The International Atomic Energy Agency on Friday wrapped up a three-day inspection of wastewater discharges from the shuttered Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station in Japan, the U.N. group announced.
The four-day mission began Oct. 24 and concluded Oct. 27. The task force included experts from 11 countries, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) wrote in a press release, including from China and Russia, which have banned imports of Japanese seafood in protest of the wastewater discharges.
During the visit to the plant on Japan’s East coast, the IAEA-led task force looked at radiation monitors, tanks that hold treated wastewater, pumps that drive the water through the discharge-system’s plumbing and the sensors that feed data to IAEA’s own monitors for the plant.
The IAEA mission planned to publicly release a report about last week’s visit, and other inspections of the plant, “by the end of the year,” according to the IAEA presser.
Plant owner Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO) has twice this year discharged irradiated water resulting from the cleanup of the plant’s three shuttered reactors, which melted down in 2011 after they were damaged by a tsunami created by an offshore earthquake.
The second discharge from the Fukushima site was in early October. The first was in late August, according to press releases from TEPCO.
