With the release of treated water from the crippled nuclear plant in Fukushima Prefecture looming, embattled seafood businesses in the region fear fresh reputational damage to their products.
By around this summer, the government and plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings (Tepco) plan to release water with trace amounts of tritium into the sea, as the company asserts that the decommissioning work of the reactors damaged by the 2011 disaster will be obstructed by many large tanks of treated water.
In April, discharge facilities were being rapidly constructed at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant, with the operator aiming to complete them by the end of June in the first quarter of the new fiscal year.