In the Valley of Rage and Silence--A Record of Conflict over Industrial Waste Disposal Plants - August 1994

In the Valley of Rage and Silence--A Record of Conflict over Industrial Waste Disposal Plants - August 1994

In 1994, conflicts over the construction of industrial waste treatment plants were raging across Japan. Mountains of waste piled up behind the backdrop of economic growth. The question of how to dispose of it brought into sharp relief the composition of city and region, government and citizen, profit and safety.

Odawara City, Kanagawa Prefecture. At a briefing session, a resident posed the question, "What if the groundwater is contaminated? What if the groundwater is contaminated? The contractor responded calmly. We are monitoring it," the contractor calmly replied. But these words fell on deaf ears. It's too late for that! The air was filled with angry shouts from the audience. The air was frozen in anger.

Such clashes of emotions were also reported in Sendai, Fukuoka, and Hokkaido. It was an instinctive cry to protect lives and livelihoods that could not be contained by mere administrative procedures. Conflicts that cannot be resolved by accountability or scientific evidence alone covered quiet towns across the country.

At the time, there was a string of cases of land vacated by failed golf course developments being transformed into "industrial waste disposal sites" as the next use for the land. Land prices had fallen and the forestry industry was in decline in this mountainous area. Invisible boundaries were drawn between landowners hoping for economic benefits and the residents who lived there.

On the one hand, the national and local governments wanted to entrust the industrial waste treatment business to "private-sector vitality. In reality, however, small-scale operators with limited financial resources and those who had failed in the golf course business in the past were buying and selling land under their own names with only a license and permit in hand.

There are two problems for the residents. One was the pollution of groundwater, and the other was the destruction of the living environment by traffic. More than 100 10-ton dump trucks drive along the narrow road in the valley every day. The vibration and noise from these dump trucks overturned the very foundations of the way of life that used to be in harmony with nature.

Even when leachate contaminated the groundwater, it was difficult to prove a causal relationship, and liability was unclear. When the contractors disappeared, all that was left was dirty water and residents who had lost their voices. Everyone feared such a situation.

At this time, the activities of environmental NGOs were spreading, and residents' movements in various areas were beginning to link up horizontally. In the town of Kuzuu, residents sat down at the entrance to the treatment plant to prevent its installation, and in Odawara, a protest demonstration was held against the prefectural government. In Sendai, the operator finally abandoned the operation.

These events were not just local news. They were the embryo of "environmental democracy," a moment when the principles of "information disclosure" and "participation" were finally taking root in society.

A briefing session filled with angry shouts. Silenced contractors. Suffering government officials. But behind it all, perhaps, was the persistent desire to "continue to live here. What should we have left behind in this place where the logic of the city and the life of the countryside intersect?

In 1994, this battle over the vein industry would become the basis for the next environmental policy. Anger and tears eventually gained the name of "system" and were integrated into the structure of society.