A team of Taiwanese experts is to depart for Japan tomorrow to inspect wastewater from the disabled Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant, with a report on its findings expected in a month.
Experts are visiting to evaluate plans announced by Tokyo last year to gradually discharge more than 1.25 million cubic meters of treated water from the plant into the sea starting in the spring of next year at the earliest.
It follows another visit last month by a delegation from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) that gathered information about the plan and collected wastewater samples from the plant that was damaged after a 2011 earthquake and tsunami.
Photo: AP
However, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislators have questioned the impartiality of the Atomic Energy Council (AEC), accusing it of helping Tokyo “whitewash” the situation in an explainer on its Web site.
AEC Minister Hsieh Shou-shing (謝曉星) before a routine hearing at the Legislative Yuan yesterday told reporters that the council submitted a formal objection to Tokyo as soon as it announced the plan in April last year.
Later at the hearing, legislators called on Hsieh to establish preliminary response measures to the potential effects of wastewater contamination and to publicly report on its progress.
Not even the IAEA made preliminary judgements before its inspection of the plant, and any discharge would have to meet internationally agreed standards, Hsieh said, adding that this was why the IAEA and Taiwan are sending inspectors.
As for its potential effect on the fishing industry, Hsieh deferred to the Fisheries Agency, but added that the AEC has plans to set up a platform for agencies to inform each other of preventive measures.
Questioned about the AEC’s out-of-date online explainer, which still says that an IAEA delegation “is to” visit Japan, Hsieh said that the international agency is not releasing the results of its investigation until next month.
The AEC maintained communications with the IAEA delegation during its visit, but it cannot share that information until the agency releases its report, Hsieh said.
After legislators expressed concern about how the Taiwanese delegation would be treated, Hsieh said that the AEC’s team would request that it receive the same treatment as the IAEA delegation.
The Ministry of Transportation and Communications yesterday inaugurated the Danjiang Bridge across the Tamsui River in New Taipei City, saying that the structure would be an architectural icon and traffic artery for Taiwan. Feted as a major engineering achievement, the Danjiang Bridge is 920m long, 211m tall at the top of its pylon, and is the longest single-pylon asymmetric cable-stayed bridge in the world, the government’s Web site for the structure said. It was designed by late Iraqi-British architect Zaha Hadid. The structure, with a maximum deck of 70m, accommodates road and light rail traffic, and affords a 200m navigation channel for boats,
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