Okinawa: Okinawans lose appeal over early morning, late night flights at Futenma base

The top court has upheld a lower court ruling that refused to ban early morning and late night flights at the U.S. Marine Corps Air Station Futenma in Okinawa Prefecture because of noise pollution.

The Third Petty Bench of the Supreme Court thus dismissed an appeal by local residents against the ruling that the Naha branch of the Fukuoka High Court had handed down in July 2010.

The high court’s order that the government pay about 390 plaintiffs a total of about 369 million yen in damages has been confirmed after the defendants did not appeal it to the top court.

In its ruling, the high court doubled the amount of compensation that the district court had ordered the government to pay the plaintiffs on the grounds that the defendant failed to implement fundamental measures to reduce noise from military planes at Futenma base in the city of Ginowan. Moreover, it concluded that low-frequency noise from helicopters based at Futenma base amplified local residents’ mental distress, a point that the district court did not recognize.

However, the high court dismissed the plaintiffs’ demands that late night and early morning flights at the base be suspended, in accordance with the Supreme Court’s ruling on a separate case that Japanese authorities have no jurisdiction over the flights of U.S. military aircraft in Japan.

The top court dismissed an appeal that 10 of the plaintiffs had filed against the high court ruling on the grounds that they failed to meet the requirements for appealing the ruling.

Mainichi Shimbun , October 14, 2011
http://mdn.mainichi.jp/mdnnews/nati...

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Okinawa: Japan urged to make vow on Futenma issue in coming defense talks

TOKYO (Kyodo) — The United States has urged Japan to promise during their upcoming defense ministerial talks that the government will submit to Okinawa Prefecture by the year-end an environmental assessment report on the contentious relocation of a U.S. Marine base there, sources close to bilateral ties said Friday.

But making such a promise will be a difficult decision for the Japanese government as submission of the report would be taken as its intention to push through the project even though Okinawa is still calling for the U.S. Marine Corps’ Futenma Air Station to be relocated outside the prefecture, the sources said.

The government will decide how to deal with the U.S. request during talks between Defense Minister Yasuo Ichikawa and Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, slated for Oct. 25, after Ichikawa visits Okinawa to meet with Gov. Hirokazu Nakaima on Monday, Japanese government sources said.

Panetta is scheduled to arrive in Japan on Oct. 24 and to hold talks with Ichikawa for the first time the following day. He is also making arrangements to meet with Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda and Foreign Minister Koichiro Gemba.

In September, U.S. President Barack Obama told Noda during their summit in New York that the time to settle the issue of the Futenma base relocation is nearing.

Behind the U.S. call is the Senate cutting the entire budget for the transfer of Okinawa-stationed Marines to Guam along with the Futenma base relocation within Okinawa, citing uncertainties over the Japanese government’s ability to carry out the plan in line with a bilateral agreement.

As the budget for the relocation will be finally determined through discussions with the House of Representatives early next year, the Obama administration is now putting pressure on Japan to achieve concrete progress on the Futenma issue.

In 2007, the Japanese government started the procedure for the environmental assessment of the relocation of the U.S. base to the Henoko district in Nago from a densely populated area of Ginowan under an agreement reached with Washington in 2006.

The Defense Ministry planned to complete it by the end of 2010, but the process was interrupted as former Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama sought to move the Futenma base out of Okinawa.

Japan resumed the operation of crafting the environment assessment report after top security talks with the United States in June, in which their defense and foreign ministers reaffirmed a deal on the realignment of U.S. forces in Japan, including the Futenma base relocation within the prefecture.

Kyodo Press, October 15, 2011
http://mdn.mainichi.jp/mdnnews/national/archive/news/2011/10/15/20111015p2g00m0dm011000c.html

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Okinawa: Assessment on Futenma due by year-end / Environment report marks new phase in relocation

NAHA—Defense Minister Yasuo Ichikawa told Okinawa Gov. Hirokazu Nakaima on Monday the ministry would submit to the prefecture by the end of this year an environmental impact assessment report on the relocation of the U.S. Marine Corp’s Futenma Air Station.

The relocation issue enters a new phase with the announcement, which clarifies the central government’s intention to begin taking concrete steps toward relocation based on a Japan-U.S. agreement reached in May last year.

“We’re making preparations to submit an environmental impact assessment report within this year,” Ichikawa told Nakaima at the Okinawa prefectural government office in Naha.

However, Nakaima said it would be difficult to relocate the air station from Ginowan in the prefecture to Nago’s Henoko district, also in the prefecture.

The Okinawa governor said: “Even if you insist that it must be Henoko, people of this prefecture are still angry because of the fact that the Democratic Party of Japan supported a candidate who opposed the relocation in the Nago mayoral election a year and a half ago. This issue hasn’t been settled yet.”

If the environmental impact assessment is not written properly, the prefecture will not be able to simply process it, Nakaima told reporters after his meeting with Ichikawa.

He expressed his intention to study the report carefully, saying, “Approving land reclamation [in Henoko, as the relocation plan calls for] is not so simple.”

The central government plans to ask the governor around June next year for permission to reclaim land off Henoko.

According to the environmental impact assessment law, the operator of a major development project such as land reclamation must conduct an assessment of the project’s environmental impact and take preventive measures against possible negative effects.

The law stipulates that the operator must compile a report on measures to be taken to conduct the assessment, an interim report and an assessment report on preventive measures. The development project operator must seek opinions from the prefectures concerned for each report.

Progress on the relocation issue ground to a halt in October 2009 after Nakaima gave his opinions on an interim report compiled by the Defense Ministry.

If the next assessment report is compiled by the ministry, as Ichikawa indicated it will be, Nakaima will have to present his opinions on it within 90 days of its submission.

The central government has said the governor’s opinion will not carry enough weight to be able to stop the relocation project. However, it wants Nakaima’s understanding so subsequent procedures will go smoothly, government sources said.

Yomiuri Shimbun , October 18, 2011
http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/national/T111017005036.htm

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