Fukushima to Start Talks with 2 Towns on Tainted Soil Delivery

Fukushima, Feb. 8 (Jiji Press)--Fukushima Governor Masao Uchibori said Sunday that he will launch talks with the towns of Okuma and Futaba toward the start of delivery of radioactive soil to a planned interim storage site in the two municipalities in the northeastern Japan prefecture. Uchibori showed the plan in talks with reporters after meeting with Japan's Environment Minister Yoshio Mochizuki and Reconstruction Minister Wataru Takeshita at the Fukushima prefectural government office the same day. At the meeting, the two ministers explained measures to ensure the safety of interim storage facilities to be constructed at the site and conveyed anew the central government's plan to start to bring in tainted soil by March 11, the fourth anniversary of the 9.0-magnitude earthquake and tsunami that hit northeastern Japan areas and crippled Tokyo Electric Power Co.'s <9501> Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant. The planned facilities will hold radiation-tainted soil from decontamination work following the nuclear accident. When the prefectural government gave its go-ahead last August to the central government's plan to build the interim facilities in Okuma and Futaba, it set five conditions, including ensuring the safety of the facilities and the tainted soil transportation operations. At Sunday's meeting, Mochizuki and Takeshita specifically explained construction guidelines for the facilities and soil transportation plans, and the enactment last November of a law obliging the completion of final disposal of the polluted soil at a location outside Fukushima within 30 years. The ministers also told Uchibori that contaminated soil from school playgrounds will also be stored at the interim facilities. The handling of such soil had so far not been decided. The governor praised these measures, saying that "tangible progress" has been made. At the planned construction site, work started last Tuesday to set up provisional facilities to store tainted soil. END