The port of Onahama, in southern Fukushima Prefecture, Japan, exudes a quiet busy-ness on a warm spring day. Fishers come and go in tiny white trucks, unloading their catches in blue plastic crates.
White, blue, and red flags, emblazoned with a stylised tuna logo, flutter in the wind outside the new red brick fish market. In the food hall across the road, vendors twist skewers of grilled shellfish and keep a watchful eye on deep vats of steamed clams.
A sign above a plastic model of the day’s special proudly declares that the deep-fried oysters come from a port only 20km up the coast.
Just over a decade ago, Onahama’s port buildings stood battered and empty. The Fukushima coast was badly damaged by the 2011 Great East Japan earthquake and tsunami.
The few coastal fishing boats that survived the tsunami sat tied to the quayside, facing an uncertain future under the voluntary suspension of coastal fisheries in the immediate aftermath of the Fukushima Dai’ichi nuclear accident.
Since then, Fukushima’s coastal fisheries have been on a long and slow process of rehabilitation. Reaching the point where Fukushima fish can once again be sold freely in shops and restaurants has required the prefecture’s fisheries cooperatives and governors to not only understand the science, but crucially also reassure the public that Fukushima fish are safe and delicious.
However, the Fukushima nuclear accident is not over. Just a short drive up the coast at the Fukushima Dai’ichi site sit dozens and dozens of light blue tanks, each filled with water containing radioactive substances that plant operator TEPCO and the Japanese government plan to release into the Pacific Ocean.
Despite fishing within sight of these tanks, fishers in Fukushima feel they are the last to know every time TEPCO or the Japanese government make a decision about the next step in their management plans for this water.
Scores of experts have come to Fukushima to advise the Japanese government on the technical process of releasing the treated water. Fukushima’s fishing communities feel overlooked and sidelined in these discussions too.
Now, with only the final details to be confirmed before the first gallons of treated water are pumped into the Pacific, Fukushima’s fishers fear it may be too late to stop their hard work in building trust and getting local fish back on menus and shopping lists from being undone.
Although Fukushima’s fishers would rather the releases didn’t happen at all, local fisheries cooperatives acknowledge the complexity of the situation at the nuclear plant and realise that doing nothing may not be an option.
Rather, their main concern is the manner in which the decision-making process has proceeded. The decision to release treated water into the sea was made by an expert technical committee in Japan.
Formal consultations with Fukushima’s fisheries cooperatives did not begin until most details about the proposed releases were firmed up, leaving little room for dialogue on how the release process could be designed around local fishing activities.
It may be too late to revisit the decision to release the treated water into the sea. But going forward, involving Fukushima’s fishers in deciding when treated water should be released, studies that should be done to track the movement of radioactive particles and protocols for monitoring fish and other marine species, will give them a sense that the importance of the sea to their livelihoods is respected.
The international community of expertise on environmental radioactivity can also do more to listen to Fukushima’s fishers.