14 Years On: Governor Urges Disposal of Fukushima Soil Outside Prefecture

Tokyo, March 10 (Jiji Press)--Soil from radiation decontamination work after the 2011 nuclear reactor meltdowns in Fukushima Prefecture should be disposed of outside the northeastern Japan prefecture by the deadline set by law, Fukushima Governor Masao Uchibori said in a recent interview.

A law stipulates that all such soil must be disposed of outside Fukushima by March 2045. "The final disposal must be completed within 20 years, no matter whether the soil is reused (within Fukushima) or not," the governor emphasized.

Last month, Shiro Izawa, mayor of the Fukushima town of Futaba, one of the hosts of Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings Inc.'s Fukushima No. 1 plant, the site of the meltdowns, said soil from radiation decontamination work should be reused in Fukushima. The mayor said this was his personal opinion.

Uchibori pointed out the heavy burden placed on Futaba and the neighboring town of Okuma for accepting interim storage facilities for soil from decontamination work. "We will urge the central government to clarify and accelerate the actual plan and the process toward final disposal," he said.

With the second-phase reconstruction period following the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami coming to an end in fiscal 2025, the autumn review session for national programs last year argued for a revision of the Reconstruction Agency's subsidies for rebuilding Fukushima.

[Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]