Japan promotes N-dump plan

Press, 14 August 1980, Page 6

Japan promotes N-dump plan

NZPA Tokyo Japan’s science and technology agency will soon implement a programme that will allow it to safely dump low-level radioactive wastes in waters around Japan, agency officials have said.

The disclosure came on the eve of the departure of a Government delegation to visit Guam and six South Pacific nations to explain Japanese plans to dump lowgrade nuclear wastes in the Pacific next year.Minoru Honami,- director of emergency planning and environmental radioactivity for the agency and a member. of the four-man mission, said his organisation was “conducting experimental dumping to confirm the safety of nuclear waste operations.” He said that. Japan’s coastline in the past had been used as a dumping ground, citing the immersion of 1661 drums of radioactive material between 1955 and 1969 off the coast near Tokyo. . • The radioactive elements

— cobalt 60, cesium 167 and manganese 54 — were encased in cement and submerged in’ waters about 2600 m deep, and posed no safety problems to fish or humans, Mr Honami said.

Since 1969 no nuclear waste has been dumped near mainland Japan, but plans now are under way to use Tokyo Bay, the capital’s main waterway, and several other areas as dumping: grounds, he said. Japan, which has 21 nuclear power plants, has also agreed to an American proposal to study the feasibility of establishing a dump for used nuclear fuel on one of three Pacific islands: Wake, Midway, or Palmyra. In the past, Japan has buried high-level spent fuel on land.

The delegation will leave today and attend a summit meeting of South Pacific countries and islands on Guam on August 14 and J : 5, then split into two groups for trips to Australia, New Zealand,: Western Samoa, Fiji, the Solomons and Papua New Guinea.