Angry Voices Shaking the Valley: Industrial Waste Treatment Plants and Residents - August 1994

Angry Voices Shaking the Valley: Industrial Waste Treatment Plants and Residents - August 1994

In 1994, in valleys across Japan, quiet lands were suddenly shaken by angry voices. Whenever a plan to build an industrial waste treatment plant was raised, the residents, the contractor, and the government confronted each other. At a briefing by Odawara City, the contractor was asked, "What if the groundwater is contaminated? The contractor responded, "We are monitoring it. The residents, however, shouted, "It's too late for that. The air in the hall instantly froze as angry shouts flew in the air.

In the background was the collapse of the bubble economy and the conversion of a former golf course site that had failed to develop. A processing plant called the "vein industry" had come to the site. Land prices fell, the forestry industry declined, and landowners sought new sources of income. Meanwhile, for the residents, the reality was that their lifeblood of water was threatened.

Sit-in protests took place in the town of Kuzuu, protests to the prefectural government in Odawara, and in Sendai, the contractor abandoned the operation. Anger and anxiety were taking root in the land. Their cries were simple and sincere, before the term "environmental democracy" was coined. There was certainly a resolve of the local people to resist the logic of the city.