tokyo

Officials at a US naval air base in Atsugi, Japan, plan to install an infrared sensor to monitor gases from a nearby waste incinerator which they claim is discharging toxic pollutants such as dioxin and tetrachloroethylene.

The problem is “the number one issue of concern for US forces in Japan,” says an official at the US Naval Air Facility (NAF) base, which has more than 2,500 residents.

Although some local authorities have taken action against various sources of dioxin — for example, by ordering the closure of school incinerators — national regulations have yet to be implemented. Officials have refused to take action in the Atsugi case, claiming that the exhaust gases are within permitted limits.

The move by US officials to increase their own monitoring capabilities comes after Jinkampo, a privately owned waste incineration facility 250 metres from the NAF base, was granted a five-year extension of its waste disposal licence, despite objections from residents of the base.

US military officials have been analysing the emissions since 1988, after complaints from residents. Recent tests have allegedly identified 12 pollutants emitted from Jinkampo. Officials concluded that the health risks were unacceptably high by US standards. The officials say that twice as many individuals suffer from respiratory diseases such as asthma at Atsugi as at other bases in Japan.

But appeals to the local prefectural government in 1989, asking for action to stem the emissions, and a report submitted to the Environment Agency in 1995 listing toxic substances detected in air samples, have been ignored by Japanese officials. They argue that emissions are within Japanese air pollution standards.

Officials at the base now intend to use Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, which can monitor and analyse emissions from chimneys whatever the wind and atmospheric conditions, to improve their analyses of air samples. Data collected by the previous method, which used ambient air data, were not recognized by the Japanese government.

According to Brian Murphy, an environment specialist at NAF Atsugi, the main difficulty is that the waste incinerator is privately owned, and that Japan does not have an “environment protection agency” to establish and enforce pollution laws.

Japan depends heavily on incinerators for waste disposal, burning 73 per cent of its waste, compared to only 16 per cent in the United States. In the United States, stringent air quality standards make it difficult for incinerators to comply with pollution laws.

The Japanese government has tried in the past to seek alternative methods of waste disposal. But opposition from industry has blocked implementation, partly because limited land means that methods other than incineration are expensive and complex. One result is that Japan regulates only ten hazardous air pollutants, compared with 195 in the United States.

The government has only recently started to introduce measures to regulate dioxin levels, following appeals from the public, including lawsuits against incineration plants for causing health hazards. Pollution caused by dioxin, a by-product of waste incineration suspected of causing cancer, is a major problem in Japan, where 450 million tonnes of waste are disposed of each year.