Guam senator alarmed by possible burial site for Japan’s nuke waste

By Jayvee Vallejera

A Guam senator has raised concerns about Japan's tentative plan to bury highly radioactive materials on Minamitorishima, a tiny island located roughly 800 to 950 miles from Guam.

"We are not distant. We are regional neighbors,” Sen. William Parkinson said in a letter to Japanese Consul-General Ueda Susumu.

William Parkinson

“If Minamitorishima is to be considered, even at a preliminary stage, for the long-term isolation of high-level radioactive waste, then Guam, the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, and other nearby Pacific peoples should not be treated as distant observers with no stake in the outcome," Parkinson said.

The senator pointed out that Guam, the CNMI and other Pacific island nations are connected to Japan by geography, by ocean, by atmosphere, by ecology, and by a shared history “that has too often required island peoples to bear burdens imposed from elsewhere.”

Official Japanese government reports describe Minamitorishima as Japan’s easternmost territory, located about 1,950 kilometers southeast of central Tokyo.

Roughly 1.5 square kilometers in area, this island is ringed by a coral atoll and has a maximum elevation of only about 9 meters above sea level.

Although completely uninhabited and closed to tourists and visitors, it has an existing port and runway, according to official Tokyo Metropolitan Government materials.

Parkinson pointed out that Minamitorishima may be remote from Japan’s main population centers, but it is not remote from Guam and the CNMI.

“A site chosen because it is far from Japan’s main islands can still be uncomfortably near other Pacific communities. That is precisely the concern. Decisions framed domestically as 'remote siting' can operate, from the Pacific perspective, as burden shifting,” he added.

ADVERTISEMENT

Parkinson noted that the materials in question are high-level radioactive waste that requires deep geologic isolation over extraordinary timescales, remaining hazardous not just for years but for millennia.

“Public shorthand about this waste being dangerous for ‘10,000 years’ is not rhetorical excess. If anything, it understates the timescale of concern,” he said.

The danger is not only about hazardous materials being entombed in a place nearly a stone’s throw away from Guam’s backyard, Parkinson said.

The bigger problem is how to ensure that dangerous materials do not poison the environment through groundwater contamination, environmental disruption, corrosion, engineering failure, natural disaster, or human intrusion itself when there is no one left to warn people about these hazardous materials.

“That is the scale of the responsibility being contemplated,” Parkinson added.

The senator also noted that Minamitorishima is prone to typhoons, climate change and earthquakes, posing long-term risks, considering that the island is small, flat, salt-exposed, typhoon-prone and surrounded by the open Pacific.

“One must ask whether the island’s physical scale and environmental setting are appropriate for the logistical realities of transporting, receiving, handling, staging and securing highly radioactive material,” he said.

That doesn’t even include ordinary and all-too-possible accidents when transporting radioactive wastes to the island, which Parkinson said is the most immediate transboundary concern for Guam and the CNMI.

The hazards include maritime accidents, loading and unloading accidents, severe weather events, vessel casualties, port failures and other contingencies.

Citing the history of the Marshall Islands and French Polynesia, which were subjected to repeated nuclear tests, Parkinson said the Pacific has too often been treated as a dumping ground for what was too dangerous, too destructive, or too politically difficult to place nearer to metropolitan centers.

“The Pacific remembers fallout, displacement, medical uncertainty, environmental harm and the long afterlife of decisions made by distant governments that regarded oceanic islands as strategically useful but politically expendable,” he said.

Parkinson asked the Japanese government to explain its plans, the process involved and the timelines.

“Consultation should occur early, not late, and should include technical briefings by appropriate Japanese experts,” he added.

ADVERTISEMENT

“If Japan is considering the use of a small Pacific island for the long-term isolation of dangerous nuclear waste, then Japan must engage Pacific neighbors with the seriousness, courtesy, and transparency that such a decision requires," he added.

Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry earlier disclosed that Minamitorishima is now undergoing a “literature survey,” the first formal step in evaluating the island as a possible final disposal site for high-level radioactive waste.

A Popular Science report says additional surveys are still needed before any plans on Minamitorishima can move forward, but it appears that the island is the most likely candidate for the burial facility.

It said Japanese officials have looked at three locations on two of Japan’s most densely populated islands, Hokkaido and Kyushu, as possible burial sites.

Subscribe to

our digital

monthly issue