Governor of Kyoto on Disaster Debris: "We May Not Tell Residents"

Sankei Shinbun reports (3/24/2012):

がれき非公表処分の可能性　山田知事示唆　京都

Kyoto Governor Yamada indicates disaster debris may be disposed without the public informed

山田啓二知事は２３日の記者会見で、東日本大震災で発生した災害廃棄物（震災がれき）の広域処理について「（がれきを受け入れる）地元が非公表での処理を望むなら、意向を踏まえなければならない」と述べた。平成１６年に府内で鳥インフルエンザの感染が発生した際の焼却処分と同様、施設などを明らかにせずにがれき処理を行う可能性を示唆したものだ。

Governor Keiji Yamada commented during the press conference on March 23 on the wide-area disposal of disaster debris from the March 11, 2011 earthquake and tsunami, and said "If the local authority (accepting the debris) want to proceed without telling the residents, we should oblige", indicating he might proceed with the debris disposal like the Kyoto government had done in 2004 during the bird flu infection when the disposal by incineration was carried out without identifying which facility would do the incineration.

　また、がれき受け入れの協力方針を示している舞鶴市については「安全性を実証する実験を行いたい」と述べ、近く同市に出向き、住民に安全性を説明する意向を明らかにした。

About Maizuru City, which has already pledged cooperation in debris disposal, the governor said "We want to carry out the test to prove safety", and said he would visit the city and explain the safety to the city's residents.

When politicians like him say "地元" (=locals), they mean the local government and heads of the neighborhood associations. It doesn't mean residents.

Maizuru City is located on the coast on the Japan Sea. A beautiful, ancient town with the first evidence of human settlement 10,000 years ago. The current mayor Ryozo Tatami is a medical doctor.

Governor of Kyoto Keiji Yamada is a Tokyo University graduate (law) and a former career bureaucrat (today's Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications).

Not that Sankei Shinbun cares. It decidedly do not care, as it has been calling the Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant accident as "radiation leak", and its editors and columnists routinely excoriate anyone who disagree with the national government policies of spreading contaminated vegetables and contaminated debris.

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