Antinuclear

The government, facing the first summer in 40 years without nuclear power, is fielding complaints from residents who say key points have been missed in planning for any mass evacuation. Local authorities approve restarts, but Ichikikushikino, as only a neighboring town, does not get any final say in the matter. That didn’t stop more than half its 30,000 residents from signing a petition opposing it.

“The (evacuation) plan itself is very sloppy, just slotting bits and pieces into a manual without giving any consideration to the special features of the area,” said Zenyu Niga, a Buddhist monk whose mountain-side temple overlooks the Sendai plant. Residents say a narrow road designated as an evacuation route regularly floods at high tide. A day care center has no evacuation plan at all. One evacuation center is a run-down building with limited space……..

scepticism in Ichikikushikino and other coastal towns, which do not share in the jobs and government subsidies linked to the nuclear industry, could delay the restart.

Ichikikushikino’s city council promised last week to submit the residents’ petition to the governor.

And there may be a reassessment or revision of plans drawn up by local officials to have residents pile into cars and buses and drive along highways to pre-assigned evacuation centers. Any town within a 30-km radius of a nuclear plant must create an evacuation plan, while schools, hospitals and elderly care facilities are asked to set their own emergency plans.

Kiyoko Kojima, 75, who works at a day-care center 13 km from the plant, said the facility, with 60 children in its charge, had no evacuation plan.”I haven’t heard anything about an emergency plan. I’m not even sure whether we wait for the parents to come pick up the children or we evacuate right away,” she said.,,,,,,,,,

The newly established Nuclear Regulation Authority is bogged down in regulatory hearings since laying down stringent guidelines for plant restarts a year ago. Officials reject any notion of a more active role in emergency planning.

Even supporters of restarts have doubts about the plans. Toyoji Fukuzono, 61, a retired fisherman, questioned a route requiring 1,600 residents to travel down a narrow road that routinely floods at high tide.

“We just want you to consider actual road conditions,” he told a town hall meeting. “You know there’s regular flooding and landslides.”

(Writing by Mari Saito; Editing by Edmund Klamann and Ron Popeski) http://planetark.org/enviro-news/item/71788