Concern over radioactive fisheries products rising
By Kim Tae-gyu
Concern is rising in Korea over the safety of fisheries products after radioactive water was reported to have leaked into coastal waters near Japan’s earthquake-stricken nuclear plant in Fukushima.
Energy Justice Action (EJA), a domestic civic group that is critical of nuclear power, said Sunday that the country cannot afford to be complacent after the leak of contaminated water was detected.
A cracked concrete pit at the No. 2 reactor in Fukushima is a possible source of the outflow although the precise origin and amount are now being scrutinized by its operator, the Tokyo Electric Power Corp.
Radiation levels in the pit at issue measured higher than 1,000 millisieverts an hour, which amounts to up to 330 times the dose the resident of a developed country receives naturally per year on average.
“If the radioactive water came from the reactor itself, it would be a disaster. That might be the case in consideration of the high radiation readings reported,” EJA head Lee Heon-seok told The Korea Times over the phone.
“The Seoul administration has claimed that the radioactive seawater off Fukushima will not flow toward Korea. But fish can swim into our waters at any time. We also have to think about our fishing vessels in the Pacific off the western coast of Japan.”
Lee picked pollack and squid as candidates to head to the Korean coast from Fukushima.
The National Fisheries Research and Development Institute (NFRDI) raised the likelihood last week that squid presently south of Kyushu may move into the East Sea in the fall after swimming by Fukushima in summer.
They tend to move north in groups in August off the west coast of Japan and when they move back south from September, some of them take the Tsugaru Straight to the East Sea, according to the NFRDI.
The Tsugaru Straight is the channel between Honshu and Hokkaido in northern Japan. It connects the East Sea (Sea of Japan) with the Pacific Ocean.
Professor Lee Un-chul of Seoul National University pointed out that we should worry if the radioactive water in question came from the nuclear reactor.
“I don’t think Japan, an advanced country as far as nuclear power is concerned, let water from nuclear reactors flow into the sea. It would have stopped such a terrible event using all means available,” Lee said.
“In that case there will be no need to panic. If it is from the nuclear reactors, things are different. But in my view, such a possibility seems low although I do not have the exact data to size up the situation.”
Meanwhile, the Korea Institute of Nuclear Safety said Saturday that it had detected minuscule traces of radioactive silver in two metropolitan cities of Daejeon and Daegu.
Radioactive silver is found in the wake of serious accidents in nuclear power plants. But the agency said that it does not pose a threat because the amount is 3,700 times lower than the radiation received from a chest X-ray.