WEBVTT - Is Japan’s nuclear wastewater dump safe? 0:00:01.200 --> 0:00:03.520 My name is Lily Maddon and I'm a proud Arunda 0:00:03.760 --> 0:00:08.520 Bunjelung Calcotin woman from Gadigol Country. The Daily oz acknowledges 0:00:08.600 --> 0:00:10.800 that this podcast is recorded on the lands of the 0:00:10.800 --> 0:00:14.600 Gadighl people and pays respect to all Aboriginal and Torrestrate 0:00:14.640 --> 0:00:17.600 island and nations. We pay our respects to the first 0:00:17.600 --> 0:00:20.079 peoples of these countries, both past and present. 0:00:25.239 --> 0:00:27.840 Good morning, and welcome to the Daily os It's Monday, 0:00:27.880 --> 0:00:30.520 the twenty eighth of August. I'm Sam Kraslowski. 0:00:30.560 --> 0:00:31.560 I'm Zara Seidler. 0:00:32.000 --> 0:00:36.520 The controversial release of treated radioactive water from the Fukashima 0:00:36.720 --> 0:00:40.720 Nuclear power plant in Japan has just begun. Japan is 0:00:40.840 --> 0:00:46.000 releasing water contaminated during the Fukushima nuclear disaster into the ocean. 0:00:46.320 --> 0:00:49.360 The UN's nuclear monitoring body has signed off on the 0:00:49.440 --> 0:00:54.279 plan and Japan insists it's safe, but not everyone is convinced. 0:00:54.760 --> 0:00:57.120 There is white bear public opposition to the move in 0:00:57.160 --> 0:01:00.880 neighboring China and South Korea, and China has already reacted 0:01:00.880 --> 0:01:04.840 by banning all seafood imported from the country of Japan. 0:01:05.120 --> 0:01:08.880 Tda's brilliant deputy editor, Emma Gillespie is going to explain 0:01:09.040 --> 0:01:12.039 exactly what is being released into the ocean and whether 0:01:12.160 --> 0:01:15.480 or not it's safe the first sam what's making headlines 0:01:15.520 --> 0:01:16.000 this morning. 0:01:16.360 --> 0:01:20.720 Three US Marines have been killed and five hospitalized after 0:01:20.760 --> 0:01:24.319 their military aircraft crashed on Melville Island, part of the 0:01:24.400 --> 0:01:29.320 Tiwi Islands, yesterday. Twenty three people, all US personnel, were 0:01:29.360 --> 0:01:31.640 on board the plane when it crashed on the island, 0:01:31.640 --> 0:01:35.360 which is sixty kilometers off the coast from Darwin, during 0:01:35.400 --> 0:01:36.559 a training exercise. 0:01:38.000 --> 0:01:40.360 A twelve year old girl has been taken to hospital 0:01:40.440 --> 0:01:44.360 following a stabbing at an Adelaide school. The student suffered 0:01:44.400 --> 0:01:47.440 non life threatening injuries after she was stabbed in the torso. 0:01:47.560 --> 0:01:50.400 On Friday, A twelve year old boy was arrested and 0:01:50.440 --> 0:01:54.000 will face court in October on an assault charge. 0:01:54.120 --> 0:01:56.960 The largest study into the effects of salt on heart 0:01:57.000 --> 0:02:00.040 health has revealed that cutting salt from one's diet you 0:02:00.080 --> 0:02:02.760 can reduce the risk of heart issues and strokes by 0:02:02.800 --> 0:02:06.840 almost twenty percent. Researchers also found that those who never 0:02:06.960 --> 0:02:10.200 add additional salt to their food were eighteen percent less 0:02:10.320 --> 0:02:14.040 likely to develop atrial fibrillation, which is the irregular heart 0:02:14.160 --> 0:02:17.359 rhythms that can lead to heart failure than those who do. 0:02:17.440 --> 0:02:18.320 Add a pinch of. 0:02:18.280 --> 0:02:22.560 Salt and the good news. Lego will start selling bricks 0:02:22.600 --> 0:02:26.840 coated with braille to help vision impaired children play Braille. 0:02:26.840 --> 0:02:31.200 Bricks had previously been distributed for free to some learning organizations, 0:02:31.600 --> 0:02:34.280 will now be available for purchase in English and French 0:02:34.360 --> 0:02:35.560 languages from Friday. 0:02:37.800 --> 0:02:39.320 Emma, welcome back to the podcast. 