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Ryokichi HIRONO 2011.9.3-4

Seikei University, Tokyo

BUILDING AN INTEGRATED SERIES OF SUSTAINABLE

COMMUNITIES: LESSONS FROM THE EAST JAPAN GREAT

EARTHQUAKE/TSUNAMI (EJGET) AND THE FUKUSHIMA

NUCLEAR POWER PLANT DISASTERS

1. Introduction

While EJGET and the Fukushima Nuclear Power plant disasters have

brought an unprecedented magnitude and diversity of sufferings to

millions of people in the Tohoku Area of Japan, with spillover effects to

its neighboring regions, it has provided precious lessons to the people at

the community, district, regional (in-country) and national levels,

AWAKENING TO THE DIRE NECESSITY OF BUILDING AN

INTEGRATED SERIES OF SUSTAINABLE COMMUNITIES NOT

ONLY IN THE DISASTER-AFFECTED TOHOKU AREA, BUT

ALSO ACROSS JAPAN AND, IF NECESSARY, IN THE REST OF

INCREASINGLY INTERDEPENDENT GLOBAL COMMUNITY.

2. The Concept of Sustainable Communities

Sustainable communities are those towns and villages where people of

all generations live in human dignity, governing themselves under the

elected leadership and the rules and regulations set democratically by

themselves (self-government) in all spheres of human activities as

consumers, producers AND as citizens. Sustainable communities (SCs)

are run by the representatives of their citizens with full participation in

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community decision-making processes (participatory governance),

enjoying both high-quality basic education for all (BEFA) along the

lines of education for sustainable development (ESD), high-quality

primary healthcare (PHC) and high-quality basic public services (BPS),

ensured with a full range of social security programmes (SSP) for all the

citizens with different needs and requirements.

SCs give top priority to full employment of all working-age population

willing and capable of working (self- and paid employment) whether in

primary, secondary or tertiary sectors, meeting the highest standards of

environmentally livable communities (environmental sustainability)

resilient against natural disasters including earthquakes, typhoons and

tsunami of unprecedented magnitude in the coming decades of

increasing volatility of climate change, with a full respect for local

culture and traditions (cultural sustainability), giving priority to the

maximum use of locally available and produced materials (production

sustainability or sustainable production) and based upon the patterns of

diverse but sustainable lifestyles (consumption sustainability or

sustainable consumption).

SCs, however, are not individually isolated communities, but constitute

part of wider district, regional and national communities in an integrated

manner. Otherwise, SCs cannot survive in this day and age of

globalization where the constituent countries have been moving toward

an interdependent global community, reducing barriers to trade in goods

and services as well as to people movement to reap the benefits of their

respective comparative advantages, mainstream the global interests into

their respective national development agenda and maintain world peace

and stability, while minimizing the cost of globalization to SCs.

3. An Integrated Series of Sustainable Communities

Sustainable communities must meet all the aspirations and requirements

of all generations, gender and occupations of their own citizens. In view

of the fact that all communities are confronted with the constraints of

human, ecological, technological and financial resources, they must

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keep their doors open to the rest of their districts, regions, countries and

the global community in terms of the stock and flow of information,

knowledge and other economic and ecological resources, while adhering

to the everlasting maintenance and strengthening of their respective SCs

for the benefits of all their citizens.

For this reason, SCs must be prepared to identify their own comparative

advantages not only in economic, but also ecological and cultural terms,

and promote their own identities under increasingly interconnected

communities and globalizing world. Based upon their own comparative

advantages, each SC could offer their best to the neighboring

communities so that they could maximize for their own citizens the

benefits of all the communities available at the district, regional,

national and international levels. In concrete terms, for instances, SC”A”

with BEFA. PHC and BPS could combine their resources and come

together with SC”B” and a few other neighboring communities to install

drinking water, electricity, gas and other public utilities based upon their

respective ecological characteristics, and provide technical and

professional training institutions, community colleges and hospitals

open to their respective citizens and others as well.

Management of these institutions at the district or regional

(sub-national) levels, however, must be in the hands of these

cooperating SCs, AND NOT in the hands of, BUT supported

technologically and financially by, the central or federal government. In

this decentralized, local community management of all institutions for

the benefits of the citizens of the participating SCs, it is vital to abide by

the principles of maximizing both the efficiency in resource use, the

effectiveness in achieving the objectives and goals set by these

institutions, the impact of development intervention, the transparency

and accountability of governing institutions to the tax payers and the

participation of intended beneficiaries in planning, implementing,

monitoring and evaluating these institutions.

