Japan plans big undergound

Faced With Ocean-Dumping Protests

Japan plans big undergound N-waste storehouse

While the Japanese Government considers how opposition from Pacific Island countries to its plans for ocean-dumping of low level nuclear waste may best be overcome, environmental au thorities have given the go-ahead for plans to build a giant land based underground storage depot for the waste.

Japan had planned to dump the waste in an ocean trench to the south of its home islands. But opposition from Pacific Island countries, notably the new Mic ronesian entities who would be closest to the ocean dumping site, has so far stayed its hand.

The proposed underground storage site is at Tsuruga, on the Japan Sea coast, where the Japan Atomic Power Co. has a reactor.

In August the company managed to win approval from environmental authorities for construction of a six-storey, rein forced concrete storehouse which will cost SAI4 million.

According to one press report, a 1.4 hectare area of forest slope will be cleared and the storehouse built into the moun tainside. It will then be surfaced and trees planted on top, leaving only a road, a 3.4 metre tunnel entrance, and a ventilator, on the surface.

But by March this year, Japan had 460,000 drums of the waste piled up at nuclear plants around the country. By 1990, the piles will have grown to 1.1 million drums, unless some method is found of disposing of them.

Japanese sources warn that the decision to build the land storehouse at Tsuruga should not be taken to mean thay they have abandoned the idea of dumping the waste at sea. One company spokesman said: “It’s only a tem porary store at Tsuruga . . . We are keeping the waste on our own site until the government decides what to do with it.”

Another spokesman, repre senting the Nuclear Power Envi

ronment Protection Centre, a nuclear power industry body, said: “Obviously, dumping at sea costs less than land dumping.

The only cost is the sea transport, but on land you need the storage facility and security

arrangements.”

But some Japanese sources are saying that the government should abandon the ocean

dumping option altogether and

build a series of land storages, with security depending on the radio-active half-life of the mate rials involved.

The Yomiuri Shimbun, Japan’s

biggest daily newspaper, report

ed in July that advisers to the nation’s Science and Technology Agency favored this course of action.

What is called “low level” nuclear waste comes from the clothing, cleaning rags and gloves used by workers in nuc

lear power stations. These items are burnt, mixed with concrete, and sealed into steel drums, each containing 200 litres.

Japan was one of six nations voting against a two-year moratorium on radio-active waste dumping which was car ried by the seventh consultative meeting of the London Dumping Convention in February. Others were the U.S., the UK, the Netherlands, Switzerland and South Africa.

Among the 19 nations in favor were Nauru, Kiribati, Papua New Guinea, the Philippines and New Zealand.

The successful move for a moratorium was made by Spain in the form of an amendment to a motion for a complete ban on dumping which was initiated by Nauru and Kiribati.

LDC decisions are not legally binding on member countries.