0:02:39.440 --> 0:02:40.440 Thank you for having me. 0:02:40.720 --> 0:02:44.960 So Japan has begun releasing treated radioactive water from the 0:02:44.960 --> 0:02:48.800 Fukushima Nuclear power Plant into the Pacific Ocean. There's a 0:02:48.800 --> 0:02:51.480 lot to unpack here. Why don't we start at the 0:02:51.560 --> 0:02:54.920 very beginning. Tell me how Japan ended up with this 0:02:55.120 --> 0:02:58.800 radioactive water, something you're not meant to have to begin with. 0:02:58.880 --> 0:03:02.440 This goes way back to March two thousand and eleven, 0:03:02.639 --> 0:03:07.760 when a massive earthquake off Japan's northeast coast triggered a tsunami. 0:03:07.800 --> 0:03:08.919 I remember that earthquake. 0:03:09.080 --> 0:03:13.360 It was huge, It devastated parts of Japan, and this huge, 0:03:13.639 --> 0:03:17.840 super fast wave just smashed into the coast thirty minutes 0:03:17.880 --> 0:03:20.560 after this earthquake, there was very little time to prepare 0:03:21.120 --> 0:03:25.120 and it hit this power plant, the Fukushima Nuclear Plant, 0:03:25.560 --> 0:03:28.400 which knocked out the power supply to the plant and 0:03:28.440 --> 0:03:32.560 triggered a chain reaction which caused three reactor cause to 0:03:32.680 --> 0:03:33.320 melt down. 0:03:33.560 --> 0:03:37.920 Nuclear officials there a warning of a possible nuclear reactor meltdown. 0:03:37.960 --> 0:03:41.240 They are still cooling three reactors at the site using seawater, 0:03:41.640 --> 0:03:44.200 but today they admitted the number two reactor at one 0:03:44.240 --> 0:03:47.960 point was dry the overheating fuel rods completely exposed. 0:03:48.280 --> 0:03:52.880 So these three reactor CAUs were melting down and water 0:03:53.080 --> 0:03:56.160 had to be used to cool those reactors down. Now 0:03:56.240 --> 0:03:59.840 that water became highly radioactive, So over the course of 0:03:59.840 --> 0:04:03.440 a few weeks, all this additional water was used to 0:04:03.560 --> 0:04:07.120 cool the reactors down, and that contaminated water was then 0:04:07.240 --> 0:04:11.600 treated and stored in tanks. Lots of water, lots of tanks. 0:04:11.960 --> 0:04:15.080 On top of that, we had contaminations spilling out from 0:04:15.120 --> 0:04:19.000 the plant into nearby waterways that also needed to be 0:04:19.040 --> 0:04:22.440 pumped back out and stored. So the process of cooling 0:04:22.520 --> 0:04:26.360 those reactors is still ongoing, meaning more and more water 0:04:26.520 --> 0:04:29.560 continues to be contaminated, more and more water to be stored. 0:04:29.640 --> 0:04:31.560 Twelve or thirteen years later, Yes. 0:04:31.520 --> 0:04:34.520 So what happened. Fukushima was declared one of the worst 0:04:34.600 --> 0:04:38.719 nuclear disasters in history and clearly, all these years on, 0:04:38.960 --> 0:04:42.000 we're still talking about it. The impact is still being felt. 0:04:42.200 --> 0:04:44.120 What do you mean when you say a lot of water? 0:04:44.320 --> 0:04:48.719 We're talking about five hundred Olympic sized swimming pool's worth 0:04:48.760 --> 0:04:52.840 of contaminated water that Japan's been storing in tanks ever 0:04:52.880 --> 0:04:55.720 since twenty eleven. There's some visuals of these tanks. It's 0:04:56.200 --> 0:04:58.479 you can hardly comprehend how much water they're storing. 0:04:58.560 --> 0:05:00.760 So the water is still there at the plan. What's 0:05:00.800 --> 0:05:03.640 happened in the decade plus since then? 0:05:03.960 --> 0:05:07.760 So the Fukushima plant is now a decommissioning project. That 0:05:07.880 --> 0:05:11.280 means that it's being shut down. But we're talking about 0:05:11.440 --> 0:05:14.960 nuclear power, so that has to be a gradual process, 0:05:15.560 --> 0:05:18.000 and they reckon it's going to take around a generation 0:05:18.480 --> 0:05:22.320 to complete this task, and so part of that decommissioning, 0:05:22.400 --> 0:05:26.200 part of that project is dealing with this enormous amount 0:05:26.240 --> 0:05:30.320 of nuclear wastewater. But the problem is there are only 0:05:30.360 --> 0:05:33.520 so many tanks that we can store wastewater in and 0:05:34.000 --> 0:05:37.800 they're due to reach full capacity at the plant very soon, 0:05:38.360 --> 0:05:40.919 so they have to figure out what to do with 0:05:41.120 --> 0:05:44.320 the more than one point two million tons spread across 0:05:44.320 --> 0:05:47.280 one thousand tanks sitting there at this plant. So the 0:05:47.320 --> 0:05:50.800 news now is that, following a consultation period, they've now 0:05:50.800 --> 0:05:56.000 begun releasing a treated version of this contaminated water into 0:05:56.080 --> 0:05:56.640 the ocean. 