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Nara incinerator contested
Copyright 1999 Mainichi Daily News
Mainichi Daily News
November 14, 1999, Sunday
SECTION: Page 12; DOMESTIC
LENGTH: 300 words
HEADLINE: Locals seeking to close refuse plant in Nara
BODY:
By Hideo Iwasaki Mainichi Shimbun
KORYO, Nara -- Some residents here are scared stiff about dioxin
contamination and they're poised to ask a local
court to temporarily halt the operation of a garbage incinerator run by
the local government.
About 310 households -- nearly 90 percent of them members of an
Umami-Minami neighborhood association -- had
previously agreed with the Koryo Municipal Government on the operation of
the incineration plant until November
2001.
But the government last month told the association that it wants to
continue operating the plant after the deadline
because it has failed to find a relocation site.
Residents are afraid of dioxin contamination and smells emanating from the
facility, which incinerates 50 tons of
garbage over the course of 16 hours each day.
Consequently, the suit to be filed with a local branch of the Nara
District Court will ask for the order of suspending
operations before the end of 2001.
Negotiations between the local government and residents over the operation
of the plant go back 20 years.
In 1979, when operations started, the local government and five other
neighborhood associations agreed that the
plant would continue incineration for the next 15 years, locals claim.
But the local government didn't stop operating the plant by the deadline
of 1994.
Local government officials admit that the amount of dioxin emitted from
the incineration plant is 8.2 nanograms per
cubic meter, which exceeds a new government regulation taking effect in
2002 that provides the upper limit of dioxin
per cubic meter at 5 nanograms. What's more, this is 82 times the amount
under current regulations for a newly
constructed incinerator, which is 0.1 nanogram.
One nanogram is a billionth of a gram.