To make room for even more contaminated runoff, the Tokyo Electric Power Co. started dumping over 11,000 tons of radioactive water into the Pacific Ocean on Monday, the Star Tribune said.
The water is contaminated mostly with iodine-131, which according to NPR, should decay away to nothing in the next few months.
The water is supposed to be released over two days from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, and contains around 100 times the legal radiation limit, the Star Tribune reported.
Workers have been dumping water onto the reactors effected by the disaster for a while now, NPR reported, to keep their nuclear fuel from overheating. The water needs to be disposed of in order to bring back the normal cooling system.
Draining this water into the ocean is the best option, NPR said.