Joongang Ilbo reported Monday that Joo Han-kyu, president of the Korea Nuclear Research Institute, denied that the contaminated water from the Fukushima nuclear plant is drinkable, saying that according to the institute's official position, the contaminated water is far from the standard for drinking.

Wade Allison, emeritus professor at the University of Oxford in the UK, recently said, "If you have a liter of Fukushima contaminated water treated with ALPS, you can drink it." He also believes the dangers of contaminated water have been overstated. At a plenary session of the Science, Technology, Information, and Communication Committee of the National Assembly on April 24, Professor Joo said that the remark was just Professor Allison's personal opinion.

"The average concentration of tritium in Fukushima contaminated water is 620,000 becquerels per liter, while the standard for drinking water is 10,000 becquerels," Zhu said. Professor Allison's statement is his personal opinion. The institute will soon release a report stating that contaminated water from the Fukushima nuclear plant cannot be used as drinking water.

In January, the Japanese government confirmed at a cabinet meeting that the time to release the contaminated water into the sea would be "spring or summer this year," and TEPCO has yet to announce a specific date. The international community and all sectors of Japan continue to voice opposition to this. According to a nationwide poll released by the Japan Public Opinion Research Association in March, only 26 percent of the public supported the release of nuclear contaminated water into the sea.