Gov’t to end environmental assessment for Futenma relocation by yr-end

NAHA (Kyodo) — A top Defense Ministry official told the governor of Okinawa in a meeting last week that the ministry plans to complete by year-end an environmental impact assessment related to the proposed relocation of a U.S. Marine base within Okinawa Prefecture, sources familiar with the meeting said Sunday.

The ministry’s plan to submit its report on the assessment, being conducted in the coastal area of Henoko, to the prefectural government drew a sharp reaction from Gov. Hirokazu Nakaima, who has called for the base to be relocated outside of the prefecture, the sources said.

The meeting between Vice Defense Minister Kimito Nakae, the ministry’s top bureaucrat, and the governor took place in the prefectural capital of Naha on Thursday, the eve of the launch of new Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda’s Cabinet.

“The state must first seek to gain the understanding of the city of Nago, the local host,” a senior prefectural official said, expressing displeasure with the central government for proceeding with the existing plan that remains unpopular with local people.

Once the environmental impact assessment is concluded, the focus will shift to whether the governor will authorize reclamation in waters off Henoko in Nago, which will be necessary to build runways as agreed by Japan and the United States.

But no such approval is in sight as the local government is opposed to the plan for relocating the flight functions of the U.S. Marines’ Futenma Air Station, located in the crowded city of Ginowan, to the new airfield to be built in the coastal area.

The environmental impact assessment, which began in 2007, hit a snag when the Democratic Party of Japan came to power in 2009 promising to seek the removal of the base from the prefecture. In June this year, however, the DPJ-led Japanese government and the U.S. government reaffirmed plans to build two runways in a V-shaped formation in the coastal area of Henoko.

Inamine sees no feasibility of Futenma base relocation in Okinawa

Susumu Inamine, mayor of Nago in Okinawa Prefecture, reiterated Monday that he sees no feasibility of the Futenma U.S. base in the prefecture’s Ginowan city being moved elsewhere within Okinwawa.

“The feasibility of the relocation in Okinawa is zero,” Inamine said of a Japan-U.S. government agreement to relocate the Futenma Air Station of the U.S. Marine Corps to Henoko in Nago.

Japan’s Defense Ministry reportedly plans to complete an environmental assessment of the Futenma relocation within this year.

Inamine criticized the Defense Ministry plan, if true, as unreasonable.

“I am not in a position to accept the base’s relocation within the prefecture,” he said.

Kyodo, September 5, 2011
http://mdn.mainichi.jp/mdnnews/national/archive/news/2011/09/05/20110905p2g00m0dm047000c.html