Stop Radioactive Contamination of the Pacific Ocean from the Fukushima nuclear power plant site!
Please sign the petition ! English site has just started! → https://goo.
We are Japanese citizens who want to stop releasing any more radioactively contaminated water into the ocean from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant accident site.
We ask your cooperation for this petition so that Tokyo Electric, the Japanese government, and the Nuclear Regulation Authority will responsibly implement measures to deal with the Fukushima accident and these radioactive discharges into the Pacific Ocean.
The ocean is the source for all life. Help us stop radioactive contamination of the Pacific Ocean!
It has now been more than four years since the start of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant accident on March 11th 2011.
The crisis at the Fukushima Daiichi site continues with no end in sight. However, the Japanese government is focusing much of its efforts on the restart of nuclear plants in Japan. Given the scale of the disaster at the Fukushima nuclear plant, it should instead prioritize all its efforts to reduce the risks to the environment and public health from the Fukushima plant.
Two years ago Prime Minister Shinzo Abe declared that the situation at the Fukushima nuclear site was “under control” when he was trying to secure Japan as the host for the 2020 Olympics. That was not true then and it is not true today. The Japanese government and Tepco must make all efforts to reduce the environmental threats from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant accident.
From March 11, 2011, there has been a continuous release of massive quantities of radioactive contamination not only into the air but also into the ocean. Tepco, the Japanese government, and the Nuclear Regulation Authority have continuously failed to undertake effective countermeasures to deal with liquid radioactive discharges. Moreover, they are now pushing forward plans to deliberately release these contaminated “processed” discharges into the environment, including the Pacific Ocean.
Tepco and the Japanese government have also neglected monitoring releases of contaminated water into the ocean, and, it was disclosed earlier this year that Tepco had withheld disclosing the fact that radioactive releases into the ocean had been taking place over the past years
It is unacceptable to the people of Japan that radioactive contamination is continuing in our oceans.
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe must meet his Tokyo Olympic commitments and get the Fukushima accident site under control.
Petition
- We petition Tepco to put a stop to radioactive water emissions to the outside of the bay from the contaminated trenches at the site, and stop the controlled releases of contaminated water into the ocean including from the groundwater pump-up by subdrain, groundwater drain, and tanks containing contaminated water (including water that has been “processed”).
- We petition the Nuclear Regulatory Authority to instruct Tepco to implement the above.
- We petition Tepco and the Japanese government to go back to the drawing boards and undertake a fundamental reassessment of measures to address the radioactive water contamination at the Fukushima Daiichi site including the issues of the “ice wall” and water containing tritium. It must select a plan that can be implemented and is safe.
- We petition the Japanese government to promptly disclose all information not just in Japanese but in multiple languages related to radioactive water contamination due to the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant accident.
- We petition Japan’s Nuclear Regulation Authority to declare a moratorium on its review of electric utility applications to restart nuclear power reactors, and, give top priority to undertaking measures to address the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant accident.
Radioactive discharges into the ocean have been continuous since the Fukushima accident:In February 2015, it was revealed that heavily contaminated water had been entering the ocean from the trenches at the Fukushima site. Tepco had been monitoring these releases since April the year before and knew what was going on, but did not make it public. The Nuclear Regulation Authority had neglected to take action. Contaminated water from Unit 2’s large object carry-in facility roof-top is suspected as the source of the contamination. Investigating the problem, however, is made difficult due to the very high levels of radiation around the reactor buildings, and thus the source of the contamination has not been identified. Radiation from the trenches has been entering the ocean since the start of the accident. It is a matter of urgency to prevent further releases.
