Greenpeace this week criticised
This month, accredited laboratories in France and Belgium found high levels of radioactive iodine contamination and significantly high levels of radioactive caesium in samples of marine life including fish, shellfish and seaweed taken by the NGO on shore, outside Japan’s 12-mi territorial waters and along the Fukushima coast.
“Our data show that significant amounts of contamination continue to spread over great distances from the Fukushima nuclear plant,” said Greenpeace Radiation Expert Jan Vande Putte.
She underlined that radioactive hazards are not diminishing but rather accumulating in marine life, which presents dangers to the populace because of the country’s avid consumption of several species of seaweed that grow around Japan.
“Japan’s government is mistaken in assuming that an absence of data means there is no problem. This complacency must end now, and instead they must mount a comprehensive and continuous monitoring program of the marine environment along the Fukushima coast, along with full disclosure of all information about both past and ongoing releases of contaminated water,” she asserted.
Greenpeace Japan Ocean Campaigner Wakao Hanaoka noted that fishers could be at additional risk from handling fishing nets and rope as well as marine life tainted with radioactive sediment. Fishers, fishing communities and consumers all must receive information on how radioactivity affects them and their surroundings -- including their livelihoods -- and mainly how they can protect themselves from further contamination.
“Even if all the leaks caused by the Fukushima nuclear crisis were to stop today, the radiation problem is not going to go away. A long-term, comprehensive monitoring programme must be put in place, decisive action taken to protect the health of fisherman, farmers and consumers, and compensation given to all whose lives have been destroyed by this disaster,” said Hanaoka.
Moreover, Tokyo Electric Power Co (TEPCO), the company responsible for the stricken nuclear reactors, said this week that it found traces of radioactive iodine 131 in seaweed near its Kashiwazaki Kariwa plant on Japan’s western coast, that may have drifted from the Fukushima Daiichi reactors on the eastern coast. Operations at Kashiwazaki are normal, the firm said, reports Bloomberg.
(Fis.com)