Japan Town’s Vote Expresses Opposition to Waste Plant

TOKYO — In another triumph for direct democracy in a country that tends to be ruled from the top down, Japanese voters Sunday rejected plans for an industrial waste plant in the central town of Mitake and signaled demands for a better balance between economic growth and environmental protection.

Underscoring the interest in the issue, 87.5% of Mitake voters turned out for the poll and overwhelmingly rejected the plant by a vote of 10,373 to 2,442. Although the referendum carries no legal authority, Mitake’s elected leader, Yoshiro Yanagawa, said he will respect voter will in deciding whether to proceed with the plant--which had been tentatively approved by his predecessor.

“Japan has at last realized the possibility of people’s democracy taking hold even in the rural areas,” political analyst Minoru Morita said of the Mitake vote.

The waste plant vote represented the third referendum in the past year questioning national policies as local voters increasingly try to break the stranglehold Japanese bureaucrats have on policymaking.

Last year, voters in the northern town of Maki became the first in Japan to reject a nuclear power plant, effectively halting the project and throwing the nation’s nuclear energy policy into disarray.

Okinawans voted for a reduction in U.S. troops on their southern island last year, although their voices have not been heeded.

Despite Mitake’s size--a rural town of 20,000 people--the referendum has garnered national attention because of Japan’s growing industrial waste problems and the sometimes seamy nature of the disposal industry.

After Yanagawa, who was elected in 1995, moved to freeze the plan last year, he was brutally beaten by two assailants. No arrests have been made, but police suspect that the two assailants were involved with the gangster networks known to dominate Japan’s waste disposal industry.

In the past three years, at least 24 cases of trouble involving gangsters and the waste disposal industry have erupted in 14 municipalities throughout Japan, according to the Mainichi Shimbun newspaper.

The Mitake outcome is expected to exacerbate Japan’s waste disposal problems. Not only is the nation running out of places to store its waste--Japan’s more than 13,700 facilities are thought to be near capacity--but concern about the impact of waste disposal facilities on public health and the environment is growing.

Those concerns were heightened recently when the Environmental Agency here released a report showing that levels of dioxin--a toxic chemical believed to cause cancer and other health problems--are 10 times higher in major Japanese cities than in U.S. and European counterparts. Waste-burning facilities are thought to be one source of dioxin emissions.

“Until now, Japan has put its strength into manufacturing and growth and made light of industrial waste problems,” Morita said. “But from now, Japan will have to balance the ‘development as No. 1’ policy with the environment. This represents a major turning point.”

In a recent Yomiuri Shimbun newspaper poll, 72.7% of those surveyed said environmental protection should take precedence over economic development. And 69.4% gave the government little or no credit for environmental protection efforts.