A radioactive spill at Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant has resulted in over 330,000 metric tons of contaminated water and no immediate answers as to what can be done with it.
According to Bloomberg, that's about 132 Olympic-sized swimming pools of radioactive H20, currently being housed in basements, pits and huge tanks at the Tokyo Electric Power Company-owned facility.
Japan's nuclear watchdog The Nuclear Regulation Authority reported to CNN that the poisonous leak has reached a classification of level 3, "serious incident."
When the spill first occurred at the plant last week, three hundred tons of water tainted by radioactive materials flooded through a storage vessel, rushed outside the power plant, and soaked into the ground while workers scrambled to ebb the flow of water before it reached the nearby Pacific Ocean.
At that time, the leak was assigned a level 1 "anomaly rating," on the International Nuclear and Radiological Event Scale, according to CNN.
But now, there is so much contaminated liquid that even officials working in the business are unsure what to do with it.
According to nuclear engineer Michael Friedlander, there are three options: throw it in the ocean, let it evaporate, or both.
"There are really only a few ways you can get rid of it," Firedlander told Bloomberg. "You put it in the ocean or it's going to have to be evaporated. It's a political hotspot, but at some point you cannot just continue collecting this water."
Tepco officials have reportedly been moving hundreds of tons of water into tanks before treating it with extract cesium and strontium through two filter systems. Once the water is deemed a low-level contaminant, it can be thrown out.
But fishing site Fish Update worries that the biggest issue at hand has not yet been addressed-the environmental impact of this water seeping into the ground and the ocean could be drastically harmful for local wildlife.
"The big fear now is that this latest radiation scare will spread out into the open sea and further contaminated fish will be found around the Japanese coastline."
Fish Update also noted that marine biologists and other scientists are keeping a close eye on developments.
Fishing in the immediate vicinity of the atomic plant is currently forbidden.
