Subsidies for storing nuclear debris from Fukushima plant offered by Tokyo
Payments for taking in nuclear-contaminated soil and water akin to bribes, green group says
Running out of space to stockpile soil and water contaminated with radiation from the disaster at the Fukushima Dai-Ichi nuclear plant in March 2011, the Japanese government is offering billions in subsidies for communities that agree to store the debris.
An environmental group says the "subsidies" are more akin to bribes and that communities approached by the government and Tokyo Electric Power Co(Tepco), the operator of the crippled facility, will feel obliged to agree.
Tokyo has offered to pay an annual subsidy of 301 billion yen (HK$22.8 billion) to the Fukushima prefectural government and the towns of Okuma and Futaba in return for permission to construct a temporary storage facility for 25.5 million cubic metres of soil and debris contaminated with radiation.
The government has committed to finding a permanent solution to dealing with the debris within 30 years, the amount of time that experts believe the two towns will be uninhabitable because of high levels of radiation.
An earlier plan to nationalise 16 sq km across the boundaries of the two towns to serve as a temporary dumping site had to be abandoned when residents objected out of concern that the location would eventually become the final disposal site.
Yesterday, Tepco began pumping up groundwater from beneath the Fukushima plant and storing it in tanks. The utility intends to test the radioactivity of the water and examine whether levels can be reduced.