Japan’s environment minister says country will dump radioactive water from Fukushima into ocean

Japan’s environment minister announced Tuesday that the country will have to dump radioactive water from the Fukushima power plant into the ocean because it is running out of space, Reuters reported.

Tokyo Electric has amassed more than a million tons of contaminated water from the cooling pipes used to keep fuel cores from melting since the 2011 earthquake and tsunami totaled the plant.

{mosads}“The only option will be to drain it into the sea and dilute it,” Yoshiaki Harada, the minister, said at a news briefing in Tokyo.

“The whole of the government will discuss this, but I would like to offer my simple opinion.”

The government is waiting for a report from an expert panel before making a final decision on what to do with the radioactive water.

Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga described Harada’s comments as “his personal opinion” during a separate press conference, per Reuters.

A spokesperson for Tokyo Electric told Reuters that the company is not in a position to decide what to do but would follow the policy once the government made a decision.

The utility claims it will run out of room to store the water by 2022.