Japan government takes step to accelerate landfilling at Henoko

June 11, 2019

Naha, Okinawa Pref.--The Japanese government took a step on Tuesday to accelerate landfilling work at a planned U.S. base site in the Henoko coastal area in Okinawa Prefecture.

On the day, the Defense Ministry's Okinawa Defense Bureau started to land soil transported by sea at another location in the Henoko area, on top of the existing unloading point.

For the landing of soil for landfilling, only a seawall constructed on the north of Oura Bay had been used. The new unloading site is part of a seawall now being built on the south of the bay.

The Okinawa prefectural government, which has retracted its approval for landfilling at Henoko, is expected to take action against the latest move by the central government.

The central government plans to relocate the U.S. Marine Corps' Futenma air station in the city of Ginowan in Okinawa to Henoko in Nago, another city in the southernmost Japan prefecture.

In the seawall construction site on the south of the bay, there are corals, which are planned to be transplanted. But the regional defense bureau believes that the corals would not be affected even after about half of the 515-meter-long planned southern seawall is completed.

"We can't tolerate the (base construction) work," Okinawa Governor Denny Tamaki told reporters at the prefectural government office in Naha, Okinawa's capital.

He claimed that the land minister's recent decision to invalidate the prefecture's cancellation of its landfilling approval was "illegal." Jiji Press