Urayasu poll mess calls for mutual concessions
Despite the announcement of the start of campaigning for a Chiba Prefectural Assembly election, one of the unified local elections set for this spring, there has effectively been no electioneering in Urayasu, a city badly damaged by soil liquefaction in the March 11 earthquake.
The prefecture's election administration commission called for the election to be held Sunday as scheduled, a decision disputed by the municipal government, which argues the huge damage it suffered makes it impossible to hold the election that day.
If the situation remains as it is, it will cause trouble for candidates and voters alike. We urge the city and the election committee to make mutual concessions to bring about an early solution.
Reclaimed land accounts for 75 percent of the total area of Urayasu. About 37,000 households in the city, or half of the total, were at one time forced to use portable toilets and rely on temporary water supply stations set up at primary and middle schools because water and gas supplies had been cut off after the Great East Japan Earthquake. Even now, sewer service for 5,000 households is restricted.
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Both sides to blame
The city requested in vain that the prefecture's election committee postpone the prefectural assembly election and the Urayasu Municipal Assembly election. As reasons for turning down the request, the committee said the city government had not lost its administrative functions because its building had not collapsed and its registry of voters remained intact.
The municipal government has been refusing to cooperate in election-related administrative work, such as installing early balloting stations for the prefectural assembly poll, setting up campaign poster boards and mailing voting slips. The city cited a shortage of manpower because many officials have been involved in earthquake recovery work.
As a result, it has become impossible for the city to hold a prefectural assembly election Sunday as scheduled. Three candidates are running for two seats allocated to the city. It is unavoidable that the election will be held on a different day.
The election committee has criticized the way the city has handled the matter. But it is questionable whether the committee's own decision to hold the election as scheduled was correct.
In the wake of the March 11 earthquake and tsunami, the Diet approved a special bill submitted by the Internal Affairs and Communications Ministry to allow some unified local elections to be delayed. The special law was applied to Iwate, Miyagi and Fukushima prefectural assembly elections and to municipal assembly polls in 49 cities, towns and villages in four prefectures. Many of these local governments maintain their administrative functions.
Despite this, the Chiba prefectural election committee might have thought it should not put off an election for the entire prefecture due to the situation of Urayasu alone.
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Time to lay down arms
But it is the heads of municipal governments who can most precisely grasp the magnitude of damage when their areas are struck by disaster. If the committee heeded the opinions of the municipal government, the situation would have been prevented from becoming as complicated as it is now.
The way the city handled the matter must also be called into question. The prefectural election commission proposed to dispatch personnel to help with some election chores, but the city refused the offer.
Urayasu decided Monday to hold the municipal assembly election on April 24 as scheduled, citing progress in recovery work. If that is the case, the city no longer has a reason to refuse to hold the prefectural assembly election.
We urge the city and the prefectural election committee to lay down their arms and discuss what to do next, including rescheduling the election. The most important thing is to settle the matter with the interests of voters in mind.
Restore cooling function to stop nuclear plant leaks
Tokyo Electric Power Co., the operator of the crippled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant, has begun releasing water containing low-level radioactive substances from the plant into the Pacific Ocean.
The company said that it is an emergency measure to free up space at the plant for water contaminated with high levels of radioactive material.
Radioactive water equivalent to the volume of five or six 50-meter-long swimming pools will be discharged into the sea. Though this water reportedly has been contaminated with only low levels of radioactive substances, it still contains radioactive iodine up to 500 times more than the legal limit in seawater.
Having to resort to this step is extremely unfortunate. We urge the government and TEPCO to do everything they can to control the situation so the amount of contaminated water to be released into the sea is kept to the absolute minimum.
About 500 tons of water are being poured every day into the plant's Nos. 1-3 nuclear reactors to prevent nuclear fuel from overheating. Some of this water is leaking from the damaged reactors and accumulating in large pools at the nuclear complex.
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Water must be removed
Most problematic is the water that accumulated in the basement of the No. 2 reactor turbine building and the tunnellike trench connected to it. This water contains levels of radioactive substances 2 million times higher than the contaminated water being dumped at sea. It must be pumped out quickly and stored safely in tanks and the other containers. The discharge of the less contaminated water into the ocean is a last-ditch measure to make space in the tanks for highly contaminated water.
Worryingly, some highly contaminated water has already leaked from the turbine building into the sea. TEPCO has been trying to find where and how this water leaked into the sea and to plug the leak. The utility has been struggling to complete this work, but finding the source of the leak--and stopping it--must be done quickly.
The government and TEPCO said water with low-level radiation being released into the sea will gradually disperse and have only minimal effects on human health. However, many people are still worried about this situation because highly radioactive water is still pouring into the ocean. There are concerns the fishing industry could be brought to its knees.
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Much hinging on next month
The government should further tighten inspections of marine products to determine whether they are being affected by the radioactive contamination, and properly evaluate what levels of contamination are safe. It is also essential that inspection results be quickly disclosed and explained in detail to the public.
The discharge into the ocean could free up enough space in the tanks to store nearly one month's worth of highly radioactive water, even if water injections into the reactors continue at their current pace.
This one month is very important.
We hope the reactors will be brought under control--with cooling water circulating to prevent nuclear fuel from overheating--during this period. If the contaminated water is pumped out from the nuclear plant, work to restore crucial circulation pumps is expected to make progress.
Meanwhile, the government and TEPCO should tap the wisdom of nuclear experts in Japan and abroad, and prepare several options for any recurrence of difficulties at the nuclear plant. They also should push ahead with efforts to deal with radiation-laced water, such as constructing additional storage tanks and acquiring materials that absorb radioactive substances.
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