The government announced on the 19th that an expert inspection team will visit Japan from the 21st to the 26th to “check the status of polluted water management” at Tokyo Electric Power’s No. 1 nuclear power plant in Fukushima, Japan. The inspection team does not bring its own inspection equipment to Japan, and does not separately collect samples such as contaminated water. It is highly likely that the level of checking with the eyes on the site and requesting necessary data from the Japanese side is high, so concerns that it will be abused as a ‘sidekick’ to give legitimacy to the Japanese government’s discharge of contaminated water are not expected to subside.
Park Gu-yeon, first deputy head of the Office for Government Policy Coordination, held a press conference at the Seoul Government Complex on the same day, and a total of 21 people, including 19 experts on nuclear power plants and radiation from the Korea Institute of Nuclear Safety and Technology ( KINS ) and one expert on radiation in the marine environment from the Korea Institute of Ocean Science and Technology ( KIOST ), attended. It was announced that the ‘expert inspection team’ will depart for Japan on the 21st. Yu Gook-hee, chairman of the Nuclear Safety and Security Commission, serves as the inspection leader.
The inspection team visits Japan for 5 nights and 6 days, but the actual activity is four days between the 22nd and 25th. On the 22nd, a technical meeting and Q&A were held with related organizations such as Tokyo Electric Power Corporation and the Japan Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and on the 23rd and 24th, the status of contaminated water management at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant was confirmed. On the 25th, an in-depth technical meeting and Q&A will be held with related organizations in Japan. Regarding the management of ‘nuclear contaminated water’토토사이트, which is the core of this visit, Deputy Director Park said, “We are planning to look at the
multi-nuclide removal facility ( ALPS ) most intensively and intensively.” We will ask for sufficient information,” he said.
However, few conditions have been met to determine whether contaminated water is safe. First of all, there was no site visit by private experts necessary to secure social consensus on the results of the site visit by the inspection team. Japan refused to participate in the private sector. The ‘Pacific Islands Forum’ ( PIF ) , a gathering of 18 Pacific Island countries, falls short of the precedent of accompanying private experts such as the United States during a site visit to the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant in February. Immediately after the site inspection, the Pacific Islands Forum requested the Japanese government to postpone the release, saying, “It is not enough to judge the safety of the release to the sea.”
As if conscious of this, Deputy Director Park said, “We plan to separately organize and operate an advisory group of around 10 people, including private experts.”
They do not bring in their own inspection equipment and do not collect on-site samples. Chairman Yoo Kook-hee said, “There is nothing that needs to be checked and checked with our equipment.” Regarding the samples, he said, “The International Atomic Energy Agency ( IAEA ) collected samples related to contaminated water last year and samples (environmental samples) off the coast of the Fukushima nuclear power plant, and requested cross-analysis to four countries, including Korea (Nuclear Safety Technology Institute), and the samples have already been I have it,” he said. Chairman Yoo added, “The result of the analysis of the contaminated water sample has already been notified to the International Atomic Energy Agency, and the environmental sample is being analyzed.”
This limitation was foreseen when President Yoon Seok-yeol announced on the 7th that after a meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, he had agreed to dispatch an “inspection team” rather than an on-site “verification team.”
Jang Ma-ri, a Greenpeace campaigner, said, “The treatment capacity of the multi-nuclide removal facility and the biological impact on the ecosystem of the discharged contaminated water must be verified, but this cannot be done by just looking at the facility without proper data.” “The inspection results to be announced by the government I am skeptical whether it will be at a level that will satisfy the public.”
Deputy Director Park said, “The International Atomic Energy Agency will announce the final verification results (related to Japan’s plan to discharge contaminated water from Fukushima) at the end of June.” said.
Japan’s contaminated water is contained in more than 1,060 giant tanks installed at the site of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant, and the Japanese government plans to discharge it into the sea over 30 to 40 years, starting this summer at the earliest.