Local industry groups in a city in western Japan have called on the municipal assembly to take the first steps to allow the city to agree to a preparatory study for a high-level radioactive waste disposal site.
Three commercial teams from Genkai City, Saga Prefecture, respectively submitted a petition to the municipal meeting on Monday urging the city to take action so that it could request an initial government-led study at the site of a structure. Definitive disposal of high-level radioactive materials.
The three teams are made up of the local organization of accommodation operators, the organization of catering professionals and the crisis control council.
A Japanese law requires that the final repository of high-level radioactive waste from nuclear power plants be buried more than 300 meters underground, as they continue to emit intense radiation for a long time.
The law also requires three-stage studies to be conducted to potential disposal sites.
The petition filed through the three industry teams asks the City Council to convince the city to request an initial investigation.
The meeting is scheduled to convene an ad hoc committee before the end of the month to discuss its response.
The city is home to the Genkai Nuclear Power Plant with four reactors operated through Kyushu Electric Power Company. The decommissioning of reactors No. 1 and No. 2 has been suspended.
Reactors No. 3 and No. 4 have restarted operations after the government met assembly needs following the reversal of Fukushima’s nuclear fate in 2011.
Genkai City Mayor Wakiyama Shintario posted a comment saying he took the petition seriously. He indicated that he will verify the content of the petition while observing the discussions that will take place in the assembly.
In February, two municipalities in Hokkaido, northern Japan, which had completed the first level of studies up to the final disposal site, were deemed eligible to move to the second level once the investigation was completed.
Some local citizens from both municipalities are calling for more similar research to be carried out outside Hokkaido.
In this context, the Municipal Assembly of Tsushima, in the prefecture of Nagasaki, in western Japan, last year approved a petition asking the city to carry out the first level of the investigation, but the mayor rejected it.
The Japanese government is offering grants of up to 2 billion yen, or about $13 million, for the first level of research, and up to 7 billion yen, or more than $45 million, to municipalities that They implemented the level of investigation for the moment. survey.