Local pushback halted plans to reuse soil from Fukushima
Local residents near Shinjuku Gyoen National Garden in Tokyo opposed a government plan to reuse soil from Fukushima decontamination efforts in the park. (Akira Hatano)
The government's first attempt to reuse mildly radioactive soil from Fukushima Prefecture as landfill in public works projects around Japan has been scrapped due to local opposition.
Protests from local communities apparently led the Environment Ministry to scuttle the pilot project in March of last year.
The 540-million-yen ($3.8 million) project would have used a few truckloads of the soil as landfill for flowerbeds and lawns in Tokyo's Shinjuku Gyoen National Garden; the National Institute for Environmental Studies in Tsukuba, Ibaraki Prefecture; and locations in Tokorozawa, Saitama Prefecture.
Safety concerns persisted, despite plans to use the soil as underfill beneath the topsoil layer.
Following the 2011 triple meltdown at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant, topsoil was scraped off from areas across Fukushima Prefecture to lower radiation levels.
The removed dirt has since been stored in an interim facility near the plant.
The accumulation totals 14 million cubic meters—enough to fill 11 Tokyo Domes. Under a law enacted for the post-disaster cleanup effort, the soil must be disposed of outside Fukushima Prefecture by 2045.
To reduce the volume of dirt requiring disposal, the government plans to repurpose the least contaminated soil—considered safe in terms of radioactivity—for civic projects.
The goal is to shrink the amount in temporary storage to less than one-quarter of its current volume.
However, the failure of the recent pilot project highlights the challenges of gaining local support for these plans.
Amid the opposition, the ministry extended its contract with private contractors twice before eventually terminating it.
During that period, the ministry conducted safety tests at the interim storage facility to assess whether the soil could be transported safely without dispersal, and how to respond in the event of spillage caused by traffic accidents.
Ultimately, the ministry paid 210 million yen from the original contract to the contractors for this and other related work.
Despite the challenges, the ministry has expressed its intention to pursue its goal, stating that the termination of this particular contract does not mean the end of the broader plan.
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