Radioactively contaminated water increases daily:
Currently, Tepco pours approximately 320 tons of water daily into units 1, 2 and 3 reactor cores in order to cool the damaged nuclear fuel. The water, which become heavily contaminated, leaks out the bottom of the damaged reactor buildings where it then mixes with the approximately 300 tons of ground water that daily enters the reactor buildings from the cracked walls, etc. Tepco extracts just the cesium and salts from these heavily contaminated waters. About 320 tons is then returned to the cores each day to cool the damaged nuclear fuel. The remaining 300 tons is pumped into tanks set up above ground at the plant site.
The underground by-pass, sub-drain, and underground drain----discharging this pumped up water into the ocean:Since May of 2014, Tepco’s method of dealing with the continuous increase in contaminated water has been to pump the ground water from the 12 wells (underground by-pass) the company had created on the mountain side of the site (as opposed to the sea side), and releasing this water into the ocean. As of February 2015, this water totaled 83,740 tons (pumped up a total of 52 times), and contained a total of 15.2 billion becquerels of tritium. Tepco is also pushing to mobilize those locally engaged in fisheries to take part in the plans for releasing ground water discharge from the wells (43 sub-drains) in the vicinity of the reactor buildings and the wells on the ocean side of the site (the ground water drains). All this underground water is tritium-contaminated. Tepco, however, states that there is no problem with this release since it has set 1,500 becquerels per liter as the goal of the operational limit, and this is lower than the 60,000 becquerels per liter limit set by the national government. However, since there is absolutely no limit to the total amount of radiation that can be released, in actuality it amounts to no limitation on the quantity of radioactive materials that could be discharged into the ocean.
“Treated” water is also contaminated! 1000 trillion becquerels of tritium are in the tanks:
Tepco is using ALPS (the Multi-nuclide Removal System called the Advanced Liquid Processing System) as the countermeasure for getting the radioactivity out of the water which has been contaminated with very high levels of radiation. However, this equipment cannot remove the tritium of which there is several million becquerels per liter. The water that has gone through this equipment is called “processed water” by Tepco. However, this water should be considered contaminated water. The total amount of tritium contained in the tanks on site amounts to 1,000 trillion becquerels. This is 600 years worth of tritium that had been released to date at the Fukushima site. When considering the already massive quantities of other radionuclides that have been released inside and outside the bay at the Fukushima site besides tritium, no additional radiation should be released from the Fukushima site.
The Nuclear Regulation Authority (NRA) has abdicated its regulatory responsibilities---the NRA has not gained the understanding of the Fukushima people:
On January 2015, the Nuclear Regulation Authority decided its policy of discharging the “processed water”, the liquid that had been processed through the ALPS, etc., into the ocean. The fact a regulatory body would issue a policy which would defend the failures of Tepco’s contaminated-water countermeasures is equivalent to the regulatory relinquishing its regulatory duties. The National Federation of Fisheries Co-operative Associations publicly issued an executive statement that this decision by the Nuclear Regulation Authority was “exceedingly regrettable” and stated it “strongly petitions that contaminated discharges into the ocean which could not obtain the understanding of those engaged in fisheries and the national citizenry should absolutely not be undertaken.”
Stop the discharge and deliberate release into the ocean of radioactively contaminated water:
The Japanese government should, instead of working to restart nuclear power in Japan, prioritize all its efforts on getting the Fukushima nuclear power plant accident under control. Tepco and the Japanese government should immediately create a plan to stop the radioactive discharges into the ocean and implement that plan in order to reduce the risks to the environment and public health from the Fukushima plant.
Stop Radioactive Discharges into the Ocean Campaign
Organized by: Phase-Out Nuclear Energy Fukushima Network, Hairo Action Fukushima, Citizens’ Nuclear Information Center, The Nuclear Regulation Authority Citizen Watchdog Group, Osaka Citizens Against the Mihama, Ohi and Takahama Nuclear Power Plants (Mihama-no-Kai), Green Action (Japan)
Blog (in Japanese): http://stoposensui15.blogspot.com (The Japanese petition can be downloaded from this site.) You can also sign the petition (in Japanese) from this site: http://chn.ge/1Fpg9VK
