” says Tomomitsu Konno, president of the Soma-Futaba fishing cooperative, who nevertheless considers that the analyzes of the catches “are gradually improving” the image of their products.
Still, Konno estimates that fishing activities have barely recovered 20 to 30 percent from pre-disaster levels.
tidal wave in sight
The Japanese government and the operator of the damaged plant, TEPCO, plan to begin this summer to discharge some 1.32 million tons of contaminated water from the plant into the Pacific, after being processed to remove most of the radioactive isotopes (except tritium) and mixed with seawater.
The Japanese authorities maintain that the discharge will have a tritium concentration well below the legal limit established for drinking water.
In addition, samples of seawater and aquatic fauna in the area will be taken before and during discharge to analyze their environmental impact, in a supervision process in which both TEPCO and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and laboratories will participate. independent.
rejection to discharge
None of this has been enough to convince the fishermen in the area, who have remained immovable in their rejection of the spill since the Japanese government approved the measure in 2021. Since then, the Executive has been trying to win their understanding with explanatory meetings and with measures of economical support.
“We are against all the fishing associations at the national level and those of Fukushima,” says Konno, who attended a meeting last week on the subject with the government.
Konno admits that it is a “difficult situation”, since they understand that the discharge “is a necessary task” in the process of dismantling the plant, where the space to store the contaminated and purified liquid is running out.
The head of the Soma-Futaba cooperative also expresses doubts about the effectiveness of the measures proposed by the Government to mitigate the impact of the discharge on their activities, and is confident that “all possible efforts will be made” in this regard.
The spill comes after most of the countries and territories that imposed restrictions on imports of products from Fukushima in the aftermath of the 2011 accident have fully or partially lifted these measures.
China and the Forum of Pacific Countries have voiced opposition to the dumping in the Pacific, while Hong Kong, the world’s second-biggest market for Japan’s food exports, has threatened to ban products from Fukushima if the spill goes ahead.