Local Government Protests

This is the first judicial attempt of local government to protest national energy policy. The City of Hakodate, with population of two hundred and seventy thousands, sued national government and J Power Company on Thursday demanding suspension of building new nuclear power plant within the perimeter of 30 kilometers. The city simply wanted their opinion to be heard.

Located in the most southern point of Hokkaido Island, Hakodate is afraid of being affected by possible accident in Oma Nuclear Power Plant, which construction started in the most northern part of Honshu Island in 2008. Although Hakodate and Oma is separated by Tsugaru Strait, the distance between them has 27 kilometers. Nevertheless, Hakodate has no power to deny the construction, while local government with the plant exists has it. In other words, J Power cannot build the plant without allowance of Aomori Prefectural government and Oma Town, while it does not need to get allowance from Hakodate City and Hokkaido Prefectural government.

Mayor of Hakodate, Toshiki Kudo, required agreement of local government for constructing new nuclear power plant within thirty kilometers, because it was apparent that those cities and towns would be severely affected by unexpected accident. “I have the right to protect citizens’ lives and maintain local government to be responsible for supporting them,” he told. It is possible that all residents in Hakodate will have to evacuate, if Oma Nuclear Power Plant has severe accident. City Assembly of Hakodate unanimously passed a resolution supporting the lawsuit.

Behind the frustration of local government, there is unilateral decision of the power company and the national government to build up new reactors. After the accident in First Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant, the government of Japan has not decided to build new reactors. However, it determined that reactors in ongoing construction should be regarded as “existing nuclear plant.” It is obvious that constructing plant not in operation is not an existing plant. As long as the reasoning was not based on assessment of safety, the determination made no sense.

The lawsuit cast a great question on forcible process of resuming nuclear reactors in Japan, in spite of an accident in a nuclear plant caused evacuation of one hundred and sixty thousands of residents. People in the nuclear village in Japan are too proud of themselves as national elites for securing energy to seriously think about alternative choices of renewable energy. This is a traditional encirclement of existing interest for energy elites in a country with scarce resources.