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5 Avril 2014
April 4, 2014
In a first by a municipality, the city government of Hakodate, Hokkaido, filed a lawsuit April 3 against the central government and the Electric Power Development Co. (J-Power) to halt construction of the Oma nuclear power plant in nearby Aomori Prefecture.
“To protect the city and its residents, we have no choice but to take this legal action today,” said Hakodate Mayor Toshiki Kudo, who filed the suit with the Tokyo District Court.
It is the first lawsuit to be filed in which a local government is the plaintiff seeking an injunction against a nuclear plant.
Located on the coastline across the Tsugaru Strait, part of Hakodate falls within a 30-kilometer radius of the Oma nuclear plant. However, according to city officials, Hakodate has no say in approving construction at the plant.
“We want to make the appeal that it is unreasonable to impose such a risk on the city without allowing us the right to say that we approve or disapprove of construction," Kudo said.
J-Power's Oma plant is expected to become the world’s first nuclear facility that fully relies on MOX fuel, a mixture of uranium and plutonium extracted from spent fuel.
Construction started in May 2008, but was suspended after the March 11, 2011, nuclear accident at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant. Construction resumed at the Oma facility in October 2012.
Areas administered by the Hakodate city government fall within the central government's designated urgent protective action planning zone (UPZ), a 30-km radius of a nuclear plant. In the UPZ, local governments are required to establish emergency measures, such as evacuation plans.
“If a serious accident takes place at the Oma plant, it would be impossible to quickly evacuate the entire city of more than 270,000 residents," Hakodate city claimed in the lawsuit. "The whole city could possibly be destroyed.”
In its lawsuit, the city said it has the right to defend the lives of its citizens and maintain a municipality responsible for supporting their livelihoods. The city also said municipalities within the 30-km radius of a nuclear plant should be granted the right to the assent procedure of its construction, pointing out that state approval of the Oma plant reactor construction was given in April 2008, before the accident at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant, triggered by the March 11, 2011, Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami.
The lawsuit was unanimously approved by the city assembly in March.
Hiroyuki Kawai, a lead lawyer for the defense team, said, “The importance of a lawsuit filed by the mayor after being approved by the city assembly will be understood by the judges.”
Construction is expected to continue after the latest legal action.
“We will patiently explain the significance of the project and the safety measures,” a J-Power official said. “We want to politely provide information and explanations to the city of Hakodate.”
The mayor of Oma, Aomori Prefecture, said he stands behind the construction of the MOX fuel facility.
“I won’t comment on what another municipal government has decided,” said Mayor Mitsuharu Kanazawa. “Oma’s stance to promote nuclear power generation will not change. We will have to work together for that goal.”
However, mayors of other municipalities that are located near nuclear power plants share similar concerns of Hakodate government officials.
Yoshikazu Tsukabe, the mayor of Imari, Saga Prefecture, said he supports Hakodate’s action. All of Imari falls within the UPZ of Kyushu Electric Power Co.’s Genkai nuclear power plant, and Imari also wants the right to have a say in plant construction.
“With legally binding conditions, utilities will come up with safety measures,” Tsukabe said.
On March 28, heads of seven municipalities, including Fujieda and Fukuroi, in Shizuoka Prefecture near the Hamaoka nuclear power plant in Omaezaki, visited Chubu Electric Power Co., the operator of the plant, and requested that arrangements be made to hold talks on safety measures.
(This article was written by Kozue Isozaki, Gen Kaga, Kentaro Yamayoshi and Yasushi Okubo.)
April 3, 2014
Clearly mentions the MOX issue
Hakodate city files suit to suspend MOX reactor construction
http://mainichi.jp/english/english/newsselect/news/20140403p2g00m0dm079000c.html
TOKYO (Kyodo) -- The city of Hakodate in Hokkaido filed a lawsuit Thursday against the state and Electric Power Development Co. seeking suspension of the construction of a plutonium-uranium mixed oxide fuel reactor due to safety concerns.
Hakodate, about 23 kilometers from the Oma plant located at the northernmost tip of Japan's main island of Honshu, filed the suit with the Tokyo District Court -- the first by a local government seeking suspension of a nuclear power plant.
The move is a sign that municipalities that could be seriously affected by a nuclear accident aim to have a greater say in safety matters, after the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster led the central government to expand the areas around each nuclear power plant that should prepare for evacuation from a 10-kilometer radius to 30 km.
The so-called MOX fuel to be used at the plant is manufactured from uranium and plutonium extracted from reprocessing conventional uranium fuel.
Japan has experience of operating reactors loading MOX fuel in one-third of their cores, but there is no example in or outside the country of a reactor operating completely on MOX fuel.
In the suit, the city said the safety of the Oma plant cannot be guaranteed even though the country has revamped its nuclear regulations since the Fukushima disaster.
Electric Power Development, an electricity wholesaler commonly known as J-Power, said in March it will apply for the state safety assessment of the Oma plant as early as this fall so that it can commence operation.
The state approved construction of the Oma plant in 2008. But after about 40 percent of the construction had been completed, work was suspended in the wake of devastating accident at Tokyo Electric Power Co.'s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, which was hit by a huge earthquake and tsunami in March 2011.
J-Power, however, resumed construction work in October 2012.
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