NRA Approves Facilities for Fukushima Treated Water Release

The Yomiuri Shimbun

6:00 JST, July 8, 2023

The Nuclear Regulation Authority on Friday issued to Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings, Inc. a “certificate” that gave the green light to use facilities for the release into the ocean of treated water from the company’s Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant.

With this certificate, all preparations have been made for the discharge, which the government is planning to conduct “around summer.”

On June 26, TEPCO completed construction of the facilities to be used for the discharge. The NRA dispatched four inspectors to the facilities on June 28-30 based on the Nuclear Reactor Regulation Law. The inspectors checked whether emergency shutoff valves and other equipment, which are designed to automatically halt the discharge in the event of an abnormality, could operate as designed, using fresh water instead of treated water. It is said they confirmed that the devices functioned properly.

On Friday afternoon, a senior official of the NRA’s secretariat handed the certificate to Junichi Matsumoto, a TEPCO corporate officer in charge of treated water discharge operations.

On Tuesday, the International Atomic Energy Agency released a comprehensive report on TEPCO’s plans to release treated water, stating that they are “consistent with relevant international safety standards.”