Six-Day Trip to Japan by Fukushima Water Inspection Team, But No Civilian Experts among the 21 Inspectors

Yoo Guk-hee (right), chair of the Nuclear Safety and Security Commission who will lead the inspection team to examine the contaminated water from the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant in Japan, announces his team at the government office in Seoul on the morning of May 19. Yonhap News

An inspection team of experts to examine the contaminated water from the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant will depart for a six-day trip to Japan on May 21 and begin its mission. The team plans to examine as much of the contaminated water purification and release facilities as possible, including the multi-nuclide removal facility (ALPS), despite Japan’s reluctance toward the field inspection. The inspection team consists of 21 experts, but civilian experts were not included.

Park Gu-yeon, first assistant director of the Office for Government Policy Coordination and Yoo Guk-hee, chair of the Nuclear Safety and Security Commission, who will lead the inspection team held a briefing at the government office in Seoul on May 19 and announced the details about the inspection team and its activities.

The trip to Japan will take six days from May 21 to 26, two days longer than originally planned. However, the actual inspection will be conducted for four days from May 22 to 25.

The team will hold a technological meeting with representatives of the Japanese Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry and the Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) on May 22. Yoo announced, “We plan to discuss the overall status of the Fukushima nuclear power plant including the management of contaminated water and ground water as well as future plans.”

For the two days of May 23-24, the team will visit the first unit of the Fukushima power plant and examine the management of contaminated water. The inspection team chief said, “We will focus on checking the condition of facilities installed, such as the multi-nuclide removal facility (ALPS) and the facility for releasing the water into the sea and also check the results of their performance tests,” and explained, “We will look closely at the analysis of (contaminant) concentration in the contaminated water that has been processed through ALPS, carried out in the chemical analysis unit.”

On May 25, another meeting will be held to discuss the results of the inspection by the Korean team with experts from TEPCO, the Japanese Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, and the Japanese Nuclear Regulation Authority. Yoo explained, “We plan to engage in in-depth discussions on the environmental impact assessment of the radiation, such as the accumulation of radiation in the ecosystem, and on the data from the analysis of the contaminated water in tanks.”

The inspection team will consist of 21 experts from the government, including Yoo, chief of the inspection team, and nineteen experts on nuclear power plant facilities and radiation from the Korean Institute of Nuclear Safety and one expert on radiation in marine environments from the Korea Institute of Ocean Science and Technology.

As the government had announced earlier, civilian experts were not included in the inspection team. Instead, the government decided to seek the advice of private experts on the details of the inspection.

Park said, “We plan to gather and operate a separate advisory group of about a dozen experts including civilian experts to support and evaluate the activities of the inspection team from various perspectives.”