Eight Voiceless Years: Silence in Rausu and the Hokkaido Waterway
Rausu is a small town in Hokkaido. In the eight years that have passed, the quiet changes in the town's waterworks have gone unnoticed by anyone. With no technical staff in place, the town's water supply infrastructure had simply aged away, left to the passage of time, without being examined or modified. Water continued to flow from the taps as usual. But behind this was a blank management system and the silence of facilities that were never renewed.
Not only Rausu, but Hokkaido's water utilities are now in the midst of a crisis, ahead of the rest of the country. The population is rapidly declining, revenues from fees are decreasing, and facilities are deteriorating. In addition, the difficulty of deploying human resources over such a vast geographical area is weighing heavily on the future of the water supply system. The cost of renewal is expected to be 1.5 times the current level by 2023, and the infrastructure to support this is already fragile.
Eight years in Rausu is also a quiet indictment. When the system collapses, who will protect the water? It is time to listen carefully to this question.
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