TOKYO: The Japanese government plans to start releasing treated water from the disaster-crippled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant into the ocean as early as late this month, government sources said Monday.

At a trilateral summit with U.S. President Joe Biden and South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol in the United States on Aug. 18, Japanese Prime Minister KISHIDA Fumio will explain the safety of the treated water, the sources said. After returning from the U.S. trip, Kishida is expected to hold discussions with related ministers and make a formal decision on the starting date of the water release, according to the sources.

On the sidelines of the three-way summit, Kishida is slated to hold a bilateral meeting with Yoon. The leader of South Korea has expressed a certain level of understanding of the water release, while the opposition camp and others in the country have been persistently critical of the Japanese plan.

Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirokazu Matsuno told a press conference Monday that there is no change in the government’s plan to begin the water release around this summer.

“The government will decide a specific timing after checking the situation regarding ensuring safety and measures against reputational damage,” Matsuno also said. “We will provide thorough explanations to the international community in a highly transparent manner based on scientific knowledge,” the top government spokesperson said.

An unprecedented triple reactor meltdown occurred at the Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings Inc. nuclear power station in Fukushima Prefecture, northeastern Japan, after it suffered heavy damage from the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami.

The treated water still contains tritium, a radioactive substance. Japan plans to release the water in the Pacific Ocean after substantially diluting it with seawater.

Kishida also hopes to hold a meeting with senior officials of the National Federation of Fisheries Cooperative Associations, known as Zengyoren, which opposes the planned water release.

On July 4, the International Atomic Energy Agency released a comprehensive report concluding that the water release plan is “consistent with relevant international safety standards.”

Industry minister Yasutoshi Nishimura recently visited Fukushima and neighboring Miyagi Prefecture to give explanations about the plan to local fishery operators.

The treated water is stored in tanks on the premises of the Fukushima No. 1 plant, and the tanks are expected to reach full capacity in February 2024 at the earliest. The government has said that the number of the storage tanks needs to be reduced in order to promote work to decommission the crippled power plant.

JIJI Press