In order to enjoy the comparative advantages of those SCs and reduce

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the risks associated with natural disasters affecting specific local

communities, the physical infrastructure in all the SCs of power,

transportation and communications grids must be inter-connected with

neighboring districts and regions and in the rest of the country, but such

services should be open to all service providers, public or private, on a

competitive basis. All the citizens of these SCs will thus have choice of

access among all these services so as to reduce not only the cost of such

services essential to daily living but also the degree of risks associated

with disasters among service providers.

4. Lessons Learnt on Monopoly Power Supplies from TEPCO’s Nuclear

Power Plant Disaster

The current policy and practice by the Japanese government of giving

monopoly rights to only one power company in each region of the nine

regions of the country, e.g., Tokyo Electric Power Company, Ltd.

(TEPCO) in the Kanto/South Tohoku Region, or Tohoku Electric Power

Company, Ltd. (TOPCO) in the rest of the Tohoku Region and the like,

in both production and distribution of power supplies must come to an

end. The current system of monopoly production and distribution by

TEPCO and 8 other authorized regional power producers has led to one

of the world’s highest before-tax electricity prices prevailing in Japan.

Government must revamp their current policy and compel these

monopoly companies to purchase and distribute any amount of power

generated by any industrial companies and households directly to any

users, household, industrial and commercial, by using the their

distribution grid at prescribed user charges that apply to the monopoly

power companies, too.

While it is true that even under the current system household and

industrial companies could produce power, they have no choice except

to sell it to the monopoly power company which owns and controls the

power distribution grid and the monopolistic company is now

authorized to buy or not to buy such power and, if decided to buy, only

at prices set by the said company (in effect, by charging high user fees).

In the case of renewable energy supply, there is one exception in that all

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the industrial companies generating wind power and other renewable

energies and all the households generating solar power with

photovoltaic equipment are authorized to sell to the power monopoly at

prescribed prices per kwh often with further incentives given by local

governments to encourage their citizens to use renewable energy, but

even under this system it is up to the monopoly company to buy in case

it is needed. This type of feed-in-tariff system must be corrected as soon

as possible.

It is vital therefore that the monopoly power company such as TEPCO

which owns and operates the distribution grid in the Kanto/South

Tohoku Region ether is brought under obligation to purchase power

generated by all industrial and household producers at predetermined

fair prices per kwh or open the grid to all power producers at

predetermined fair user charges, with a new power distribution system

installed so that final users of electricity have choices to buy either from

the power monopoly or other new power producers. Recognizing the

fact that in the aftermath of the Fukushima Nuclear Power plant disaster

on 11th March, TEPCO’s power supply has been subjected to blackouts

and planned restraints due to the foreseen imbalances between

electricity demand and supply in the Kanto/South Tohoku Region, and

given the understanding that the current monopoly system of power

supplies is one of the major factors contributing to the high electricity

prices prevailing in the country, the opening of power supplies to market

competition both in terms of production and distribution is deemed

essential in view of the growing public consensus and the changing

government energy policy in favor of a planned phase-out of nuclear

power and a steady installation of renewable energy sources such as

solar, wind, geothermal power and bio-fuel, Under the new system of

competitive power supply all over the country, cleaner electricity with

less CO2 emission may be produced and distributed more efficiently by

new competitors in the local communities, with consequent benefits

flowing to all industrial, commercial and household users.

5. Lessons Learnt from the TEPCO’s, Local Government and Japanese

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Government Responses to the Nuclear Power Plant Disaster in

Fukushima Prefecture in 2011

An enormous amount and variety of precious lessons have been learnt

from the TEPCO’s Fukushima Nuclear Power plant disaster and its

aftermath consequences including TEPCO’s and Japanese government’s

disaster management, the lack of preparedness at the community, district,

regional and national levels and the policy and implementation

coordination failures within and among these different levels of

governments as well. In building SCs not only in the disaster-affected

Tohoku Region but also in the rest of Japan, these lessons will be so

instructive and innovative so that they may also be lessons in the rest of

the world which may face, if not prepared, similar situations in the

increasingly volatile conditions of climate change in the decades to

come.

