Tokyo chose expediency over responsibility

The political response as it unfolded after the tsunami devastated the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant in March 2011:

April 13, 2021: Japan announces a plan to discharge contaminated radioactive wastewater from the stricken Fukushima nuclear plant into the ocean after a meeting of ministers to formalize the move. April 7, 2021: Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga meets with Hiroshi Kishi, head of the national federation of fisheries cooperatives, who reiterates his organization’s opposition to the proposed ocean dumping of the radioactive water. Suga says his government will make a decision soon.

March 2021: Japanese Economy, Trade and Industry Minister Hiroshi Kajiyama tells Rafael Grossi, director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, that Japan hopes the United Nations nuclear watchdog will conduct a safety review at the Fukushima plant. June 2020: At a meeting, the fisheries cooperatives adopt a special resolution strongly opposing the discharge of radioactive water into the sea.

February 2020: A government panel releases a report claiming that ocean release or evaporation are realistic options for the disposal of the contaminated water.

April 2016: A government panel proposes several options for disposing of the water, including by evaporation or underground storage of the tritium-laced water.

March 2013: The Japanese government begins a trial under which the radioactive water is treated by using an Advanced Liquid Processing System, or ALPS, to remove most contaminants. But substances such as tritium, a radioactive byproduct of nuclear reactors, are hard to filter out.

March 11, 2011: Struck by a 9-magnitude earthquake and ensuing tsunami that hit Japan’s northeast, the No 1-3 reactors at the Fukushima plant suffer core meltdowns. The plant has been generating massive amounts of radiation-tainted water since the accident, as it needs water to cool the reactors.