The Japanese tsunami of 2011 was devastating for people living along this whole coastline. The presence of a nuclear power plant within the region left a lasting threat and this study highlights some of the complex challenges that need managing, and scientific questions that still need addressing. Being in a region prone to earthquakes and tsunamis, there is an obvious danger in simply storing radioactive water there indefinitely. But based on our research, not enough is known about the impacts of tritium on both environmental and human health to say that releasing the water into the ocean is completely safe.
Professor Awadhesh Jha
Professor in Genetic Toxicology and Ecotoxicology, and corresponding author on the research
Through our study, we have found research showing that fish have transported radioactive particles generated by the Fukushima incident far and wide. Like a number of other nuclear accidents before it, that makes what happened at Fukushima a global concern. As such, we urgently need global research into the impacts of tritium – and how they might be managed – especially with the nuclear power industry set to expand significantly. If it does indeed expand, the construction of nuclear power plants, especially in coastal regions, should also take into account worst-case scenarios of flooding, earthquakes and tsunamis as part of a fundamental goal to minimise radioactive discharges to the environment.
- The full study – Ferreira et al: Controlled Release of Radioactive Water from the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant: Should We Be Concerned? – will be published in Environmental Science and Technology, DOI: 10.1021/acs.est.3c08702.