Evacuees from Fukushima not so happy about restart

July 8, 2013 

Fukushima evacuees criticize plans to restart nuclear reactors

http://mainichi.jp/english/english/newsselect/news/20130708p2a00m0na013000c.html 

IYO, Ehime -- Evacuees from the Fukushima nuclear disaster who now live near nuclear reactors targeted for restart by power companies are uneasy and critical about power companies' plans to restart nuclear reactors.

"They can't say 100 percent that a disaster won't occur, and they're trying to take that risk. More than anger, I feel sadness," says Hiroshi Watanabe, 34, a farmer who evacuated from Minamisoma, Fukushima Prefecture, to Iyo, Ehime Prefecture, with his family. They now live near Ikata Nuclear Power Plant. Shikoku Electric Power Co., which owns the plant, has applied for a safety evaluation to have the No. 3 reactor restarted.

Back in Fukushima, Watanabe made a living growing rice and vegetables and raising chickens around 12 kilometers from the disaster-hit Fukushima No. 1 Nuclear Power Plant. He used less artificial fertilizers and agricultural chemicals as a farmer, for which he was well-received. He was just in the middle of working with local governments and local farmers on plans to use organic farming to bring economic benefit to the area when the nuclear disaster struck.

"The blessings of the land, our efforts, everything went to nothing," he says.

Together with his wife and two daughters, he evacuated to Ehime Prefecture, where he had spent his university days. They set up a new home that is around 40 kilometers from the Ikata plant. Watanabe borrowed some land and began growing rice and mandarins. His income recovered to about half of what it had been in Fukushima, and his wife had a son.

However, he carries with him the fear of a nuclear accident happening here as well, and he joined other residents in a December 2011 lawsuit to block the restart of the Ikata plant.

However, many people in the town of Ikata, which hosts the plant, want it to restart. Mamoru Mizumoto, a 54-year-old restaurant owner, says, "I strongly welcome (the application to restart the reactor.)" Many of his regular patrons are nuclear plant workers. Since the Ikata plant shut all its reactors in January last year, his sales have been down to a third of what they were when the reactors were all running.

"If not for the reinforcement construction on the No. 3 reactor (that started in spring), I might have had to close shop," he says.

Watanabe has some sympathy for such businesses, but says, "It's too late to act once a disaster has occurred. Until a verdict is reached (in the lawsuit), I want the authorities to hold back on giving a green light to restarting reactors."

Another disaster evacuee, Naomi Namekata, 44, is critical of Hokkaido Electric Power Co. (HEPCO)'s filing for permission to run its No. 1 through 3 reactors at the Tomari Nuclear Power Plant.

"The nuclear disaster has not been taken care of yet, nor is the damage from it under control. And yet, they are acting as if the disaster never happened at all," she complains.

In January 2012, almost a year after the disaster, she evacuated from Aizuwakamatsu, Fukushima Prefecture, to Sapporo's Atsubetsu Ward with her 13-year-old son, moving into a home provided by the Hokkaido Prefectural Government. She soon began working at an association supporting evacuees of the disaster who came to the prefecture. What most pleased her on moving to her new home was "that I can buy food without worrying about radiation." Nothing had worried her more than the effects of radiation on her son.

HEPCO stresses the safety measures it has taken at the Tomari plant, but the Fukushima No.1 plant was also supposed to have had safety measures. Namekata says, "It's wrong to so hastily pursue a restart of the reactors."