The Asia-Pacific Journal | Japan Focus Volume 10 | Issue 9 | Number 5 | Feb 22, 2012

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Japan’s Illegal Environmental Impact Assessment of theHenoko Base　　辺野古基地への日本政府の不法な環境影響判断

Sakurai Kunitoshi

Japan’s Illegal EnvironmentalImpact Assessment of the HenokoBase

Sakurai Kunitoshi

Translated by John Junkerman

The “Surprise Attack” Delivery of theAssessment

Before dawn on December 28, 2011, with theend of the year looming, the Okinawa DefenseBureau (ODB) delivered a load of cardboardboxes to the office of the Okinawa PrefecturalGovernment. The boxes contained copies of theenvironmental impact statement (EIS) for abase in the Henoko district of Nago that isplanned as the replacement for the US MarinesCorps Air Station Futenma.

The delivery was made before dawn to skirt aconcerted blockade by citizen groups opposedto the construction plan, and this “surpriseattack” sent anger on the island soaring to newheights. Both of the local daily newspaperspublished extra editions, and the front pagesand inside sections of the papers the nextmorning were devoted to the incident. Exactlyone month earlier, reporters at an informalgathering asked the chief of the OkinawaDefense Bureau when the EIS would bedelivered. He sparked a scandal by remarking,“Would you say ‘I am going to violate you’before you violated someone?” Now theviolation has been carried out as a surpriseattack, redoubling the anger of the islanders.

Protestors block delivery of the EIS onDecember 27, 2011 (Sumida Chiyomi)

Meanwhile, the metropolitan dailies in Tokyogave the incident extremely limited treatment,focused on the bureau’s inept attempts todeliver the EIS. One write-up even portrayedopposition activists as bullies, harassinginnocent drivers from a private delivery servicethat was hired to make one of the severalattempts to deliver the documents. Theydownplayed the fact that the Henokoenvironmental impact assessment (EIA) is themost unlawful of its kind ever, and thissuperficial treatment will come back to hauntus. It will lead to a tolerance of unlawfulassessments and undermine the environmentalimpact assessment system, which is essential tobuilding a sustainable society. To reduce thissystem to an empty shell is to rob Japan of itsvery future.

J a p a n a s a L a g g i n g N a t i o n i nEnvironmental Assessment

Environmental impact assessment (EIA) as asystem originated in the United States, after

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the enactment of the National EnvironmentalPolicy Act in 1970. More than forty years havepassed since that act was passed, and EIAsystems are now an extremely important,globally shared method for building sustainablesocieties. The adoption of an EIA system inJapan was considered at an early date in theearly 1970s, but industry strongly resistedinstitutionalizing the system; Japan was the lastdeveloped country to pass EIA legislation, in1997. Sad but true, Japan is a less-developedcountry when it comes to EIA.

In the US, the federal government aloneadministers 30,000 to 50,000 EIAs annually;even in China, some 30,000 EIAs are carriedout each year. But in Japan, only about 20 EIAsare conducted under the national EIA act; evenwhen assessments carried out under localordinances are included, the total is no morethan 70 cases per year. The gap is astounding.

The Japanese law came into effect in 1999, andafter a decade of practice, a review wasconducted and the law was partially revised inApr i l 2011 . The key re form was theintroduction of the concept of strategic EIA(where env i ronmenta l a ssessmentconsiderations are incorporated into projectplanning, etc), but even after this revision,Japan must still be called a lagging nation. Thatthe most unlawful EIA in history, which hasgenerated intense alarm in Okinawa, hascaused but a lukewarm response in mainlandJapan, is evidence of this.

In a 2010 review of the record of Japanese EIA,the founding chairman of the Japan Society forImpact Assessment, Nagoya Universityprofessor emeritus Shimazu Yasuo listed theHenoko EIA as the very worst in Japaneseexperience. An environmental assessmentconsists of three stages: the scoping document(defining the scope and methodology of theassessment); the preliminary assessment; andthe final impact statement. At the time ofShimazu’s critique, the Henoko EIA had

completed the first two stages. Setting aside itssurprise attack delivery, the final impactstatement of the Henoko EIA took its sorryperformance to a new level, particularly withthe significant late inclusion of the basing ofMV-22 Ospreys in Henoko, against the wishesof the Okinawan people. With that, it cementedits status as the “worst EIA in history.”

The Late Add-on of Osprey Deployment

The MV-22 Osprey tiltrotor aircraft is thesuccessor to the CG-46 helicopters that arenow stationed at the Futenma airbase. The USmilitary’s intention to base Ospreys at Futenmawas indicated as early as a November 1996draft of the Special Action Committee onOkinawa (SACO) agreement.

