VIENNA, Aug. 23 (Xinhua) — A member of Austria’s National Council, the nation’s decrease home of parliament, has condemned Japan’s choice to begin dumping nuclear-contaminated wastewater from the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear energy plant into the Pacific Ocean on Thursday.
Martin Litschauer, a member of the National Council from the Green Party and the get together’s anti-nuclear spokesperson, mentioned Tuesday in a press launch that the “contaminated wastewater in the global water cycle endangers our environment and the health of humans and animals” and “may have a direct impact on Europe.”
Litschauer urged the European Union (EU) to reverse its choice to raise the import restrictions for fish and different meals merchandise from Japan, which was introduced by the EU on the EU-Japan Summit in July.
“It cannot be that the EU wants to re-import potentially contaminated fish. Despite the planned filtration, the water (from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant) is still contaminated with the radioactive substance tritium,” Litschauer mentioned.
Litschauer additionally mentioned it’s “a scandal” that the Japanese authorities has left the wastewater dumping choice within the palms of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
“The IAEA is not an independent organization. It is committed to the use of nuclear energy and is therefore not an adequate scientific body to make this globally relevant decision,” he mentioned.
Hit by an enormous earthquake and an ensuing tsunami in March 2011, the Fukushima nuclear energy plant suffered core meltdowns and generated an enormous quantity of water tainted with radioactive substances from cooling down the nuclear gasoline.