Kristen Villebrun and Wendy Bush hoped they wouldn't have to pray for Chedoke Creek, but four years after they first raised alarm about the water's condition, they were part of an Indigenous full moon ceremony to do just that. About 50 people showed up near Princess Point on the dark and frigid Monday evening for the monthly ceremony, which was particularly special as it focused on Chedoke Creek. The body of water that runs into Cootes Paradise had about 24 billion litres of sewage and storm water runoff leak into it due to a gate being left open.
A member of the International Atomic Energy Agency team visiting Fukushima for its first marine sampling since the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant started releasing treated radioactive wastewater into the sea said Thursday he does not expect any rise in radiation levels in the fish caught in the regional seas.
Japan said on Tuesday it will start releasing radioactive water from the wrecked Fukushima nuclear power plant on Aug. 24, putting into motion a plan that has drawn strong criticism from China. The plan, approved two years ago by the Japanese government as crucial to decommissioning the plant operated by Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco), has also faced criticism from local fishing groups, who fear reputational damage and a threat to their livelihood.
Officials in Minnesota are monitoring the cleanup of a massive spill of radioactive water from a nuclear power plant just outside Minneapolis. About 1.5 million litres (400,000 gallons) of nuclear wastewater leaked from the plant back in late November, but the incident wasn’t made public until Thursday. Xcel Energy, the company that operates the affected nuclear power plant, promises that the spill poses no risk to public safety, as did the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency.
The Pacific island country of Micronesia, one of the fiercest critics of a Japanese decision to release water from the destroyed Fukushima nuclear plant into the sea, said on Friday it was no longer concerned about the plan. Its president, David Panuelo, who said in a speech at the U.N. General Assembly last year he had the "gravest concern" about the dumping of the radioactive water, told reporters in Tokyo he was now comfortable with the release, due as soon as this spring.