The SACO agreement was negotiated by the USand Japanese governments in the face ofsurging Okinawan opposition to the bases,sparked by the September 1995 rape of aschoolgirl by three US soldiers. The agreementcalled for the return of all US facilities locatedsouth of Kadena Air Base, including Futenma.At a later date, relocation to Henoko became acondition for the return of Futenma, and thestruggle of Okinawan residents to prevent theconstruction of a new base has continued forthe past 15 years.

Deploying Ospreys to Futenma means they willbe deployed to Henoko as well. However, theOsprey has suffered frequent accidents sinceits development stage, to the extent that it hasbeen nicknamed “The Widowmaker.” Fearingthat i ts deployment would spur localopposition, the Defense Agency (now theDefense Ministry) requested the US to concealthe deployment plans.

The course of these developments was revealedin documents submitted by the US Departmentof Defense during hearings on a suit filed in aUS federal court to protect the dugongs thatfrequent the waters around Henoko (filed bythree Okinawa citizens, along with Japanese

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and American environmental groups, with then-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld as thedefendant).

During the scoping and preliminary assessmentphases of the EIA, opponents of the baseconstruction insisted that the deployment ofthe Ospreys be included in the assessment,since a plan to deploy the aircraft waspresumed to be in place. They did so under theprovision of the EIA law that guarantees therights of “people whose opinions are from theperspect ive of the protect ion of theenvironment” to submit comments.

The Okinawa prefectural governor alsorequested, albeit mildly, that “aircraft that areplanned to be deployed in the future also beconsidered,” which was clearly a reference tothe Osprey. On this matter, the DefenseMinistry repeatedly responded to the effectthat, under the Status of Forces Agreement(SOFA), the Japanese side builds the bases, andthe US side uses them; and that there had beenno formal notice about the deployment of theOsprey. Then, on June 6, 2011, as the deadlinefor the final EIA statement approached, a one-page fax was sent to the governor of Okinawaand the mayor of Ginowan (where the Futenmabase is located), announcing that Ospreyswould deployed to Futenma in 2012.

Article 28 of the Japanese EIA law sets theprocedure for amending a project during thecourse of the assessment process. The intent ofthis article is to prevent “dummy proposals.” Adocument prepared by the EnvironmentalAgency (now Ministry of the Environment)explains, “If midway through the process,changes are allowed that increase theenvironmental impact of a project, byincreasing the scope or changing the site of theproject, prior steps in the procedure will losetheir meaning. This provision is intended toprevent the possibility of using dummyproposals to circumvent important stages in theprocess.”

Through the scoping and preliminaryassessment stages, CH-46s were to be deployedto Henoko, but these aircraft were switched toOspreys in the final assessment stage. The EIAlaw guarantees citizen input during the firsttwo stages of the process, but not during thefinal stage. The only party that can express anopinion on the final impact statement is thegovernor of Okinawa, as the party that mustapprove the landfill on publicly ownedwaterfront. The late inclusion of the Ospreysmeant that the project plan in the preliminaryassessment was a dummy proposal, swappedfor another plan in the final stage when thepublic has no opportunity to voice an opinion.This too was an unforgivable “surprise attack.”

With the switch to the Ospreys in the final EIAstatement, the estimated noise levels at all ofthe 15 spots in Henoko that were included inthe preliminary assessment were revisedupward. The low frequency noise particular tohelicopters, which interferes with sleep andcauses other health complications, is estimatedto reach levels that can cause physical andpsychological effects in the nearby village ofAbu.

The overall project assessment acknowledgesthat the environmental impact on the area isgreater than the estimate in the preliminaryassessment. However, “the degree and extentof that impact fall within the various indexesthat are the standards for assessment, and weconclude that the project, when carried out,will not create particular obstacles to theprotection of the environment.” The samepreordained conclusion is reached on each itemin the assessment. Ordinarily, final assessmentsreflect analyses that incorporate the variousopinions offered by the government, specialists,and citizens during the preliminary assessmentstage, and thereby result in reducedenvironmental impacts . The Henokoassessment was the opposite, and quiteabnormal.

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Suit against the Unlawful HenokoAssessment

As part of the effort to prevent the transfer ofthe Futenma base to another site withinOkinawa, a suit filed by 622 plaintiffs thatchallenges the unlawful Henoko assessment iscurrently being heard in the Naha districtcourt. Evidence was examined from January 11to 13, 2012, and expert witnesses and nine ofthe plaintiffs testified. I appeared as the firstspecialist to testify for the plaintiffs.

I believe there are many grounds on which theHenoko assessment is unlawful, but oneexample is the environmental survey that wascarried out before the scoping document wasprepared. This survey took place before theAugust 2007 release of the scoping document,which presents the plan for the assessment andallows for citizen input. Beginning in May 2007,more than ¥2.6 billion of taxpayer funds wereused for the survey of the dugong and coral inthe area; the Maritime Self Defense Forceminesweeper Bungo was mobilized for theeffort, which swept aside citizens who wereengaged in nonviolent protest activities.

