Japan’s Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco) will begin releasing the sixth round of treated radioactive water from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant on Friday.
The sixth round of release will be carried out until June 4 during which 7,800 tons of water will be discharged, the same as the previous round, according to Japanese media outlet Kyodo News on Wednesday.
“Samples were collected and analyzed from tanks for measurement and confirmation ahead of the discharge of contaminated water that has passed through the Advanced Liquid Processing System (ALPS), and the standards were met,” Tepco said.
Tepco began its first discharge in August last year, releasing a total of 39,000 tons of contaminated water during the first five rounds.
Tepco plans to dispose a total of about 54,600 tons over seven rounds from April this year to March next year.
Japan has argued since making the decision to release the treated water that such discharges are safe. This has been backed by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which issued a report in July last year saying the impact of the water’s release on people and the environment would be “negligible.”
However, the release of the radioactive water, which was generated in the process of cooling the reactors at the plant, has aroused significant opposition in Korea.
Seoul’s official position is that the discharge would pose “no scientific or technical problems,” but that it neither approves nor disapproves of the water release.
