Contaminated Soil Still Going Nowhere

While the crippled Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant keeps on discharging “processed water” to the Pacific Ocean, radioactive contaminated soil has been accumulated in a site close to the plant. Although the government of Japan has guaranteed to remove the soil from Fukushima within thirty years, there is no fixed plan to finalize it by then. A serious concern is raised from the people around the site. 

Three nuclear reactors of Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant exploded in the severe accident in 2011. They emitted 500 petabecquerel of radiation into the air and it landed on the broad area around the plant. The residents scraped the contaminated soil and kept it in their backyard. Recognizing such situation would disturb reconstruction of devastated area, the government of Japan decided that the contaminated soil should be treated by each prefecture.

 

The soil in Fukushima prefecture, which occupies most share of all, was collected and temporarily kept in an interim storage site built in the city of Futaba and Okuma in 2015. The power plant also is in those two cities. The total amount of the soil accumulated in the site is as much as 14 million cube meters. The government of Japan promised to remove the contaminated soil to the other place out of Fukushima prefecture by 2045. The Diet passed a bill which mandates the government to relocate the soil.

 

Ten years have passed since the storage site started its operation. Nevertheless, the government has not decided so far where the final disposal facility to accept the contaminated soil from Fukushima will be built.

 

Ministry of Environment began in 2016 to consider reducing total amount of contaminated soil which needed to be treated for final disposal. The main strategy was to reuse the soil which radiation was relatively low. “By taking advantage of technology of reducing the amount of nuclear waste, the soil with low radiation would be reused for some specific purposes,” says a document of the ministry. They continue some feasibility studies.

 

The ministry explained the plan to the Director General of International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Rafael Grossi, taking opportunity for him to visit the interim storage site in February 2025. Grossi told the reporters that the radiation levels were low and he was able to confirm that the work meets the IAEA’s safety standards. He did not refer to any opposition against the plan of Japanese government.

 

However, the residents around the interim storage site are frustrated with slow progress of removing the contaminated soil. The mayor of Futaba city, Shiro Izawa, argued that it would be necessary to consider using recycled soil in Fukushima prefecture. Although the soil would not be transferred out of Fukushima, Izawa proposed it with hope of removing the soil from the city he lives.

 

Minister of Environment, Keiichiro Asao, took Izawa’s argument “seriously.” The ministry estimates that three quarter of all the soil needed to be recycled to reduce total amount of final disposal. To accelerate the reduction of contaminated soil, the ministry hopes to promote reusing it at as many places in Japan as possible. But it is still unclear that the effort will meet the timetable to remove all the contaminated soil from Fukushima by targeted year of 2045.