Japan - Anxieties grow over Fukushima's radiation costs

A growing number of municipalities are demanding that Tokyo Electric Power Co compensate them for costs related to the ongoing nuclear crisis at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant.

Tepco has specified the terms under which it will compensate companies and other entities, based on guidelines set by the government, but it has revealed no such terms for municipal governments.

On Wednesday afternoon, mayor Yoshio Kusama of Takahagi, Ibaraki Prefecture, visited Tepco's headquarters in Tokyo. Takahagi is about 80 kilometres from the plant.

Kusama asked the utility to pay 9.84 million yen (US$128,000) for decontamination work conducted from June to October and the purchase of radiation dosimeters. It was the city's second such demand to Tepco--in June, it became one of the first municipalities to seek compensation from the utility, demanding 2.05 million yen.

"I'll keep making demands until work to deal with the nuclear crisis ends. I mean until there are no more costs (for the work)," Kusama told Tepco managing director Naomi Hirose, who is deputy head of a task force to support people affected by the nuclear crisis.

"I'm telling you this while repressing (my anger) to one-tenth, one-hundredth of its true level," Kusama said.

Hirose responded, "We apologise for causing difficulty," and bowed. However, he did not say whether Tepco would pay the money.

Municipal governments, particularly in the Tokyo metropolitan area, have increasingly requested compensation from Tepco. As of Wednesday, at least 18 municipalities had demanded a total of 705.74 million yen ($9 million).

Hitachi-Ota, Ibaraki Prefecture, is home to the 375-metre-long Ryujin Big Suspension Bridge, the longest bridge on Honshu. About 250,000 tourists usually visit the bridge annually.

However, as bridge toll revenues from April to August declined to less than 30 per cent compared with the same period last year, the city has called on Tepco to pay 26.72 million yen in compensation.

The city of Nagareyama, Chiba Prefecture, has demanded 287.1 million yen, including 9.6 million yen to pay its employees for special work related to temporarily storing incinerated ash and other contaminated waste.

Costs may hit local finances

Mayor Shingo Fujii of Toride, Ibaraki Prefecture, expressed concern that the cost of handling the nuclear crisis would weigh on municipal governments' finances.

"Municipalities are implementing numerous fiscal reforms to tackle their fiscal shortage. To secure funds for measures against radiation, we have to spend reserve funds for adjusting public finances (as stipulated in the Local Finance Law)," Fujii said Tuesday when claiming compensation with three other neighbouring cities.

"Unless we make up the shortfall in the reserve fund, we'll have trouble with our fiscal management from next fiscal year," Fujii said.

Despite growing demand for compensation from municipalities, however, Tepco has yet to provide clear responses. The government's Dispute Reconciliation Committee for Nuclear Damage Compensation has drawn up compensation guidelines for the private sector, but no such moves have been made for municipal governments. Due to the lack of specific criteria, more and more municipalities have called for compensation from Tepco.

Meanwhile, the Shizuoka city government announced in April it would allow Tepco to use its megafloat, a floating barge, to store radiation-contaminated water from the Fukushima plant. Shizuoka is still negotiating with the company on how much it should pay for use of the barge.

The city government spent about 500 million yen to build a fishing park off Shimizu Port, using the megafloat as its base. The park drew 20,000 visitors a year but is now closed. The city is reportedly asking Tepco to pay hundreds of millions of yen for providing the megafloat.

On Monday, the government of Yashio, Saitama Prefecture, appropriated about 40.98 million yen in its supplementary budget to cover the cost of such work as decontaminating school grounds and parks. The city is unlikely to be designated a contaminated area entitled to government aid, but Yashio Mayor Shigemi Tada said, "I want Tepco to pay for everything."

Unclear picture

The Fukushima prefectural government also reportedly intends to demand Tepco pay costs related to dealing with the nuclear crisis. The crisis has led the prefecture to conduct a broad array of work, from decontamination over a wide area to health checks. But the prefectural government has yet to figure out the total amount needed to handle the crisis, as well as how much government aid it could receive.

"We don't know to what extent we can seek compensation, so we have no clear prospects," said an official of the prefectural government section handling nuclear damage.

In early September, Kawamatamachi in the prefecture demanded Tepco pay some of costs for decontaminating soil in school grounds. Part of Kawamatamachi has been designated as an expanded evacuation area.

"We made the demand to express the fact that municipalities are also victims (of the nuclear crisis)," a town government official said.

Tomoaki Tomita and Tatsuya Nozaki

The Yomiuri Shimbun

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