Storage "indispensable" for Fukushima's recovery

January 20, 2015

Editorial: Speed up talks on securing land for storing Fukushima radioactive soil

http://mainichi.jp/english/english/perspectives/news/20150120p2a00m0na007000c.html

The Environment Ministry has postponed bringing soil contaminated with radioactive substances leaking from the tsunami-ravaged Fukushima No. 1 Nuclear Power Plant to a temporary storage facility beyond this month as was originally scheduled. The ministry says it will begin to bring contaminated soil to the facility by March 11, which marks the fifth anniversary of the Great East Japan Earthquake, which triggered a massive tsunami and the nuclear crisis. The delay is attributable to the ministry's deadlocked negotiations with the Fukushima Prefectural Government and the owners of the land where the facility is to be built.

The facility is indispensable for Fukushima's disaster recovery. The more the construction of the facility is delayed, the more serious impact it will have on local residents' efforts to restore their livelihoods.

The temporary storage facility, with a capacity of some 25.5 million cubic meters of soil, is to be built on a 16-square-kilometer area that straddles between the Fukushima Prefecture towns of Futaba and Okuma near the crippled atomic power station. In August last year, then Fukushima Gov. Yuhei Sato agreed to accept the construction of the facility with five conditions attached.

Two of the conditions -- the enactment of legislation on the final disposal of tainted soil outside the prefecture and the creation of grants to help revitalize the Fukushima economy -- have been met. However, the three others, including a safety agreement between the national government and local municipalities hosting the facility, remain unaddressed.

Current Gov. Masao Uchibori says the prefectural government will carefully proceed with consultations. Needless to say, ensuring safety of the facility is absolutely necessary, but the prefectural government should put more efforts into its negotiations with the national government and local municipalities.

The ministry's negotiations with over 2,000 landowners have been stalled. Ministry officials said they have been unable to contact nearly half of the landowners because the ministry cannot confirm where they are taking shelter. The ministry has not yet reached an agreement with a single landowner over the use of their land for the facility.

The ministry intends to use some 30,000 square meters of the land free of charge for now to store radioactively contaminated soil, but it is nothing but a stopgap measure. A group of some landowners are demanding that the national government buy their land at higher prices in the future as it has offered.

Despite such circumstances, the Futaba and Okuma municipal governments decided between late last year and earlier this month to accept the site in hope that the construction of the facility will speed up their disaster recovery. The Environment Ministry has recruited about 140 people who have experience in land acquisition and other expertise as temporary workers and is set to assign them to Fukushima beginning in April. These workers should respect the town governments' decisions and speed up negotiations on land acquisition with landowners.

Radioactively contaminated soil is currently stored at more than 1,000 locations in Fukushima Prefecture. The ministry intends to bring the soil to the temporary storage facility on an experimental basis for the first year. That tainted soil from 43 municipalities in the prefecture accounts for less than 1 percent of all contaminated soil.

Environment Minister Yoshio Mochizuki says, "We have no choice but to ask the local communities to accept soil at the temporary storage facility for several years." Local residents have expressed concern over and displeasure at the prospects that the temporary storage of radioactive soil at the facility will be prolonged. The central government should release a road map toward the construction of facilities to dispose of such contaminated soil, including the timing of the completion of the temporary storage facility.

The national government has included 250 billion yen as grants to the prefectural government in return for hosting the temporary storage facility from the fiscal 2014 supplementary budget draft. Both the central and prefectural governments should secure transparency on how the grants will be spent to make sure that the money will be used for Fukushima's disaster recovery and deepen the public's understanding of the need for the temporary storage facility.

January 20, 2015(Mainichi Japan)