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South Korean protesters call for government action on Fukushima water
(www.reuters.com)
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this post was submitted on 26 Aug 2023
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I keep hearing about this, but haven't delved into it.
Usually when they do a water release like this, or there's potential for contamination to interact with humans in other matricies, such as metals on mines being uptaken in berries and plants used in traditional use (consumption by first Nations), they will do a Human Health and Environment Risk Assessment (HHERA).
These HHERAs look at multiple exposure pathways and consider rates and likelihood of exposure. I find it hard to think that they didn't do this step with something as dangerous as treated waste water from a nuclear plant.
The plan was reviewed, and tested by, the UN and by the International Atomic Energy Agency and found to be very safe. Here'san article that briefly talks about it.
And this is exactly what I suspected. So the comment from China wilfully ignored this, and the protests in South Korea probably did not take this into account.
I had a feeling this was just run of the mill procedure that's been propped up to appear unsafe by various interest groups.
China's reaction is purely political, not science.