International Symposium on Remediation Of Radioactive Contamination in the Environment

Date: July20, 2017

The "International Symposium on Remediation of Radioactive Contamination in the Environment" was held at the Toho Minnano Bunka Center in Fukushima City on Thursday, July 20, 2017. It was sponsored by the Society for Remediation of Radioactive Contamination in Environment (SRRCE) and co-sponsored by Ministry of the Environment.

This symposium was staged in conjunction with the sixth research presentation conference of SRRCE. Invited speakers were Dr. Hans Codée, former director of the Netherlands Radioactive Waste Central Organization (COVRA), Dr. Mark Zheleznyak, Professor of Institute of Environmental Radioactivity of Fukushima University, Mr. Ryutaro Yatsu, president of Japan Environmental Storage and Safety Corporation (JESCO)　and Mr. Daisuke Uesako of Japan’s Ministry of the Environment.

At the symposium, firstly Mr. Uesako reported on the outline and achievements of the decontamination project in Fukushima Prefecture, the outline and current status of the Interim Storage Facilities and related topics followed by Dr. Zheleznyak who gave an outline of the accident and pollution situation at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, in comparison with that of the Fukushima nuclear power plant. In addition, he described a modelling study on the diffusion of radioactive substances by the hydrological system at Chernobyl, explaining the modelling study on diffusion of radioactive substances by the hydrological system in Fukushima prefecture which is currently being conducted.

For the next, Dr. Codée, former director of COVRA, presented the approach and outline of interim storage facilities for radioactive waste in the Netherlands. It is currently placed in containers under the concept of recycling and reusing the material after a decay period of radioactive nuclides. For contaminated soil in Fukushima, various options such as volume reduction can be considered. In addition to this, he talked about the idea of storing cesium 137 during a decay period of 30 (or 120) years, and then recycling/reusing the material for foundations of artificial islands, levees, aircraft runways, and solar facilities.

Finally, President Yatsu of JESCO introduced past progress and future developments for Interim Storage Facilities. He covered the situation of Interim Storage Facilities currently operated in Futaba Town and Okuma Town, and anticipated issues, etc. At the closing, he gave an outline of JESCO and its relationship with Interim Storage Facilities.

• Presentation materials are available here