The Nakaikemi Marsh on Tsuruga City,Fukui Prefecture covers an area of about 24ha. And it is one of the few low-ground-marshs,left in Japan. Many scientist all over the world pay attention to the sffluent ecosystem on it.
This project is that the Oosaka gas,Inc. reclaims the most of the marsh and constructs a LNG(Liquid National Gas) stockpiling base. The Oosaka gas,Inc.works out a plan of constracting 'the environment preservation area' on the south part of the marsh,covered an area of about 3.3ha in order to save the lives of living things. And it transplanted some rare kinds of aquatic plants there.
In 1990 the project of the prefectual industrial apartment was suggested, and in 1992 the assembly of Tsuruga City desided to try to attract industrial deveropment of the Oosaka gas Inc.. Since that,the Oosaka gas,citizen's groups and well-informed people have argued over the preservation of the Nakaikemi marsh,and some newspapers have taken up the subject for discussion many times.
Besides,recently the Oosaka gas Inc.desided the postponement of the project because it concluded that in future LNG would be in less demand than it expected.
# from the biological and environmental point of view
What is the most important in the values of the Nakaikemi Marsh is it's amazing bio- diversity.the enormous number of kinds of living things on the marsh, espesially rare living things in the world,is a important element.But to point it out is not enough to explain the value of the bio-diversity of the marsh. Because the real worth of the bio-diversity of the Nakaikemi Marsh is that the livingthings are adapted to the exquisitely mosaic environment of water and soil and form "a symbiotic system" among them.
As a result of consideration of this delicate balance of the environment,it is reasonable to infer that the transplantation which the Oosaka gas Inc.did is a risky act which would cause extinctions of specific several kinds. there are no considerable persuasive power in the assertion that all of the kinds of the rare plants tansplanted to "the environment preservation area" exist there forever.
As a resalt,it is suggested that the act of the Oosaka gas Inc.comes under the following articles of Chapter 1 of the Environmental Fundamental Law.
Article 1 provisions
Article 3 Enjoyment and Succession of the favor of the environment
Article 4 Cnstraction of continuous developing societies without less load to the environment
Article 7 Duty of local governments
Article 8 Duty of entrepreneurs
# from the geological and environmental point of view
All over the building site, there are soft ground. And the formation of the soft ground is closely related with an action of dislocation.
Nakaikemi Marsh is a very peculiar geographical feature. It is a type of the pouch-like buried valley,one of the geographical features of dislocation. In it, a pest bed reaches 60 meters underground. Included the pest bed and the grift bed under it,the soft ground reaches 80 meters underground.the specific gravity of the soft ground is extremely nearly 1. So the Nakaikemi Marsh is not fit to construct a big building. In order to build the LNG stockpiling base,tha lot of ground water supplied to the buried valley everyday must be pumped up regularly.The entrepreneur explains that the problem is able to solve by civil engineering.But the action will completely destroy the bio-diversity of Nakaikemi Marsh and makes it clear that the entrepreneur intend to make a botanical gardain under the artificial maintain.
As a result of the borting investigation, it was guessed that the defference in elevation of tha base on the east of the marsh is an active faulting.The entrepreneur denied this doubt because of the result of the analysis of the elastic wave investigation.But it is already known that there are two active faultings six kilometers away from Nakaikemi Marsh.If an earthquake occurs because of them,it is cannnot help that the LNG stockpiling base will be dameged.Besides,this soft ground will amplify the damage.
In addition, there are many nuclear power station close to Nakaikemi Marsh in Tsuruga city. So it will be difficult to take emergency measures for both of them if some kinds of localized disasters like earthquakes happens.
Nowadays public undertakings depending on national loans is criticized.And it cannot count on rising of demand of LNG.In spiteof that,the Oosaka gas Inc.intends to build the LNG stockpiling base on conveniently location which local onhibitants cannot help run a risk of great disaster forever in. Addionary the location, Nakaikemi Marsh is one of the slightly left low-ground-marshs and the precious bio-diversity of it is payed attentioned to not only in Japan but also all over tha world.Though the project was freezed tempolarily now,if Nakaikemi Mrsh is left as it is,the bio-diversity will diminish year after year.
I point out that the entrepreneur makes light of the Environmental Fundamental Law ,the entrepreneur is lack of undeerstanding of the scientific value and the entrepreneur is poor concious of risks of great disasters.And what I cannot neglect still more is the immature recognition of the bio-diversity.I hope for argument besides the entrepreneur recognizesthe value of Nakaikemi Marsh and the conveniently location.
The scientific investigation report of Nakaikemi Marsh( Tsuruga city,Fukui prefecture)
The report of the first scientific investigation(1998)
The scientific investigation report of Nakaikemi Marsh( Tsuruga city,Fukui prefecture)
The report of the second scientific investigation(2000)