The United States is helping Japan offset the loss of fresh fish sales to China by purchasing its seafood for consumption and sale at U.S. military bases in Japan, according to a Reuters report Monday.
The commissary at Yokota, an airlift hub in western Tokyo, expects its first deliveries of scallops Tuesday, commissary zone manager Kalani Patsel told Stars and Stripes by phone Tuesday.
“The scallops will be available today,” Patsel said.
The scallops delivery is the first of many to commissaries, naval vessels and other outlets serving U.S. service members, Defense Department personnel and their families, U.S. Ambassador Rahm Emanuel told Reuters news service for its report.
The arrangement begins with scallops but will eventually include all types of fish sold in all the commissaries across 17 U.S. installations in Japan, at farmers markets on some U.S. bases and stored and served on U.S. Navy ships, Emanuel said in a video accompanying the report.
“None of us are under the illusion that the armed forces replaces the Chinese market,” he said.
China imposed a ban on imported Japanese seafood after Japan released radioactive water from the damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in late August and again Oct. 5.
The March 2011 tsunami caused by a powerful earthquake off Japan’s northeastern coast inundated the power plant and caused a meltdown of its nuclear cores. The plant is slated for decommissioning, of which the release of stored water is one step.
The International Atomic Energy Agency, a U.N. body, has said the millions of tons of stored water would have negligible impacts on people and the environment. The water, which cooled nuclear fuel rods, has been treated and will require decades to be emptied from storage tanks, according to Reuters and other news agencies.