IAEA chief visits Fukushima before radioactive water is released

The United Nations nuclear chief was to visit Japan's tsunami-wrecked nuclear power plant Wednesday after the agency affirmed the safety of a contentious plan to release treated radioactive water into the sea.On his way to the Fukushima Daiichi plant, a highlight of his four-day Japan visit, International Atomic Energy Agency chief Rafael Mariano Grossi joined a meeting of government and utility officials, as well as local mayors and fishing association leaders, and stressed the continuous presence of this agency throughout the water discharge to ensure safety and address the residents' concerns.

“What is happening is not something exceptional, some strange plan that has been devised only to be applied here, and sold to you,” Grossi said in his opening remarks in Iwaki, about 40 kilometers (25 miles) south of the plant. “This is, as certified by the IAEA, the general practice that is agreed by and observed in many, many places all over the world.”For people's doubts and concerns, “I must admit I don't have a magic wand … but we do have one thing," Grossi said. “We are going to stay here with you for decades to come until the last drop of the water which is accumulated around the reactor has been safely discharged."

That means IAEA will be reviewing, inspecting, checking the validity of the plan in the decades to come, he said.The IAEA, in its final report released Tuesday, concluded the plan to release the wastewater — which would be significantly diluted but still have some radioactivity — meets international standards, and its environmental and health impact would be negligible.But local fishing organizations have rejected the plan because they worry that their reputation will be damaged even if their catch isn’t contaminated. It is also opposed by groups in South Korea, China and some Pacific Island nations due to safety concerns and political reasons.Fukushima's fisheries association adopted a resolution on June 30 to reaffirm their rejection to the treated water discharge plan.

During Wednesday's meeting, Fukushima fishery association chief Tetsu Nozaki urged government officials “to remember that the treated water plan is pushed forward despite our opposition.”Iwaki Mayor Hiroyuki Uchida asked the government to prioritize a thorough explanation rather than their release timeline.Grossi told a news conference Tuesday, “I believe in transparency, I believe in open dialogue and I believe in the validity of the exercise we are carrying out.”During a briefing Wednesday, South Korean officials said it’s highly unlikely that water with risky contamination levels would be pumped out into the ocean. Officials also stressed that South Korea plans to maintain tight screening across seafood imported from Japan and that there were no immediate plans to lift the country’s import ban on seafood from the Fukushima region.