"Nothing about the water release is beneficial to us. There is no advantage for us. None. It's all detrimental," Ono, who lost his brother in the 2011 tsunami that crippled the plant, told AFP.
"Fishermen are 100 percent against," the 71-year-old said at his modest home in Shinchimachi, around 60 kilometres (40 miles) north of the nuclear plant in northeast Japan.
"The sea is where we work. We make a living off of the sea, we're at the mercy of the sea. So if we don't protect the sea, who would?"
Around 1.34 million tonnes of water, equivalent to more than 500 Olympic swimming pools, have accumulated at the Fukushima plant since the earthquake and tsunami that killed 18,000 people in 2011.
It has been contaminated by being used to cool the highly radioactive reactor cores that went into meltdown, combined with groundwater and rain.
But plant operator TEPCO says the water has been diluted and filtered to remove all radionuclides except tritium, which is far below dangerous levels.
- 'Sewer' -
The plan gradually to begin releasing the water at a maximum rate of 500,000 litres (132,000 US gallons) a day via a pipe one kilometre (half a mile) out to sea has won approval from the UN nuclear watchdog.
But many in the Japanese fishing industry are worried about the reputation of the country's seafood, just as it was starting to recover 12 years after the Fukushima disaster.
"Fukushima was seen as something people should avoid (after 2011). Even car number plates from Fukushima was taken off when people had to evacuate to other prefectures," local artist Tomomi Kodama, 40, told AFP.
"Now if the water is released from the plant, I am worried about how the world would possibly accept it," she said.
As well as being a major source of national pride, seafood is a major Japanese industry, with almost 600,000 tonnes -- worth around $2 billion -- exported in 2022.
China is its biggest customer, accounting for around a quarter of this, but Beijing has accused Tokyo of treating the ocean like a "sewer" with the water release.
In a move that experts say is partially motivated by rivalry in other areas, China even before the release banned food shipments from 10 Japanese prefectures and imposed radiation checks for elsewhere.
These time-consuming controls have already led to a 30-percent slump in Japanese seafood imports into China last month, Japanese and Chinese media reported, citing Chinese customs data.
Hong Kong, another important market for Japanese seafood exports, has also threatened restrictions, and it is unclear how consumers elsewhere will react.
- Insecurity -
Masanobu Sakamoto, head of Japan's national fisheries cooperative, reiterated on Monday his opposition to the move.
"(Scientific) safety doesn't necessarily equate to a feeling of security in society. There are concerns that the once the water is discharged, there will be reputational damage," he said.
"There is no way people in the fisheries industry can rest reassured," he said.
People in the fishing industry "really had a hard time in many aspects (after 2011). And now, after 12 years, they are finally settling down and moving toward happiness -- gradually," said Ono, whose three sons are also fishermen.
"What the government is doing now is to abandon Fukushima. What the government should truly protect is the people of Fukushima, the fishermen, not TEPCO," he said.
Fukushima's water release: what we know
Tokyo (AFP) Aug 22, 2023 -
Japan has announced plans to release wastewater from the stricken Fukushima-Daiichi nuclear plant into the ocean starting Thursday.
Here is what we know about the release, how the water has been treated and concerns around the safety of the exercise.
- Why the release? -
Around 100,000 litres (26,500 gallons) of contaminated water -- from cooling the crippled plant's reactors as well as groundwater and rain seeping in -- is collected at the site in northeast Japan every day.
Some 1.34 million tonnes -- equivalent to almost 540 Olympic pools -- are now stored in around a thousand steel containers at the seaside site, and now there is no more space, authorities say.
Japan decided in 2021, after years of discussion, that it would release at most around 500,000 litres per day into the sea via a pipe one kilometre (0.6 miles) long.
- What has been done to the water? -
Plant operator TEPCO says that a special filtering system called ALPS has removed all radioactive elements -- including caesium and strontium -- except tritium.
TEPCO has said it has diluted the water to reduce radioactivity levels to 1,500 becquerels per litre (Bq/L), far below the national safety standard of 60,000 Bq/L.
- Is that safe? -
Tony Hooker, nuclear expert from the University of Adelaide, said that the level of tritium is well below the World Health Organization drinking water limit of 10,000 Bq/L.
"Tritium is regularly released from nuclear power facilities into waterways worldwide," Hooker told AFP.
"For decades (there have been) no evidential detrimental environmental or health effects," he said.
UN atomic watchdog the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has said the release meets international standards and "will not cause any harm to the environment".
- Does everyone agree? -
No. Greenpeace said Tuesday that the technology used to filter the water is flawed and that the IAEA "completely ignored the highly radioactive fuel debris that melted down which continues every day to contaminate ground water".
"(Releasing) this into the sea will impact the whole planet. Japan would intentionally be spreading radioactive elements," Yukio Kanno, a Fukushima resident, said at a recent Greenpeace-organised protest.
China has accused Japan of treating the Pacific like a "sewer". Beijing in July banned food imports from 10 Japanese prefectures and imposed stringent radiation tests on food from the rest of the country.
While Seoul's government has not expressed objections, many South Koreans are alarmed and have been staging demonstrations -- and even panic-buying sea salt.
The release -- which will take decades to complete -- has also hit opposition in Japan itself, in particular from a fishing industry that fears its exports could plummet as consumers and governments shun Japanese seafood.
- What has Japan done to soothe concerns? -
The government has spent months trying to win over sceptics at home and abroad, with everything from study tours of Fukushima to video live-streams of fish living in the wastewater.
Tokyo has also sought to counter disinformation being peddled online about the release, such as manipulated or old photos and claims -- denied by Japan -- that it bribed the IAEA.
- What else needs to be done? -
The far more dangerous task remains removing radioactive debris and highly dangerous nuclear fuel from the three reactors that went into meltdown in 2011.
TEPCO plans to use robots to remove the fuel but there are fears that radiation levels are so high that they could even disable the remote-controlled machines.
The whole gargantuan process is expected to take 30 to 40 years and cost around eight trillion yen ($55 billion).
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