A growing number of municipalities near the suspended Hamaoka Nuclear Power Plant in Shizuoka Prefecture are up in arms about plans by operator Chubu Electric Power Co. to restart the plant.
Chubu Electric Power is aiming to restart the plant, southwest of Tokyo, after implementing measures against tsunami, including an 18-meter-tall seawall now under construction.
But many municipalities near the plant, including those within a 10-kilometer radius of the plant known as an emergency planning zone (EPZ) and those within a 30-kilometer radius known as an urgent protective action zone (UPZ), have passed resolutions and opinions opposing the plant’s restart.
The city assembly in Makinohara, one of four cities within the 10-kilometer radius of the power plant, spearheaded the campaign against the plan by adopting a resolution last September calling for the decommissioning of the plant citing radiation fears among major firms in the city.
Both the cities of Kikugawa and Kakegawa subsequently approved documents that say they cannot approve of the restart unless they win their residents’ understanding.
In addition to the city of Shimada, which adopted an anti-restart document in June, the city of Yaizu, home port of the Lucky Dragon No. 5, a tuna fishing boat exposed to nuclear fallout from U.S. thermonuclear testing on Bikini Atoll in 1954, adopted a similar resolution, along with the cities of Fujieda and Fukuroi.
The town assembly in Yoshida, located in a 30-kilometer radius of the power plant, unanimously adopted a resolution and a document urging that the plant be scrapped altogether.
Source: Mainichi
5 
180
