MOSCOW, August 28. /TASS/. The discharge of water from the Fukushima nuclear power plant, initiated by Japanese authorities, poses no danger for the health of the people - if the official data about this water’s composition is correct, says Stepan Kalmykov, Vice President of the Russian Academy of Sciences, adding that an international expertise may help here.
On Monday, media of various Asia-Pacific countries started reporting panic because of the water discharge from the Japanese power plant. For example, the Chinese and Koreans started hoarding food and, primarily, salt, because of concerns that table salt, extracted from sea water, will be poisoned with radiation.
Speaking in an interview for TASS, Kalmykov noted that, according to official Japanese data, the discharged water does not contain hazardous radionuclides such as cesium or strontium.
"What is being announced is the dilution of tritium-containing waste with sea water. These solutions are clear in terms of other components. If we talk about tritium, it poses no danger. Of course, there is no need to buy any salt, tritium […] behaves like normal water. Unlike heavy metals and nuclides such as cesium-137, plutonium, it does not accumulate in living organisms," the scientist said.
In addition, he pointed out that the water from the nuclear plant is being diluted to absolutely insignificant concentrations.
"This is an infinitely high dilution. The levels that Japan declares now, when diluted and discharged into ocean, will result in an extremely low concentration, which will not affect the health and welfare of people and living organisms in any way," Kalmykov noted.
Meanwhile, the scientist pointed out two aspects that may cause concerns. First, it is a question of how reliable the Japanese data really is.
"I believe that there is a lack of international expertise of what exactly is there, in these solutions," Kalmykov said.
The second issue raised by the scientist is that, even by discharging safe water, Japan creates a precedent for other countries that may also being discharging water. Meanwhile, Kalmykov noted that international supervision could help here as well.
On August 24, Tokyo Electric Power announced that Japanese specialists started discharging the first batch of water, cleared of radioactive substances, from the Fukushima-1 power plant. Measurements indicated that the purified water is diluted with sea water enough and, according to TASS calculations, the content of tritium is 952 times lower than the safety norm, set by the International Commission on Radiological Protection and the government of Japan.