The Japanese government is dumping radioactive material into the oceans as if i’s an acceptable thing to do. This water is toxic.
We have a very odd and wildly inconsistent way of behaving around our oceans.
On one hand we are drawn to it like few other things. The most expensive real estate borders the ocean, many people’s preferred vacation is to go to the beach, etc. On the other hand we seem to treat this very thing, this magnet for our time, attention and money… like a dump.
Why do we treat the ocean as a dump?
We saw this in the Gulf last year as millions of barrels of oil spilled into the ocean for weeks on end. Fast forward to today and we’ve opened the floodgates for more and more drilling in that region.
Now we are seeing the Japanese government dump radioactive material into the oceans…and doing so as if that’s an acceptable thing to do.
11,000 tons of radioactive water is being dumped into the ocean.
This water is toxic, it is between 100x and 10,000x the legal limit.
We sit back, watch it happen and don’t anything about it. We may feel like we’re powerless… but we’re never powerless. We may be apathetic but we’re not powerless. If we organize and if we engage others we have more power than we may have dreamed was possible.
Surfrider Japan has been fighting a campaign for years that seeks to to have nuclear power plants stop dumping toxic, radioactive materials into the oceans. The Rokkasho Plant, in a nearby region, has been dumping radioactive materials into the water for a long time, it’s part of their daily operational procedures. You can view a video on that campaign here.
If you want more information on the recent, incremental, dumping of radioactive material at the Fukushima Daiichi power plant, you can find that here.
If you’d like to engage in this and get involved. You can donate direct to Surfrider Japan to assist them with the longer-term issues related to these campaigns, click on the flag to the left.
Read more from Jim Moriarty on his Ocean, Waves, and Beaches Blog.
