space Press Releases, News Stories

by Joseph Coleman, Associated Press

The PCB-laden garbage, including transformers, circuit breakers, oil and other debris, was generated by U.S. bases in Japan and shipped out in late March to a recycling plant in Canada.

Now the waste is back - and many Japanese aren't happy about it.

The shipment was refused by Canada and dockworkers in Seattle, and was met with demonstrations when it arrived in Yokohama on April 18. The waste led to day-long TV news broadcasts and political protests.

The refuse will be stored in Japan for up to a month and then shipped elsewhere. But the hoopla underscored the enduring public unease here over the environmental impact of playing host to the American military.

``Environmental pollution linked to U.S. bases has always been a problem,'' said Mizuho Fukushima, an upper house lawmaker from the Social Democratic Party, which sent a protest letter to the Foreign Ministry.

The U.S. military faces allegations of fouling the soil, air and water around bases. Lawsuits accuse bases of noise pollution. Critics say a planned U.S. helicopter base in Okinawa could threaten coral reefs.

But the U.S. military fiercely denies it is a polluter.

``We do not treat our facilities with abandon. We live, we work, we train inside these facilities,'' said Lt. Col. Billy Birdwell, spokesman for U.S. Forces, Japan. ``We treat the environment inside those places with great respect.''

U.S. officials also say they've been careful with the shipment that came back. It is contaminated with PCBs, or polychlorinated biphenyls, which have been linked to cancer.

The American Embassy insists the shipment will not be in Japan for more than a month and does not pose a threat to the environment. Besides, officials say, the items were produced in Japan in the first place.

The shipment, however, has been a major headache for the U.S. Defense Department.

The waste was shipped out of Japan on March 23 to make room at a crowded U.S. military storage area outside Tokyo. The original destination was a recycling center in Canada, but entry was denied by the Canadian government.

Then the freighter headed to Seattle for temporary storage. When dockworkers refused to unload the waste, the load headed back to Japan.

In Yokohama, dozens of protesters gathered on the dock to denounce the shipment, and several demonstrators from Greenpeace boarded the ship and blocked unloading for several hours.

Now the 14 containers of garbage sit at the U.S. Army's North Dock warehouse facility. Military officials say they have been open about the shipment, but no details about what is next have been released. U.S. officials say only that the final destination has not been determined.

The mess follows closely on the heels of another environmental tiff between the U.S. military and Japan.

The U.S. Justice Department filed a lawsuit in Japanese courts in March demanding the closure of an incinerator near a U.S. Navy air facility in Atsugi, south of Tokyo. U.S. military officials accuse the incinerator of spewing cancer-causing dioxin over the base.

The Japanese government has said little on the waste shipment. Foreign Minister Yohei Kono was quoted in local media reports as saying he asked that the waste stay in Japan no longer than a month, and U.S. officials agreed.

The issue highlights a quandary for the U.S. military.

Importation of foreign-made PCBs is banned in the United States, and there are no facilities for disposing of the toxic materials in Japan, meaning the military either has to store them indefinitely or search for a third country willing to dispose of them.

Fueling public suspicions has been the secrecy under which the U.S. military operates in Japan.

Under agreements with Japan, the U.S. military has no obligation to publicly disclose information about on-base hazardous materials. And it does not have to clean up environmental messes on bases when they are handed back to Japan.

``The U.S. military hardly discloses any information about environmental problems,'' said Fukushima, the lawmaker. ``And they didn't in this case, either.''

On the Net: U.S. Forces Japan site: http://www.yokota.af.mil/usfj/usfj.htm