Anchor: At around 1 p.m. Thursday, Japan began to discharge treated and diluted wastewater from the quake-crippled Fukushima nuclear power plant. Officials plan to release around two-point-three percent of the stored water through next March.
Choi You Sun reports.

Report: Japan started the discharge of wastewater from the crippled Fukushima nuclear power plant at around 1 p.m. Thursday.

The Tokyo Electric Power Company(TEPCO), the operator of the Fukushima facility, began to release the water through a sea tunnel extending one kilometer into the ocean.

Junichi Matsumoto is a TEPCO executive in charge of releasing the water after it has been treated with the Advanced Liquid Processing System(ALPS) to remove radioactive elements.

[Sound bite: Junichi Matsumoto – TEPCO executive (Japanese/English)] 
"With regard the the release of ALPS-treated water into the ocean, we think of this as a big milestone toward one of many steps in decommissioning (of the nuclear power plant) and a solid move forward."

The discharge began two years and four months after the Yoshihide Suga Cabinet officially decided on the release plan in April 2021 and more than 12 years since the 2011 earthquake and tsunami that battered eastern Japan.

[Sound bite: Junichi Matsumoto – TEPCO executive (Japanese/English)]
"Going forward, we believe we will be shifting toward processes that entail more risks, including the removal and safe storage of fuel debris and spent fuel. However, with regard to the ocean release of the ALPS-treated water: based on the fundamental policy of not releasing a large amount in one go, we will be continuing the release over the course of around 30 years."   

TEPCO has stored about a ton of contaminated water that had been treated using ALPS and diluted with one-thousand-200 tons of seawater in a tank due to the inability to remove tritium through the system.

Tokyo plans to regularly monitor the level of tritium in the ocean after the discharge to ensure that it is below the standard of one-thousand-500 becquerels per liter, with the first result from a collected sample expected as early as Sunday.

TEPCO is expecting to treat, dilute and release around 460 tons of wastewater a day for the next 17 days for a total of seven-thousand-800 tons in the first phase.

As of June of this year, there were over one-point-34 million tons of wastewater stored at the plant, and with the continued accumulation of wastewater from underground water and rain, the discharge is expected to take around 30 years or longer.
Choi You Sun, KBS World Radio News.