The Japanese Ministry of Environment is building an incineration facility
in Samegawa Village, Fukushima Prefecture. Refuse whose radioactive
contamination exceeds 8,000 Bqs/kg, would be incinerated in the facility.
We are deeply concerned that, as a result, further contamination, so-
called ''Secondary Pollution'' will arise.

According to the information released by the Ministry of Environment,
nearly 100% of the radioactive pollutants would be removed by passing the
flue gases through the plant's (bag) filtration systems. However, we
consider that this claim is not soundly based.

The plan to incinerate highly radioactively contaminated refuse in the
area must be explained to the local community, including citizens living
in neighbouring cities, towns and villages, with a view to obtaining their
consent. The site of the incinerator adjoins Hanawa Town, Iwaki City,
Kitaibaragi City, whose inhabitants and municipalities were not informed.
Meanwhile construction has started.

The Ministry of Environment, in order to advance its plans for this
incineration facility, has resolved behind closed doors that:

1) The facility itself, including its smoke stacks, shall be designed so

that it is invisible from public roads.

2) The address of the facility shall not be made public so as to allay

the local agricultural community's concerns at tainting its

reputation with the prospect of causing further economic damage.

Ignoring the nation's environmental legislation, the Ministry of
Environment started work on the facility even before the prefecture was
able to complete its own assessment of the project. Therefore, the
Ministry was instructed by the prefecture to temporarily suspend
construction work. There are also concerns that the planned incineration
process is unproven in practice. Experts consider the system to be
technically flawed with the potential to worsen contamination of the
area.

TEPCO has prime responsibility for dealing with the radioactive
contamination which has been, and continues to be, caused by its Fukushima
power plant. We consider it completely unacceptable that TEPCO abrogates
its responsibility and burdens local governments with the task of
disposing of the radioactively contaminated waste.

This problem does not only impact Samegawa-Mura Village. We understand
that using the results of the experimental incinerator's performance, the
Ministry of Environment is planning to apply similar incineration
technologies widely to dispose of contaminated waste materials in other
areas. This means that contamination will spread not only in Fukushima,
but across all of Japan. In the main our livelihood depends on
agriculture and tourism, which has already been impaired by the nuclear
disaster; the ''Secondary Pollution'' caused by incinerating highly
radioactively contaminated refuse in our community will aggravate this
situation. We cannot allow this to happen.

We demand the cancellation of the waste incineration facility in Samegawa
Village. We also oppose the Japanese government's irresponsibly inadequate
disaster recovery measures and the imposition of its chosen method of
disposing of contaminated refusal on municipalities.