![]() ![]() ![]() “If I thought it was going to impact my health in the short-term, then I wouldn’t touch it. “And my gut feeling is that what Tepco and the government are doing isn’t right.”Įven so, he has no intention of removing local seafood from his diet. “I accept the scientific explanations about why the tritium doesn’t pose a risk, but this is all about natural human reactions,” the 48-year-old adds. “They only just started releasing the water today, so perhaps my fish won’t be affected yet,” he jokes. Takayuki Endo was not worried by the wastewater’s release and was hoping to catch a flounder for dinner. “The sea is our workplace … it’s where we go to make a living.” skip past newsletter promotion But Ono, who will fish for flounder, mackerel and whitebait next week, said he would rather work without fear than depend on financial support. The government has allocated ¥80bn ($550m) to support fisheries and seafood processing and address potential reputational damage. ![]() While many in Fukushima accept the science behind the decision to discharge diluted wastewater into the sea over the next 30 to 40 years, they believe Japan’s government has failed to convince consumers that their catch is safe. ![]() It has abandoned the people of Fukushima to protect Tepco.” “The government hasn’t listened to fishing communities in deciding how to deal with the water. “We were 100% opposed the water release, we still oppose it, and we will continue to oppose it,” says Ono, whose brother died in the triple disaster. He says fishing cooperatives across Fukushima are united in the belief that pumping the water – enough to fill of 540 Olympic swimming pools – into the ocean will undermine more than a decade of work to revive their industry. Haruo Ono, 71, who has fished off the Fukushima coast since he was 15, says government assurances will do nothing to protect him and other fishers from harmful rumours over the safety of their catch. But the technology is unable to do the same to tritium, a radioactive isotope of hydrogen that Japanese officials backed by the International Atomic Energy Agency, and many scientists, insist has no detrimental effect on human health in low doses. The plant’s operator, Tokyo Electric Power (Tepco), uses on-site filtration to reduce amounts of more than 60 radionuclides to government-set releasable levels. “The fishing communities of Japan are feeling increasingly anxious as they witness this moment” despite government assurances, the head of the country’s fisheries co-operative said in a statement. Photograph: Justin McCurry/The GuardianĬhina’s decision to ban all Japanese seafood in response to the discharge added to fears among people in coastal communities near the stricken plant that pumping “contaminated” water into the sea will sound the death knell for the local fishing industry. And if people stop buying fish from Fukushima, I’m out of a job.”Īwa-jinja is a shrine in Shinchi-machi, a town north of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, where fishers pray for safety at sea. “They certainly don’t want to give it to their children. “Our family eats seafood from Fukushima all the time, but now I hear people say that they won’t buy it,” says Haruko, a mother of three who declined to give her family name. In images broadcast live online on Thursday, engineers behind computer screens opened valves to allow the first batch of 1.3m tonnes of wastewater from the plant to flow into the sea. “That,” she indicates with the wave of a hand in the direction of the sea, is the start of the most controversial stage in the long, and fraught, task of decommissioning the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant after it was struck by a powerful earthquake and tsunami in March 2011, which caused three of its reactors to go into meltdown. “That has only just started, and prices were already down at auction this morning,” says Haruko, a fish trader, as she sits in the shade with a carton of fruit juice while other workers hose down the concrete forecourt. ![]()
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