Planned release of treated water casts a shadow over Fukushima's fishing industry

[Sherman A1]

Fishermen in Fukushima are clinging to hopes they can resurrect their industry after the 2011 tsunami and nuclear disaster. But plans to release treated water from the crippled Daiichi nuclear plant are making this difficult – and they want the Japanese government to do more to help.

Last year, the Japanese government and the plant operator announced they would solve the problem of accumulating tainted water at Fukushima Daiichi by treating it and releasing it into the ocean.

Most radioactive materials will be removed, except for radioactive tritium which will be diluted to safe levels before being released. But concerns about the plan remain among local fishermen.

The release is set to start in just over a year, and people in the fishing industry worry it could make their dire situation even worse.

https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/news/backstories/1931/

[Blues Heron]

1. look on the bright side

it will be easier to see the fish if they're glowing?

[hunter]

2. If I was a fish I'd rather be exposed to negligible amounts of tritium...

... than end up as some human's dinner.

I'm a radical environmentalist. For the sake of the natural environment I wish most industrial scale fishing would end.

We had the good sense to ban commercial hunting a long time ago, after the passenger pigeon went extinct and other wild bird populations plummeted. The Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918 made it unlawful to pursue, hunt, take, capture, kill, or sell nearly 1,100 species of birds in Canada and the U.S.A..

Commercial fishing should be limited in the same way. The human population is simply too large now for these traditions to continue.

Nobody is going to starve if the fish in the supermarket comes from ponds in places like Iowa instead of the ocean.