Saga Town C'tee to OK Petition for N-Waste Site Survey

   Genkai, Saga Pref., April 25 (Jiji Press)--A special committee of a Saga Prefecture town assembly is expected to approve a petition to accept a "literature survey" for a possible final disposal site for high-level radioactive waste from nuclear plants.
   At the Genkai assembly in southwestern Japan, the committee on nuclear energy issues, consisting of all assembly members, began its second discussion on the petition, submitted by local business groups.
   In the previous discussion, the committee received explanations from officials from related organizations including the Agency for Natural Resources and Energy and the Nuclear Waste Management Organization of Japan, or NUMO, which conducts the survey.
   If the petition is approved by the special committee and then the full assembly, the Genkai mayor will need to make the final decision on whether to accept the survey. The mayor, Shintaro Wakiyama, has taken a cautious stance on the issue by far.
   The literature survey, which looks into papers and data, is the first of the three stages in the process of selecting a final disposal site. Municipalities can decide whether to apply for the survey, and those that accept can receive up to 2 billion yen in state subsides over two years.

(2024/04/25-11:01)