In the Valley of Rage and Silence: A Record of Conflict over an Industrial Waste Treatment Plant - Odawara City, Kanagawa Prefecture, August 1994

In the Valley of Rage and Silence: A Record of Conflict over an Industrial Waste Treatment Plant - Odawara City, Kanagawa Prefecture, August 1994

I still cannot forget the day of that briefing session. Odawara City, Kanagawa Prefecture. When we were suddenly told that an industrial waste treatment plant would be built in this valley surrounded by mountains, I felt a stirring in the pit of my chest.

The contractor said, "We are monitoring the site. We are monitoring the site. There is no safety problem. We didn't just sit there and listen to them. Someone asked, "What if the groundwater is contaminated?" someone asked, and I opened my mouth to take over. It's too late for that. Water is our very life.

I felt the atmosphere change. It wasn't a flurry of angry shouts. Rather, an angry silence enveloped the room. Everyone was carrying unspoken anxieties that threatened the very foundations of their lives.

As is the case in our community, the forestry industry has long since declined, and the development of a golf course, once a dream of the past, has come to a halt. I can understand why the landowners are hoping for economic benefits. But we have lived here for a long time. Can you imagine living on a narrow road with nearly a hundred large dump trucks passing by every day?

The problem of leachate, the difficulty of proving causality, the risk of contractors withdrawing. Each one of these factors made my anxiety grow. After all, who would take responsibility? No clear answer to this question came from anywhere.

At that time, there were similar stories all over the country. In Sendai, Fukuoka, and Hokkaido. In Katsurao, residents started a sit-in, and in Odawara we went to the prefectural government office to protest. We, who had no name, still had to raise our voices. That's what we thought.

After the meeting, as I walked down the hill on my way home, I quietly thought to myself, "No one else can protect this land. We are the only ones who can protect this land. I had to ask myself if our lives are included in the "public good" as described by the logic of the city.

It will take time for the system to change. But I believe that the anger and anxiety that I felt was indeed a small driving force to get the system moving.