5.1 TEPCO’s Disaster Management Failures

1) Failure of the corporate management to decommission specifically

the nuclear reactors of the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant No.1

which were installed in the 1960s, long overdue in displacement or

replacement;

2) Inadequate review of the old safety standards and equally inadequate

monitoring of the technical and management dimensions of the said

plant operation as well as the other plant operation elsewhere;

3) Wrong notion prevailing in the company that nuclear power plants

are generally safe and sound, because of little adverse impact of the

recent high-magnitude earthquake on its Kashiwazaki nuclear power

plant in Niigata;

4) Lack of technical expertise available in the company to pin-down

immediately the causes and effects of the nuclear plant explosion;

5) Failure of the corporate management to announce immediately after

the incidence the plant explosion and its possible effects to the

neighboring communities for fear that it should lead to

insurmountable confusion in the affected and neighboring

communities ;

6) Failure of the corporate management of full, exact and speedy

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disclosure of information on a series of accidents that had taken

place at the nuclear plants, No 1-No.4 as a result of the cut-off of

external power supplies and the knock-out of the back-up emergency

generators after the EJGET;

7) Failure of the corporate management to convey to the government

the seriousness of the plant disaster and its possible effects on the

neighboring communities, lest it should lead to government’s

immediate decree on plant shutdown and is possible

economic/financial cost to the company;

8) Failure of the corporate management to deal squarely and

immediately with the plant explosion for the reason 4 above and its

unwillingness to get help and support from the United States lest that

it should lead to immediate plant shutdown;

9) Failure of the corporate management to publish immediately critical

information on the nuclear reactor meltdown including the radiation

survey map of the disaster-affected areas and neighboring

communities prepared by the company published only a month later;

10) Failure of the corporate management to inform the people in the

disaster-affected areas and neighboring communities of the corporate

plan to lower the level of nuclear radiation at and around the plant,

reduce the exposure of all those workers engaged in plant operation

and all those people living in close proximity to radioactive materials

such as iodine and cesium 134 and 137 and announce the corporate

roadmap to the public at large in Japan and overseas on a series of

steps intended to be taken by TEPCO to minimize the sense of

uncertainty and, in some cases, agony associated with nuclear plant

meltdown;

11) Failure of the corporate management to come to meet the people

and political leadership in the disaster-affected areas and neighboring

communities and the Fukushima Prefectural governor to express

their deepest regret for the nuclear power plant disaster and its

mismanagement and their intended plan for the full compensation for

the economic and non-economic loss of the people adversely

affected by the disaster;

12) Failure of the corporate management to appear on nationwide

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television programme everyday to inform the public of the nature,

causes and possible effects of the nuclear power plant disaster as

well as the on-going activities in accordance with the corporate plan

and programme to deal with the disaster to minimize its adverse

impact and compensate for the economic and non-economic loss of

the adversely affected people including those who left the disaster

areas for survival;

13) Failure of the corporate management to have continuous dialogues

with the people and political leadership in the adversely affected

areas and neighboring communities on the company’s possible plans

and programmes to assist the people in those districts to restore

normal patterns of day-to-day living in the coming years and decades,

if necessary;

5.2 Failures of the Local Government Disaster Management

1) Lack of preparedness in the local governments against the possible

nuclear power plant disaster including the installation of sufficient

number of radiation monitoring equipments at appropriate places, the

assignment of monitoring personnel, based upon their own wrong

impression that nuclear power plants are safe and sound;

2) No action taken until 15th March by the Fukushima Prefectural

Governor for the immediate evacuation of the people in the

adversely affected areas and neighboring communities to safe areas

inside or outside their own districts/regions and for the appeal to

local prefectural governors outside Fukushima to accommodate those

evacuees, until appeals issued by the central government, because of

political repercussions of such action on the question of their

pre-disaster campaigns of installing nuclear power plant into their

communities to offset their local government deficit spending;

3) Lack of technical and scientific expertise to advise village and town

leadership, city mayors and prefectural governors on the spot on the

drawing up of their respective action plans without losing time to

minimize the adverse impact of the nuclear power plant explosion on

the people and communities and their subsequent possible exposure

to radiation;

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4) Lack of local government initiatives to deal with such disasters due

to their long-held sense of dependence on central government and

their tendency to put the blame of their own misjudgment and

mismanagement onto the central government leadership;

