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Presidential office spokesperson Jeong Hye-jeon gives a briefing on Aug. 23, 2024. (Yonhap)

On the eve of the first anniversary of Japan beginning to dump radioactive wastewater from its Fukushima nuclear power plant into the ocean, South Korea’s presidential office made no mention of Japan, despite the tens of thousands of tons of toxic sludge it continues to pour into the sea while ignoring the concerns of its neighbors. Instead, the office slammed the opposition for failing to apologize “for being the source of scaremongering rumors with no scientific evidence to back it up.”
 
Just which country does this presidential office work for?
 
Before Japan even began dumping the toxic wastewater, 1.34 million metric tons of it was being stored in Fukushima, and another 100 metric tons are generated daily. Japan has dumped 546,000 metric tons of the wastewater in the past year, with tens of thousands of tons expected to be released yearly for at least the next 30 years.
 
The contaminated water contains trace amounts of radioactive substances like cesium-137 that are deadly to humans, as well as tritium, which is not filtered out by Japan’s Advanced Liquid Processing System and, as such, is being diluted with seawater before being dumped back into the ocean.
 
Humankind has never seen such a large-scale, long-term discharge of radioactive water before, so its long-term effects on ecosystems and human health remain unknown. As the leader of the nation, whose foremost priority should always be the safety of the Korean people, should the president really be saying “See? I told you there was nothing to worry about” barely a year into the dumping?
 
Despite having various options to store and dilute the contaminated water, Japan settled on flushing the water out of the country simply to save time, money and effort. A government with more common sense would have vehemently opposed Japan’s decision to leave the rest of the world to shoulder the consequences of a problem that it should have resolved independently.
 
Instead, the Yoon administration is siding with Japan, maintaining that “claims that the contaminated water is polluting our seas are nothing more than scaremongering rumors.” To this day it says nothing of Japan’s responsibility to the world, and instead berates the Korean public for being concerned at all. The Japanese government couldn’t have asked for a better partner than Yoon.
 
“Over the past year, more than 496,000 tests have been conducted on samples from domestic waters, international waters and other places. We did not see a single case that did not meet our safety standards,” the presidential office stated on Friday, bemoaning the “1.6 trillion won wasted on a boondoggle.”
 
However, simulations carried out by the government show that it will take four to 10 years for the contaminated water to travel around the Pacific Ocean and enter Korean waters, meaning it is far too early to come to any conclusions. 

So who’s responsible for the “wasted” money? The members of the Korean public who are merely worried about their safety? Or Japan, who is dumping the toxic water into our shared oceans in the first place? Why is the government placing all of the blame on the South Korean people and not on Japan?
 
As former dean of the Seoul National University Graduate School of Public Health Paek Do-myung and others have pointed out, data from Japan’s Environment Ministry indicates that the tritium levels in fish tested in waters around the release of the contaminated water “increased tenfold two months after the government began its discharge.”
 
Japan has not disclosed any information related to the nuclear waste since February 2024. It’s high time that the Yoon administration represent the interests of the people of Korea rather than those of Japan for a change. 

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