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A resident grows vegetables in a field near Daikin Industries\u2019 Yodogawa Plant. A high concentration of PFOA was detected in his blood. Photo taken on Nov. 16, 2021 by Nanami Nakagawa.<\/p>\n \n
Daikin Industries, which repeatedly polluted the local community around its Yodogawa Plant in Settsu City, Osaka Prefecture, appeased potentially angry residents by supporting the local economy and offering boozy bus tours to locals.<\/p>\n
However, public opinion soured in June 2020 when the Ministry of the Environment released the results of a nationwide survey of toxic chemical PFOA levels in rivers and groundwater; Settsu\u2019s groundwater was found to have Japan\u2019s highest concentration of PFOA. In October 2021, blood tests conducted by Kyoto University Professor Emeritus Akio Koizumi found high levels of PFOA in the blood of nine out of nine residents tested.<\/p>\n
Locals and city council members have begun demanding the city take action but are still waiting for a response. On Dec. 7, 2021, Settsu City Mayor Kazumasa Moriyama traveled to Tokyo for a closed-door meeting with the Ministry of the Environment and the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare to request assistance from the national government.<\/p>\n
But the meeting didn\u2019t go as they hoped.<\/p>\n
Moriyama, currently in his fifth consecutive term as mayor since first being elected in 2004, was beginning to feel the heat as city council members repeatedly pressed him over the city\u2019s PFOA pollution.<\/p>\n
For example, Waki Masunaga, a city council member affiliated with Japan\u2019s Communist Party, raised the issue at a council session on June 25, 2021. Masunaga pointed out that even though the Ministry of the Environment had identified Settsu City as having the highest level of PFOA in Japan, the city itself had downplayed the problem by saying the concentration of PFOA was decreasing in the long term.<\/p>\n
\u201cSettsu\u2019s PFOA levels are 22,000 nanograms per liter in groundwater and 5,300 nanograms per liter in waterways \u2014 the target value is 50 nanograms per liter,\u201d Masunaga stressed. \u201cThis is a ridiculously high concentration. How can we be so complacent as to just say the concentration is decreasing in the long term?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cTap water is safe, so it\u2019s not a problem,\u201d a city official responded.<\/p>\n
The issue of soil contamination, however, wasn\u2019t so easily dismissed. Professor Koizumi\u2019s blood tests \u2014 conducted in July\u2013September 2020 and October 2021 \u2014 had both shown high levels of PFOA in residents who had eaten vegetables from fields near Daikin\u2019s Yodogawa Plant.<\/p>\n
\u201cHow can you say we\u2019re safe as long as we don\u2019t drink the [contaminated ground or river] water?\u201d Masunaga pressed. \u201cShouldn\u2019t the city conduct its own investigation, one that includes soil contamination?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cOur understanding is the national government will continue to study this issue,\u201d responded Kazuhiko Matsukata, head of the city\u2019s living environment department.<\/p>\n
But in reality, Settsu City Mayor Moriyama and other city authorities weren\u2019t certain of the extent of the national government\u2019s response \u2014 hence Moriyama\u2019s decision to go to Tokyo to discuss things in person.<\/p>\n
In preparation for the Dec. 7 meeting with the Ministry of the Environment and the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, Moriyama and his team sent their counterparts a summary of the current situation in Settsu, as well as the points they hoped to confirm at the meeting.<\/p>\n
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