Two Literature Surveys Concluded

Nuclear Waste Management Organization (NUMO) submitted the result of its “literature survey” for final disposal facility of high-level radioactive waste to Town of Suttsu and Kamoenai, Hokkaido, on November 22nd. The survey concluded that both towns are appropriate to go to the next step, summary survey. However, NUMO does not have optimistic view to determine where the facility will be built, facing fundamental opposition from local community around those two towns. 

The government of Japan decided that the nuclear waste produced by nuclear power plants should be buried into underground in Designated Radioactive Waste Final Disposal Act in 2000. NUMO, established in the same year, has been in charge of selecting location for final disposal. The law requires NUMO to accumulate three steps of surveys, which are literature, summary and detailed surveys.

 

The survey will be exercised based on voluntary candidacy of local government. No local community has stepped forward until 2020, because it was not determined how that final disposal would affect the life of local residents. Suttsu and Kamoenai filed for literature survey for the first time, twenty years after the law for nuclear waste disposal had been legislated.

 

Their candidacy was based on fiscal shortage of two towns, which were suffering from depopulation. There is a rule that 200 million yen will be given to local city or town that accepted literature survey. The rule was set on the basis of stick and carrot. Receiving criticisms from other towns around, which worried about negative impact of the survey, Mayor of Suttsu, Haruo Kataoka, admitted that it was a dirty work. Suttsu and Kamoenai have already received that subsidy.

 

The literature survey concluded that whole area of Suttsu town is available for the next step, summary survey. NUMO did not find any inappropriate place in Suttsu town for building final disposal facility. With some notifications of geological specifics in the town, which should be considered, whole area of Suttsu town was evaluated as a candidate for summary survey.

 

Another literature survey for Kamoenai indicated that a part of the town, farther than 15 kilometers from a volcano, Shakotan-dake, could be the candidate for the summary survey. The fact is that over ninety percent of the land of Kamoenai town is within 15 kilometers from Shakotan-dake. Kamoenai was mostly categorized as inappropriate for final disposal facility in Scientific Characterization Map released by the government in 2017.

 

Moreover, the government needs to achieve approval from the governor of Hokkaido to go to next step in Suttsu or Kamoenai. Governor of Hokkaido, Naomichi Suzuki, has been reiterating that he would not approve a summary survey, because Hokkaido has a policy for not accepting any nuclear material on the land. The government of Japan cannot count on those two towns as the place for the facility so far.

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