Accumulating Burden on Fukushima

Fukushima prefectural government agreed with the national government to accept intermediate facility for solution of radioactive debris. It has been said that decontamination effort on the land around First Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant would be accelerated after intermediate solution facility would be built. However, many doubt whether all contaminated land will be cleaned up, as well as question on ability of controlling contaminated water flowing underground of broken reactors, even if new facility is established. Without assessing true magnitude of the disaster, the national government keeps on accumulating burden on Fukushima.

Negotiation between Fukushima and Tokyo was disturbed in June, when Minister of Environment, Nobuteru Ishihara, told reporters that “It’s about money finally.” People in Fukushima turned their back to Ishihara, who had obviously no gut to understand how miserable the people without their houses were. The national government tried to persuade them with policy change from buying the land for the facility to renting. In addition, it offered doubling of amount of subsidy for local governments, from ¥150 billion to ¥301 billion.

One point remained was value assessment of land property. Individual owners of land for the facility requested the price based on post-disaster situation, while the national government insisted on the price after the disaster. The margin between them would be worth ten percent. To make a breakthrough, Fukushima prefectural government decided to compensate the margin for landowners. There was a consideration that the deal would be difficult after reshuffling of Shinzo Abe Cabinet early September, because Ishihara was supposed to step down and the negotiation might go back to the beginning.

The national government is going to start construction of the facility early next year. However, it promised the people in Fukushima that the facility would be absolutely “intermediate” and facility for final solution would be built in another place out of Fukushima. There is no view for fulfilling it. Nuclear policy of Tokyo is completely temporary, as it has been from the beginning.

One leader of a small town in Miyagi prefecture, which was named for final place of nuclear debris in the prefecture, told that contaminated waste should be solved by Tokyo Electric Power Company, not local towns. All distortions of nuclear policy stem from unjust preference to the electric company. To make argument over nuclear policy settled, the national government needs to hear voices from local community.