Don’t ignore public’s seafood safety concerns

Japan started discharging contaminated water from the crippled Fukushima nuclear plant into the Pacific on Thursday. Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco) released the wastewater treated by the Advanced Liquid Processing System (ALPS) into the ocean after diluting it with seawater. Tepco said it will discharge 460 tons of the treated water each day by raising the level of dilution for a while. The company plans to release 31,200 tons of the wastewater — or 2.3 percent of the entire volume — by March next year.

The Japanese government plans to regularly check the level of tritium in the waters off the nuclear plants and announce the results once a week. Staffers of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) will make public the data from its monitoring and assessing of the discharge process real time from day one. As the primary responsibility for any possible problems with the release certainly falls on the Japanese government, it must transparently disclose related data and minimize possible dangers so as not to betray the trust of the international community.

The discharge poses challenges to our government. The Yoon Suk Yeol administration must do its best to ease public concerns and reduce harm to our fishermen. Our radiation experts will regularly visit the IAEA office at Fukushima and swiftly share information with it if some problems are found during the discharge, and jointly deal with it. Prime Minister Han Duck-soo on Tuesday vowed to immediately request a suspension of the release if Japan does not follow the original plan — and file an international suit against Tokyo if it does not keep its promise.

A majority of scientists believe that the discharge will have a minimal impact on the marine ecosystem as long as Japan abides by the original plan. But scientific explanation alone can hardly dispel deepening public anxiety — as clearly suggested by the drastic decline already in the consumption of seafood in Korea — stemming from wild rumors and speculations.

The government must not make light of a grim situation where our fishermen and others involved in related businesses suffer massive damage even before the discharge. Some sea farmers working in waters off the coast of South Gyeongsang and South Jeolla have already went bankrupt or taken on massive debts due to a sharp reduction in consumption.

Our government must come up with effective ways to minimize domestic harm and alleviate deepening public anxiousness by drastically increasing safety inspections on seafood. It must increase the number of 208 checkpoints at sea and clearly publicize the results each day. It must not ignore the growing public jitters in spite of the need to improve our relations with Japan.