Nuclear Safety Spotlighted as Typhoon Sweeps Fukushima Waste Into Pacific

台风将福岛核废物席卷至太平洋，核安全问题受到关注

来源：俄罗斯卫星通讯社翻译：世界播

The powerful Typhoon Hagibis crashed its way through eastern Honshu in recent days, unleashing a tropical fury not seen in decades. The center of the storm passed near Fukushima Daiichi, where an earthquake and tsunami in March 2011 caused a catastrophic nuclear meltdown at several reactors, prompting mass evacuations around the site.

近日，超强台风“海贝斯”横扫本州岛东部地区，释放出几十年未曾见过的热带风暴威力。而此次风暴的中心经过了福岛第一核电站附近。2011年3月，一场地震及其引发的海啸造成了几座反应堆的灾难性核熔毁，促使该核电站周围的人员大规模撤离。

The storm caused extensive flooding as hundreds of rivers burst their banks, causing the death toll on Wednesday to rise to 74. The Tamura city government told the Japanese daily paper Asahi Shimbun that 2,667 bags of yard debris collected around the Fukushima site - mostly sticks, grass and leaves - had been swept away by the swollen Furumichi River. Officials later told Japanese TV station NHK that only six of the bags had been found.

这场风暴造成数百条河流决堤，促使大面积的洪水泛滥，并导致周三的死亡人数上升到了74人。田村市政府告诉日本日报《朝日新闻》，福岛核电站周围收集的2667袋堆积物——主要是树枝、草和树叶——已经被涨水的古道河冲走了。有关官员后来告诉日本NHK电视台，只有6个袋子被找到。

Kevin Kamps, the Radioactive Waste Watchdog at the organization Beyond Nuclear, joined Radio Sputnik’s Loud and Clear Wednesday.

“超越核能”组织的放射性废物监察员凯文•坎普斯周三接受了“俄罗斯卫星通讯社”电台的采访。

“Typhoons regularly hit Japan kind of like hurricanes hit the United States all too often,” he said, noting “there have been instances like this in the past.”

他说：“台风经常袭击日本，就像飓风经常袭击美国一样”，他还指出，“过去也有过类似的情况。”

“It looks like some of these bags got washed out to sea. And of course, the authorities say, ‘Oh, it’s no big deal, even if the bags break open, it’s no big deal.’ So it begs the question: so why did you gather that stuff up in the first place, if it’s no big deal?’ This is radioactively contaminated material. It’s unfortunate, but it’s kind of a lingering after-impact of the catastrophe.”

“看来有些袋子被冲到海里去了。当然，当局会说，‘哦，这没什么大不了的，即使袋子破了，也没什么大不了的。但这就引出了一个问题：如果不是什么大问题，那你当初为什么要收集这些东西呢？这些都是放射性污染物质。很不幸，但这是灾难的余波。”

The extent of the damage are unclear as to whether nearby water has been irradiated by the debris or whether the highly radioactive wastewater stored at the facility has been leaked as a result of the storm.

目前还不清楚附近的水是否受到了这些含辐射废弃物的污染以及污染程度有多深，也不清楚储存在核电站的高放射性废水是否因为风暴而泄漏。

Kamps noted the position of both the Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) as well as the national government in Tokyo was that dumping that highly radioactive wastewater into the ocean was also part of their proposed solution to the problem of its continued accumulation. The site is expected to hit maximum capacity in 2022, and the by-then 1.37 million tons of rainwater and groundwater, made radioactive by exposure to the plant’s melted-down nuclear reactors, will need to be either disposed of or treated to be made safer.

坎普斯指出，东京电力公司和东京市政府的立场是，向海洋中倾倒高放射性废水也是他们提出的解决持续性废水存储问题的方案的一部分。该核电站的核废水存储设施预计将在2022年达到容量极限，届时将有137万吨因暴露于核电站熔化的核反应堆而具有放射性的雨水和地下水需要进行处理或净化，以使其更加安全。

Handling the issue is a delicate process for Tokyo, which has faced stern protests from several regional countries and which has a reputation to protect ahead of the 2020 Summer Olympics it will host next July.

处理这一问题对东京来说是一个微妙的过程。东京一直面临着几个地区国家的严厉抗议，而且在2020年夏季奥运会于明年7月举行之前，东京必须维护好自己的声誉。

While the water contains many toxic substances, according to Kamps, one of the most dangerous is tritium, a radioactive form of hydrogen that can’t simply be eliminated by filtration or some other mechanism. Many nuclear plants don’t bother to remove tritium from the water when processing it, as they argue it’s plentiful enough in nature as to not cause major problems.

坎普斯指出，虽然水里含有许多有毒物质，但最危险的物质之一是氚，它是氢的一种放射性同位素，不能通过过滤或其他方法来轻易地消除。许多核电站在处理氚的时候都懒得把它从水中去除，因为他们认为氚在自然界中含量充足，不会造成大问题。

“I think the Japanese government’s been caught off-guard” by protests coming from Seoul about the plan to dump the wastewater “because, truth be told, South Korea is also a nuclear power country; they have a couple dozen reactors in their country. Usually these countries with nuclear power behave more like a cabal, they cover for each other,” Kamps told Sputnik.

“我认为日本政府已经被”来自首尔的关于倾倒废水计划的抗议“打了个措手不及”，坎普斯告诉俄罗斯卫星通讯社：“因为，说实话，韩国也是一个核能国家；他们国家有几十个反应堆。通常这些拥有核能的国家表现得更像一个阴谋集团，他们会互相打掩护。”

A similar situation exists at the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station outside of San Diego, California, a closed plant where the nuclear waste is stored “a hundred feet from the Pacific Ocean,” Kamps said, noting that at current sea levels, it’s just inches above high tide, and that with rising seas due to climate change, the sea will soon swallow the site where the spent nuclear fuel sits.

坎普斯还举例称，类似的情况也出现在加利福尼亚州圣地亚哥郊外的圣奥诺弗雷核电站，这是一个封闭的厂区，其核废料的储存地“离太平洋100英尺”，他指出，以目前的海平面来看，它只比涨潮高出几英寸，而随着气候变化导致的海平面上升，海洋很快就会吞没核废料所在的地方。

However, in southern California, environmental groups are mostly pushing to relocate the waste to poorer communities, including Native American lands further inland.

然而，在南加州，环保组织大多在推动将垃圾转移到更贫穷的社区，包括更内陆的印第安人居住地。

“We’re going to have to make some decisions in this country about dealing with these high risks and doing what needs to be done, or we’re going to pay some very high consequences at some point,” Kamps said.

坎普斯强调：“我们必须在有关这个国家就如何应对这些高风险和需要做些什么方面做出决定，否则我们将在某个时候付出非常高昂的代价。”

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