Dump It in the Ocean: TEPCO's Plan for Radioactive Fukushima Water

A nuclear expert helping with the clean-up at the crisis-stricken Fukushima plant has joined a chorus of voices saying that all the accumulating radioactive waste water must eventually be dumped into the ocean.

Speaking with Australia’s ABC, Dale Klein, former head of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) and current head of the Nuclear Reform Monitoring Committee hired by plant operator TEPCO, described the situation at the plant as “challenging.”

Massive amounts of radioactive water used to cool the reactors continue to build up daily in hastily built storage tanks, some which have already leaked, creating an unsustainable scenario.

Eventually, Klein told ABC, that water must be treated to reduce its radioactivity and then dumped into he ocean.

“At the end of the day, when the water is discharged, it will be released in a way that it’s diluted,” he said.

“So there’s no risk to public health and safety. But it’s an emotional issue.”

More mishaps at Fukushima, like when a rat chewed wiring and caused a power outage, are likely to come, Klein warned.

“I think we will see more of those. When you look at that site, it’s massive,” he said.

“It’s a big site and it’s not unusual to have other things like that,” he told ABC.

Klein’s comments that the waste water will head to the ocean echo those that Lake Barrett, a former NRC official who also serves on TEPCO’s committee, offered in an op-ed in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists in September.