The fact that Japan will dump radioactive water has long been clear. Exactly two years ago, the academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Doctor of Chemical Sciences Valentin Sergienko explained in an interview with RG that “for ten years the Japanese have been accumulating water with liquid radioactive waste (LRW) in containers, hoping that over time a solution to the problems will be found.” At that time, its total volume exceeded 1.2 million cubic meters, now we are talking about 1.3 million.
Today, anxiety has only increased. Where will the waters that are about to be dumped from Fukushima-1 go?
– Our laboratory gained experience in tracking spills from nuclear power plants on the days when the accident occurred. Fukushima-1 is the east coast of Japan. We observe where and how the water discharged there is carried: first by the Kuroshio Current, and then through the North Pacific to the shores of North America, then a twist and a return, said Vasily Kachur, senior software engineer at the satellite monitoring laboratory of the Institute of Automation and Control Processes of the Far Eastern Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences. – Today they will follow the same path. But there is always the possibility of “drifts” to the south of the Kuril Islands. Some part of the LRW can be taken there.
According to him, only from the date of discharge, the laboratory staff will be able to track, in fact, from satellite data, where exactly the water went and if there is a “slide” towards the Kuril Islands.
Water discharged from the Fukushima-1 nuclear power plant will go to the shores of North America. But there is the possibility of “drifts” to the south of the Kuril Islands.
The water will reach the shores of North America already in a very diluted state.
“The distances in the ocean are great,” emphasizes the scientist. Naturally, water can “scatter” very quickly, and then its background radiation will be no greater than natural.
What if it doesn’t disperse very quickly? VNIRO’s Sakhalin branch ensures that the feeding and wintering migration areas of Asian pink salmon are located north of the main zone of possible spread of the radioactive spot. That is, the probability of “atomic” fish swimming to our table is small.
On the other hand, the east coast of Japan is a spawning ground for the saury. If the background radiation remains at a high level for a long time, it can theoretically turn out to be a population “enriched” with some tritium. After the accident at the nuclear power plant, it was saury that caused alarm among scientists. But in 2011-2013, TINRO-Center staff organized special monitoring during their fishing in the southern Kuril Islands area and determined that the level of radiation contamination of the caught fish was low.
“This indicates a relatively small probability of infection of this fish species at present. And although, on the one hand, this does not give cause for panic, on the other hand, it is obvious: Rospotrebnadzor should strengthen control over the level of infection of saury and other species of fish and squid caught by Russian fishermen whose migration routes cross the water area of the probable spread of radioactive water, “concluded SakhNIRO.