5) Personal dilemma of the majority of local community people to face

their honest reflections to stand up and criticize both their own

political leadership on their misleading roadmap and their own selves

on their blind sheepish follow-ship and selfish motives of living

beyond their means, both of which led to the installation of nuclear

power plants and eventually their disasters, in spite of sharp

grass-roots disagreements and opposition in their communities to the

local government leadership decision to install such dangerous,

life-threatening plants which incidentally has been repeated all over

the country, with local police forces siding often with pro-nuclear

leadership where nuclear power plants were installed;

6) Inadequate efforts on the part of local community people and

leadership across the country to pressure the central government not

only to beef up local tax revenue, e.g., through increasing the share

of the local governments in the central government revenue sharing

plan and increasing the share of the central government expenditures

in the post-disaster renovations and development of local

infrastructure from one-half to two-thirds and but also to give local

governments a greater taxing authority to change their own

community taxation policies so that they can install special levy on

nuclear power plants in accordance with the amount of electricity

generated or some other measures;

5.3 Failures of the Central Government Disaster Management

1) In spite of the past experiences of high-magnitude earthquakes and

tsunami along the Tohoku Pacific coast, such as the Teikan Tsunami

(M8.4) of 869 A.D., Hoei Earthquake/Tsunami of 1707 (M8.6), Meiji

Earthquake/Tsunami of 1894 (8.2), Showa Earthquake/Tsunami in

1933 and 1978 (M7.4) and the East Hokkaido Earthquake of 1994

(M6.2), the Japanese government went ahead in building a series of

nuclear power plants on the same coast line. There had also been an

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inadequate lesson learning by the government from the equally

high-magnitude earthquakes and tsunami along the Pacific coast of

central Japan such as the Tokai Earthquake of 1953 (M8.2) and

Hanshin Great Earthquake of 1995 (M7.3) in constructing a series of

nuclear power plants along the earthquake-prone Pacific coast such

as Hamanaka Nuclear Power plant in Shizuoka Prefectures;

2) One of the foremost failures of the Japanese government disaster

management lies in the inadequate pre-disaster review of the nuclear

safety standards that should have reflected a growing concern of the

population with the nuclear reactor meltdown at the 1979 Three Mile

Island accident in the United States and the 1986 Chernobyl accident

in Ukraine;

3) The government, lacking of full understanding that nuclear reactors

could be a weapon for mass destruction like any other nuclear,

biological and chemical warheads. had not paid sufficient attention

until the 3.11 incidence to the warnings by many nuclear scientists

and engineers that the old nuclear reactors built and operated since

some 30 years ago should be decommissioned as one of

precautionary measures and that those nuclear power plants using the

ageing reactors installed in the 1960s should be subjected to more

frequent and rigorous inspection by the regulatory authorities than

those plants equipped with newer types of reactors;

4) It has been found irrational and counterproductive to have the

Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency (NISA), the nuclear regulatory

mechanism, in the Ministry of Economy, Industry and Trade which

has been promoting nuclear power generation with all kinds of

subsidies to nuclear industry, power companies and to those local

communities willing to accommodate the installation of nuclear

power plants, thus resulting in the close cooperation and paternalistic

relationship between monopoly power companies and NISA, with

the former accommodating retired officials from NISA as their

advisers and inspection staff, implying their nebulous relationship

minimizing effective regulation of the former by the latter;

5) It is not surprising that recent findings of the TEPCO Nuclear Power

Plant Accident Investigation Team appointed by the Office of the

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Prime Minister show that there had been a long practice by NISA to

hide from public disclosure any information inconvenient to NISA

and monopoly power companies promoting nuclear power

generation, e.g., NISA’s and TEPCO’s joint finding in 2008 that

there could be a high-magnitude earthquake and tsunami hitting

along the Tohoku Pacific coast in a few years;

6) Although the Office of Emergency Disaster Response (OEDR) was

established immediately following the nuclear power plant explosion

on 11th March, repeated delays were observed, due to the lack of

nuclear disaster preparedness, in issuing the government evacuation

order to the people in the affected areas, with the first order delivered

only on the following day to those residing within 3 kilometers

diameter, later extended to those within 6 km and then within 10 km

and once again to those residing within the radius of 20 km from the

site of the accident, thus throwing people in the affected areas into

confusion. Triggered by a series of hydrogen explosion at the nuclear

power plants on 14th March and some European and U.S.