0:05:56.680 --> 0:05:59.640 And I imagine that's not great, right, Well. 0:05:59.480 --> 0:06:04.960 It's only divided international communities and Japan's neighbors. And to 0:06:05.120 --> 0:06:09.040 understand the risk of releasing this wastewater, the risk it 0:06:09.120 --> 0:06:11.880 might have on the ocean, the animals that live in 0:06:11.920 --> 0:06:15.000 the ocean, and those of us who consume food from 0:06:15.000 --> 0:06:18.320 the ocean or drink water, it's important to consider what 0:06:18.400 --> 0:06:21.440 happened in the years after the disaster. So after that 0:06:21.520 --> 0:06:25.479 nuclear meltdown in the tsunami, large amounts of radioactive materials 0:06:25.760 --> 0:06:29.839 were released into the Pacific Ocean, and in twenty eleven, 0:06:30.040 --> 0:06:35.880 seawater sites recorded really high levels of lingering radioactive substances. 0:06:36.839 --> 0:06:40.040 Many were concerned about what the potential impact of that 0:06:40.160 --> 0:06:43.800 long term was on marine life. Since then, the World 0:06:43.800 --> 0:06:47.320 Health Organization have conducted studies that thankfully show us that 0:06:47.400 --> 0:06:50.240 there actually hasn't been a significant level of cancer and 0:06:50.320 --> 0:06:54.680 radioactive impact on wildlife, certainly not as much as was predicted, 0:06:55.160 --> 0:06:58.880 and not at all to the levels of precursors that 0:06:58.960 --> 0:07:03.240 we look to like Noble, a disaster which saw immediate deaths. 0:07:03.480 --> 0:07:06.000 So should we then be worried for marine life? Is 0:07:06.279 --> 0:07:07.479 it safe to put it? 0:07:07.680 --> 0:07:11.640 Simply? The UN says it's safe. So the United Nations 0:07:11.840 --> 0:07:16.760 has endorsed Japan's plans to pump the additional million plus 0:07:16.840 --> 0:07:21.160 tons of treated radioactive wastewater back into the ocean. The 0:07:21.240 --> 0:07:24.320 UN basically said it deems the risk of that water 0:07:24.600 --> 0:07:28.200 to be low. But this is a controversial plan and 0:07:28.240 --> 0:07:31.000 it has attracted a lot of attention and concern. 0:07:31.360 --> 0:07:32.960 What do you mean by treating water? 0:07:33.240 --> 0:07:37.920 So this is a process of basically cleaning the contaminated 0:07:37.960 --> 0:07:44.440 water to remove most of the problematic contaminants. But there 0:07:44.520 --> 0:07:48.840 is still one radioactive contaminant that does remain, and it's 0:07:48.880 --> 0:07:53.680 called tritium. It's something that can't really be removed by 0:07:53.760 --> 0:07:58.239 modern technology. But there are international standards for how much 0:07:58.320 --> 0:08:02.760 tritium is safe to release into the water. Japanese authorities 0:08:02.840 --> 0:08:07.760 have chosen a concentration of tritium seven times smaller than 0:08:07.840 --> 0:08:11.320 the World Health Organization's recommendation for water that you can 0:08:11.400 --> 0:08:14.600 drink for tritium levels in drinking water that is safe 0:08:14.600 --> 0:08:18.920 to consume, So seven times under that number and The 0:08:18.960 --> 0:08:22.840 International Atomic Energy Agency says it will be monitoring the 0:08:22.920 --> 0:08:25.880 release process, and they claim the water will have a 0:08:26.040 --> 0:08:29.880 negligible radiological impact to people and the environment. 0:08:29.960 --> 0:08:33.200 So the UN's given the tick. The Japanese government's obviously 0:08:33.240 --> 0:08:35.559 in favor of it because it's their initiative. What's the 0:08:35.600 --> 0:08:37.400 opposition been to the plan? 0:08:37.679 --> 0:08:42.440 So Japan's fisheries unions have really been opposed to the 0:08:42.480 --> 0:08:45.800 release of this wastewater. They've said that even if treated, 0:08:46.280 --> 0:08:49.800 that the water will have a catastrophic impact on the 0:08:49.840 --> 0:08:53.640 fishing industry. We know that Japan's fishing industry. 