US envoy visits Fukushima to eat fish, criticize seafood ban over wastewater release

The U.S. ambassador to Japan visited a city in Fukushima yesterday and had a seafood lunch with the mayor, talked to fishermen and stocked up on local produce to show they are safe after the release of treated radioactive wastewater from the wrecked Fukushima nuclear plant into the sea, backing Japan while criticizing China’s ban on Japanese seafood “as political.”

Ambassador Rahm Emanuel ate flounder and sea bass sashimi with Soma Mayor Hidekiyo Tachiya, talked with local fishermen, and visited a grocery store where he sampled fruits and bought peaches, figs, grapes, flounder, sea bass and other produce from Fukushima prefecture.

All of his purchases will be served when his children visit him this weekend, Emanuel said in a telephone interview from his train back to Tokyo. “We are going to all eat it.

As a father, if I thought if there is a problem, I won’t serve it.”

The release of the treated wastewater began last week and is expected to continue for decades. Japanese fishing groups and neighboring countries oppose it, and China immediately banned all imports of Japanese seafood in response. MDT/AP