government evacuation recommendation to their citizens living in

Kanto area, particularly within the radius of 80 km from the disaster

site, the government of Japan (GoJ) issued the “stay-indoor” order to

those some 167,000 people residing with the radius of 20-30 km

from the accident site, for the time and a month later extended to

those living within the 30-40 km radius to be prepared to evacuate

anytime when announced officially by GoJ;

7) While the mobilization immediately after the Earthquake/Tsunami

disaster of the Japan Self-Defense Forces, National Firefighting

Brigade, National Police Agency and central government

bureaucracy to ensure speedy rescue of those people in the

Earthquake/Tsunami areas and neighboring communities, to prevent

traffic congestion on major turnpikes and highways and to ascertain

airspace safety over the affected areas, the same or similar response

measures were not taken to help those in the nuclear disaster areas,

basically because of the lack of national nuclear disaster emergency

plan;

8) There should have been no refusal of international assistance on

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nuclear power plant disaster, but it was only after a series of mass

criticism and protests against the government decline of immediate

assistance by the U.S. and other governments to deal with the nuclear

disaster on the basis of TEPCO’s recommendations, the Joint

Japan-U.S. Task Force was established on 15th

March to arrest and

prepare for the meltdown of those power plants and contain its

unforeseen impact on the health of those people at the accident site

and its neighboring communities;

9) It was only on 30th

March when the GoJ announced the prohibition

of shipments of certain vegetable and marine products in Fukushima

and neighboring prefectures, reinforcing the sense of uncertainty and

distrust among the population not only in Japan but also overseas

with the GoJ’s capability and readiness to deal with the nuclear

accident which were compounded later by the revelation of TEPCO’s

and NISA’s jointly orchestrated inadequate disclosure at various

stages of those findings regarding the nuclear power plant disaster

for feat that it might raise further not only the sense of insecurity but

also opposition to nuclear power among the people;

10) Belated establishment on 9th April of the National Rehabilitation

and Reconstruction Council for East Japan Great Earthquake/

Tsunami under the Office of the Prime Minister to draft by end June

an overall reconstruction plan and programmes with budgetary

implications both to revenue and expenditures to deal with the

EJGET and the accompanying TEPCO’s nuclear power plant disaster,

including the installation of the Disaster Relief and Reconstruction

Fund and National Reconstruction Bond issue.

11) Belated action to install as many monitoring stations and devices as

possible on nuclear radiation not only in the directly affected areas

but also in different parts of the neighboring prefectures, subsequent

to the discover of radioactive tea leaves in portions of Kanagawa

Prefecture and consequent prohibition of the shipments of such tea

leaves and other farm produces whose radiation level has exceeded

respective national standards;

12) Belated announcements on 21st May of the government plan to let

the evacuees housed at temporary evacuation centers and elsewhere

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to return to their homes located with the radius of 3-20 km from the

disaster site initially for a limited time period and later for an

extended period;

13) Strong doubts and protests by the people over a number of

government announcements that have downplayed the serious impact

of the exposure of people, particularly workforce at the nuclear

power plants and children in the affected areas to nuclear radiation

such as iodine and cesium 135 and 137;

14) Delayed announcement of government relief and compensation

measures to those ordered to leave or stay put at their own residences

in the disaster areas for the loss of jobs and income due to the death

of their cattle and prohibition of their farm and marine products;

5.4 People’s Old Mindset

1) Primarily concerned with economic growth that permits stable

employment and a steady income growth, people in Japan are still

pursuing an unsustainable life- style detrimental to resource

efficiency and security, nature conservation, environmental protection

and community livelihood;

2) Primarily concerned with maintaining group solidarity and adhering

to consensus-building, both public and private organizations have

tended to restrain individual freedom, identity, innovative ideas and

diversity of views and active discussion among their members, thus

retarding the process of societal restructuring essential in the age of

global transformation;

3) Primarily concerned with protecting the vested interests of their

own narrow sectors, professions and communities, politics of Japan has

been astray like a captainless boat in the rough sea, unable to agree on a

set of goals to be achieved, courses of action and measures to be taken

and the burden of responsibilities to be shared among them, only to end

up eventually at the bottom of the sea;

6. Role of Local and Central Governments for Installing an Integrated

Series of Sustainable Communities