Austrian parliament member slams Japan's nuke wastewater dumping decision

VIENNA, Aug. 23 (Xinhua) -- A member of Austria's National Council, the country's lower house of parliament, has condemned Japan's decision to start dumping nuclear-contaminated wastewater from the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant into the Pacific Ocean on Thursday.

Martin Litschauer, a member of the National Council from the Green Party and the party's anti-nuclear spokesperson, said Tuesday in a press release that the "contaminated wastewater in the global water cycle endangers our environment and the health of humans and animals" and "may have a direct impact on Europe."

Litschauer urged the European Union (EU) to reverse its decision to lift the import restrictions for fish and other food products from Japan, which was announced by the EU at the EU-Japan Summit in July.

"It cannot be that the EU wants to re-import potentially contaminated fish. Despite the planned filtration, the water (from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant) is still contaminated with the radioactive substance tritium," Litschauer said.

Litschauer also said it is "a scandal" that the Japanese government has left the wastewater dumping decision in the hands of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

"The IAEA is not an independent organization. It is committed to the use of nuclear energy and is therefore not an adequate scientific body to make this globally relevant decision," he said.

Hit by a massive earthquake and an ensuing tsunami in March 2011, the Fukushima nuclear power plant suffered core meltdowns and generated a massive amount of water tainted with radioactive substances from cooling down the nuclear fuel.