"Only Now Securing Fukushima Contaminated Water Data... Too Late"

Assembly Member Yang Yi-won Young, SBS Radio Interview
"Objective Verification? Inspection Team Lacks Private Experts"

Yang Yi-won-young, a member of the Democratic Party of Korea and secretary of the Countermeasure Committee to Prevent the Ocean Disposal of Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant Contaminated Water, criticized the inspection team activities conducted on-site in Fukushima, Japan, saying, "I confirmed that the suspicions I had were really a problem."

On the 1st, Representative Yang appeared on SBS Radio's 'Kim Tae-hyun's Political Show' and said, "The Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) secured and analyzed the data (raw data of multi-nuclide removal facility inlet and outlet concentrations) and found problems, so they requested additional data and are currently saying there is a problem. But we only said we secured the data after going there this time," pointing out, "It is really belated and late."

Representative Yang also raised issues regarding the composition of the inspection team, which did not include civilian experts. He said, "We need objective and independent civilian experts to verify so that we can understand. However, the people who went are from the Korea Institute of Nuclear Safety under the Nuclear Safety and Security Commission, which originally handles that work."

Members of the Democratic Party of Korea's Fukushima Nuclear Wastewater Countermeasures Team, Yoon Young-deok, Wi Seong-gon, Yang Yi-won-young, and Yoon Jae-gap, visited Fukushima, Japan on April 7th and are receiving explanations at the nuclear contamination site.
[Image source=Yonhap News]

He continued, "But there, we witnessed several times that various things are changing according to government policies. For example, an internal colleague raised concerns about the Wolseong Nuclear Power Plant site being highly contaminated with cesium and tritium, but it was all covered up internally," and pointed out, "That information was leaked externally in the form of a whistleblower, and the world was informed. This also happened a few years ago during the Moon Jae-in administration."

Regarding the analysis results of the secured data, he said, "Since last year, there have been claims that the data extraction itself, including sample collection, and the resulting data lack consistency and are difficult to consider scientific."

Representative Yang said, "But our country has only now secured the data. Then, we will analyze the data ourselves, and we need to verify why the analysis differs from the claims of foreign scientists who said there are problems."

Furthermore, Representative Yang said, "The issue raised by foreign scientists about the multi-nuclide removal facility is that microparticles clog it, preventing it from functioning properly," adding, "Currently, it takes about 12 days to process about 2,000㎥ of water that has been relatively cleanly treated, and to process the rest would take more than 15 to 20 years."

He added, "Even in the relatively cleanly treated water, there are very heavy and dangerous substances like plutonium and uranium, which do not normally occur in standard nuclear power plants," and argued, "Even if these are below the standard limits, it is necessary to check whether the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has reviewed what problems may arise if these enter our bodies."