June 25, 2012 – The catch from six small fishing boats, the first to resume commercial fishing in the waters off Fukushima since last year’s nuclear catastrophe, went on sale at local supermarkets on Monday, raising hopes and concerns in a region struggling to return to something like normal.
For now, the catch is limited to octopus and whelk, a type of sea snail, because those species are thought to trap fewer radioactive particles in their bodies. Still, local residents said it was a milestone for a vital source of food and employment in the region.
“The past year has been long and hard, but the thing is, I never once gave up on being a fisherman,” Toru Takahashi, 57, said before sailing early Saturday from Matsukawa, about 30 miles north of the stricken Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant. But the fishermen’s hope to resume working the waters they fished for decades is causing unease all around. Experts say the effects of the disaster on the ocean are still not fully understood.
Hours before the boats set out, the central government hastily banned Fukushima’s fishermen from selling 36 types of fish other than octopus and whelk. Until then, there had been no explicit ban on fishing near Fukushima, because the region’s fishermen had voluntarily suspended work after the tsunami and nuclear disaster. In return, they have received about $125 million from the plant operator, Tokyo Electric Power.
“We are not opposed to fishermen in Fukushima starting to fish again, if they can show that what they are catching does not contain high levels of radiation,” said Yasunobu Matsui, a government food safety official. “We just don’t want them to make a mistake and catch the wrong kind.”
Read the full story at the New York Times.