0:08:53.360 --> 0:08:55.720 Is enormous, world renowned. 0:08:55.880 --> 0:09:00.439 Exactly, China has already announced an immediate blank at ban 0:09:00.679 --> 0:09:03.960 on importing seafood from Japan, so there'll be huge economic 0:09:04.000 --> 0:09:07.840 impacts there. A Chinese official has also been quoted in 0:09:08.040 --> 0:09:13.240 Chinese state run media calling Japan's decision selfish and irresponsible. 0:09:13.880 --> 0:09:18.160 But Japan has pointed out that China fairly has discharged 0:09:18.200 --> 0:09:21.560 its own water from nuclear plants with much higher levels 0:09:21.600 --> 0:09:25.360 of tritium than Japan's currently proposing. The BBC says that 0:09:25.400 --> 0:09:27.680 they verified that, so there could be a bit of 0:09:27.720 --> 0:09:29.800 politic and going on there. But the response to this 0:09:29.920 --> 0:09:35.559 extends well beyond Japan and China. The response has been international. 0:09:35.720 --> 0:09:40.760 Thousands of people have protested this decision, including in Korea 0:09:40.840 --> 0:09:44.320 in Seoul, where they're calling for government action, people taking 0:09:44.320 --> 0:09:48.480 to the streets there. But interestingly enough, the South Korean 0:09:48.480 --> 0:09:51.480 government has actually endorsed this plan themselves. There are also 0:09:51.559 --> 0:09:54.640 researchers who criticize the plants, saying that if the water 0:09:54.760 --> 0:09:57.559 was left in storage for one hundred and twenty years 0:09:58.040 --> 0:10:01.880 over that period of time, the tritium would diminish significantly, 0:10:01.960 --> 0:10:05.120 and that would of course lower the risk significantly. But 0:10:05.280 --> 0:10:08.520 proponents of the current plans say storing contaminated water for 0:10:08.559 --> 0:10:12.160 that long is just unrealistic and increases the risk of 0:10:12.280 --> 0:10:15.040 accidents storing that water, of course, things can go wrong, 0:10:15.240 --> 0:10:17.920 Humans can come into contact with that contaminated water, and 0:10:17.960 --> 0:10:19.920 then you know, we deal with a whole other set 0:10:19.960 --> 0:10:21.160 of potential disasters. 0:10:21.280 --> 0:10:23.320 Why do you think this story has grabbed you? 0:10:23.720 --> 0:10:27.079 I think this story has captivated so many of us 0:10:27.160 --> 0:10:31.319 because it's just unlike anything we see in the headlines. 0:10:31.400 --> 0:10:35.000 You know, we deal with the constant expected news stories 0:10:35.080 --> 0:10:39.800 of cost of living, crisis politics, but this is just 0:10:40.400 --> 0:10:43.080 a weird one. If I can be so blunt, like, 0:10:43.200 --> 0:10:47.000 whoever thought we would be talking about a tsunami from 0:10:47.080 --> 0:10:52.360 twenty eleven impacting the safety of a fishing economy of 0:10:52.480 --> 0:10:57.800 drinking water and causing such division between countries and advocacy 0:10:57.840 --> 0:11:01.360 groups and the science community. Yeah, it's a really interesting 0:11:01.400 --> 0:11:04.080 one and we'll certainly be keeping an eye on what 0:11:04.280 --> 0:11:05.200 comes from here. 0:11:05.400 --> 0:11:09.120 It'll be really interesting to see if there's those economic 0:11:09.160 --> 0:11:12.360 impacts to Japan's fishing industry plays out and what that 0:11:12.400 --> 0:11:14.959 actually looks like. Thanks for joining us on the Daily AuSIM. 0:11:15.000 --> 0:11:16.120 Thank you for having me. 0:11:17.520 --> 0:11:20.440 And thank you for listening to us this morning. If 0:11:20.480 --> 0:11:22.640 you have a question that you'd like us to explore 0:11:22.679 --> 0:11:25.680 this week, all some comments on today's episode, we'd love 0:11:25.760 --> 0:11:27.400 to see your feedback. You can leave it in a 0:11:27.440 --> 0:11:30.599 little question box at the bottom of your Spotify page. 0:11:30.880 --> 0:11:33.640 We'll be back again tomorrow. Until then, have a great 0:11:33.679 --> 0:11:34.400 start to the week.