If all of you leave everything up to the
country and remain politically apathetic, you will end up dead.
Masatoshi
Takeshita
September
9, 2013
English translation of an excerpt from a
Japanese article: Ryusaku Tanaka Journal – September 8, 2013 –
“Protect
Tsukiji!” Opposition to Relocation of Tsukiji Market to Toyosu with Liquefiable
and Extremely Poisonous Site
“We want to be here in Tsukiji”
Fish seem
not to go to Toyosu Market,
which contains deadly poison under the soil.
Anti-relocation Demonstration
= Sept 7, in
the Shinbashi area Photograph: Shun
Yamada =
I wonder if the
government of this country does not know the word “safety of food.” It is the Tsukiji Market,
called the kitchen in Japan that has been struck by the gravest repercussion.
Although there is a
serious problem of sea contamination due to the nuclear power plant accident,
the Tuskiji Market has a problem of relocation to Toyosu. Its new address (Toyosu) is the site of old
Tokyo Gas factory, whose soil, it is pointed out, contains toxic substances
substantially exceeding the allowable limits for ground.
During 2007 and 2008, Tokyo Metropolitan government
made a boring survey (at a depth of up to 7 meter and 30 centimeter at the
minimum) at 4,400 spots and collected a sample of soil there. JAPAN ASSOCIATION ON THE ENVIRONMENTAL
STUDIES called for the Metropolitan government on “disclosure and preservation
of the soil. Since the Metropolitan
government refused it, the Association has filed a lawsuit against it for
requesting not to dispose of the collected soil.
The Metropolitan government should disclose
the collected soil if there is no problem.
On the planted site will be built a market where
fresh seafood and fish and green food. Despite this, the Metropolitan government sticks
to the stance: “We don’t want to have the soil seent or preserve it.”
The unstable ground on
which a market is planned to be built was liquefied on “March 11.” At that time, poisonous substances including
hexavalent chrome, which the Metropolitan government desperately wants to hide,
blew out with groundwater.
The Tsukiji Market, which was constructed
based on the lesson of the Great Kanto Earthquake, was as stead as a rock on “March
11.” Why is the Metropolitan government
going to bother to relocate the food market to contaminated land?
Today a “demonstration against Tukiji
relocation” was held, in which intermediate wholesalers and citizens
participated. While chanting a slogan of
“Protect Tsukiji”, a group of demonstrators left Tsukiji and paraded down the
Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry and the Diet building.
Participants of the demonstration including
housewives unanimously said, “It is unbelievable for the Metropolitan
government to plant to relocate the market where food is handled to Toyosu” or “Our
life is threatened (due to the nuclear power plant accident)” and showed their
sense of crisis.
Construction work for relocation is
progressing steadily in Toyosu.
The tank
wagon seen this side appeared to store groundwater
welling up from the
earth.
I wonder if the soil contains hexavalent chrome.
= Site where a new market is to be built in Toyosu Photograph: Shun Yamada =