Mixed feelings about interim storage

March 14, 2015

Fukushima residents find it hard to come to terms with interim storage for tainted soil

http://mainichi.jp/english/english/newsselect/news/20150314p2a00m0na010000c.html

OKUMA, Fukushima -- Soil tainted with radioactive substances from the crippled nuclear power station was delivered for the first time on March 13 to a site where the government plans to build a temporary storage facility.

Only 12 cubic meters of tainted soil in so-called flexible containers was transferred to the site on the first day. The government has yet to show a work schedule as to when it will finish transporting tainted soil whose total volume is equal to filling Tokyo Dome 18 times. There is no guarantee that the government will abide by its promise to store tainted soil there for no more than 30 years. Therefore, the delivery of contaminated soil has left many questions unanswered for local residents.

The governments of Okuma and Futaba made a painful decision to accept the central government's storage plan, but local residents, particularly land owners and leaseholders, were watching the first delivery of tainted soil with mixed feelings.

"It is said that the negotiations between the government and landowners on land procurements have made little headway, but there has been no negotiations with us. We can't go along with the start of delivery at this stage," said a 66-year-old woman who has her house on a tract of land where the government plans to build a temporary storage facility.

Her house is located within a three-kilometer radius of the crippled Fukushima No. 1 Nuclear Power Plant. Even before the Fukushima Prefectural Government decided to accept the central government's plan to build a temporary storage facility there, the woman had shown understanding of the plan, saying, "Unless some place accepts it, there will be no reconstruction for Fukushima." But even if she sold her property to the state, it would remain unclear how the tract of land would be used and whether she would be able to go there again.

She also wonders how the government will haul "important things that are irreplaceable with money" out of her house and decontaminate them. Although there are so many things she wants to confirm, she says she has not received any clear explanations from the government. "Although landowners' questions remain unanswered, it appears to me that things are forcibly moving ahead," she said.

Noriko Onodera, a 63-year-old woman who had evacuated from Futaba to Iwaki in Fukushima Prefecture, has her house outside the planned site for the temporary storage facility. But she said, "It is distressing and sad to see contaminated soil gathering in my hometown."

The central government stipulated in a law that it will permanently dispose of the tainted soil outside Fukushima Prefecture within 30 years, but she is suspicious about whether the government will actually do so. Four years have passed since the outbreak of the nuclear crisis. "While thinking it necessary to accept changes taking place in the town as it gets damaged, I can't sort out my feelings," she added.

Meanwhile, an official of the government of Naraha in Fukushima Prefecture said, "The fact that it was delivered has significant meaning." Naraha, whose entire town has been evacuated, is about to decide to return to where it was before the March 2011 triple disasters. A total of 570,000 cubic meters of contaminated soil is piled up in a temporary storage site in the town. A total of 1,000 cubic meters of contaminated soil, or only 0.2 percent of the soil, can be transferred from the site in the initial year. But the official said, "It will give reassurances to the townspeople. We want to appreciate the Okuma and Futaba towns for deciding to accept it."

Etsuko Yoshida, 76, who has lived in a temporary housing unit in the Fukushima Prefecture city of Koriyama after evacuating from Kawauchi in the same prefecture, says there is a temporary storage site for contaminated soil in front of her house in an "emergency evacuation preparation zone." She said, "I have mixed feelings when I come to think of the people of Okuma and Futaba who are losing their hometowns. The government should safely transport all of the contaminated soil in the prefecture to a facility rather than loosely saying, 'We have just started to deliver it for now'."

March 14, 2015(Mainichi Japan)