Dogs and Demons_ Tales From the Dark Side of Japan - Kerr [11]
In 1988, only a year before construction of the Isahaya dikes was to begin (but decades after MAFF began planning and negotiating the payoffs), the Environment Agency made a «study» of it all, followed almost immediately by approval with a few minor restrictions. When MAFF closed the dikes in April 1997, it was clear that the Environment Agency's study had been a cursory travesty. Assailed by the media, the only comment of agency chief Ishii Michiko was this: «The result might have been different if the assessment had followed today's environmental standards... But it is unlikely that we will ask the Agriculture Ministry to re-examine the project.»
In other words, although the Environment Agency was aware that the drainage of the Isahaya wetlands was a disaster, it did not move to stop the project. And why should it? Allowing Japan's last major wetland to die shouldn't concern anyone. MAFF chief Fujinami Takao commented, «The current ecosystem may disappear, but nature will create a new one.»
And so it stands. The tideland is dead now, and for no better reason than the necessity for MAFF to use up its construction budget. When asked what Isahaya would do with the drained land, the town's mayor, its most strenuous supporter, had no clear idea. «We are considering using the reclaimed land for growing crops, raising dairy cows, or breeding livestock,» he replied. But apparently there are even better uses for land that no one knows what to do with. He added, «We have also studied setting up a training center for farmers from Southeast Asia or conducting biotechnology research.»
Having seen how Japan killed its largest wetland, let's take a look at the mechanisms behind the attack on its rivers. One of the biggest businesses spawned by the Construction State is the building of dams and river-erosion levees. Under the name of flood control, Japan has embarked on what the British expert Frederick Pearce calls a «dam-building frenzy.» This frenzy costs ¥200 billion per year, and by 1997, 97 percent of Japan's major rivers were blocked by large dams. This figure is deceptive, however, because concrete walls now line the banks of all Japan's rivers and streams; in addition, countless diversion canals have brought the total of river works to the tens of thousands. The Construction Ministry justifies the dams and canals on the pretext that Japan faces a water shortage. Yet it is a well-known fact that this is not true. The River Bureau uses projections for population and industrial growth that were calculated in the 1950s and never revised, despite drastic changes in the structure of water use since then. The estimates are so far out of line that, according to Sankei Shimbun newspaper, the additional demand projected by the River Bureau is 80 percent above and beyond all the water used in Japan in 1995.
An example of the construction bureaucracy's modus operandi is the Nagara Dam, an enormous facility spanning the Nagara River, where three river systems meet in Mie, Gifu, and Aichi prefectures. The cost of this facility (¥1.5 trillion, roughly $12 billion) makes it one of the world's most expensive civil-engineering projects. The Kozo, or «concept,» of the dam took shape in 1960, but while water needs changed completely in the ensuing decades, the plan did not, for too many bureaucrats and politicians stood to gain from the construction money. By 1979, new water-use projections showed that the three prefectures would have more water than they needed for at least thirteen to twenty years – possibly forever.
The governor of Mie, well aware of the water surplus, was concerned about the tremendous expense that his prefecture would have to shoulder. At the same time, he was afraid to cancel the project because the Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI) was subsidizing its construction, and if the prefecture turned down the dam MITI would deny it money in the future. In 1979, Mie dispatched Takeuchi Gen'ichi, the director of its Office of Planning, to present the