Early morning on May 18, 2007, protesters oncanoes set out to the sea, trying to stop theDefense Bureau’s assessment by the Bungo

In the natural world with complex ecosystems,it is not only the construction of a project itselfthat has an impact on the environment. Asurvey, depending on the scope and the methodused, can also have a negative impact. In fact,when d ivers f rom the Bungo p lacedinstruments to monitor the coral reefs, theprocess itself damaged the coral, as wasreported in the local newspapers. Likewiseunderwater cameras intended to film thedugong were placed in positions that would bea threat to the animals.

On December 25, 2006, a meeting was held atthe Prime Minister’s Office to discuss therelocation of the Futenma airbase. ViceDefense Minister Moriya Takemasa—thegovernment spokesman—told the Okinawadelegation, led by Governor Nakaima Hirokazuand Nago Mayor Shimabukuro Yoshikazu thatthe environmental status survey would only becarried out after deliberation over the

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methodology in the scoping document phase, asprovided for by the EIA law.

But no sooner were the words out of his mouththan the waters off of Henoko were churned upfor the status survey, probably chasing thedugong away—before the scoping documentprocess took place.

As a result, when the survey was made afterthe scoping process, dugongs were notobserved in the Henoko waters, and thus thepreliminary and final EIA statements concludedthat there would be little impact on the dugongif a base were built and operated in thosewaters.

The US Dugong Case

However, the contrived conclusion of theHenoko assessment that “the project will notcreate particular obstacles to the protection ofthe environment” is entirely unconvincing as ascientific thesis.

There is no relationship to the clear successionof steps that comprise a scientific thesis, Theseinclude 1) an explicit statement of the subjectof study; 2) planning a method of study suitedto the subject; 3) gathering data according tothe plan; 4) consideration and analysis of thedata; and 5) conclusion. In particular, thefourth step, consideration and analysis of thedata, is nearly entirely missing.

For example, the final assessment notes that adugong was observed in the waters off ofHenoko and Ginoza in 2010, after thepreliminary assessment was submitted; this isan instance of 3) data gathered under the plan.However, 4) consideration and analysis of thisdata is entirely lacking, and in 5) conclusion,the reason this observation was ignored isstated as: “The range of activity of this dugongwas the eastern part of Oura Bay, and it ispredicted that the loss of sea surface due to theexistence of the facility would result in virtuallyno reduction of the dugong’s habitat.” An

assessment based on this kind of opportunistic,foregone conclusion would never withstand theevaluation of a proper scientist.

In the dugong court case in the US, the federalcourt issued an order on January 23, 2008,requiring the Department of Defense to “takeinto account” the effect that construction anduse of the Futenma Replacement Facility wouldhave on the Okinawan dugongs, under theprovisions of the National Historic PreservationAct. The process of “taking into account”includes gathering information on the effects,and the DoD has seen the Japanesegovernment’s Henoko EIA as a means ofgathering that information. If the Henoko EIAstatement is adopted, the issue of whether ornot the assessment provides a clear scientificexplanation of what effects the constructionand use of the Futenma Replacement Facilitywill have on the Okinawan dugongs will besubject to examination by the courts in theUnited States, the birthplace of environmentalimpact assessment.

The upshot of this is clearly evident. Just as the3.11 nuclear disaster revealed to the world thebrain freeze on nuclear energy in Japan, theHenoko assessment will expose to the light ofday the shallowness of the Japanese EIAsystem. For Japan’s honor, it is essential to wina judgment declaring the Henoko assessmentillegal. To say nothing of the fact that thetransfer of the Futenma base to anotherlocation on the island, against the wishes ofninety percent of the people of Okinawa, is anoutrage that cannot be accepted in ademocratic society.

Sakurai Kunitoshi is a member of theOkinawan Environmental Network, a professorand former president of Okinawa University,and a councilor for the Japan Society for ImpactAssessment. This article first appeared in theMarch 2012 issue of Sekai. For earlier essaysat this site see his “Okinawan Bases, theUnited States and Environmental

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D e s t r u c t i o n( h t t p s : / / a p j j f . o r g / - S a k u r a i -Kunitoshi/2946),” November 10, 2008 and“The Fa ta l l y F lawed EIS Repor t(https://apjjf.org/-Urashima-Etsuko/3673),”January 7, 2012. This article was published inSekai March 2012.

John Junkerman is an American documentaryfilmmaker and Asia-Pacific Journal associateliving in Tokyo, where he is a professor atWaseda University. His film, “Japan’s PeaceConstitution” (2005), won the Kinema Jumpoand Japan PEN Club best documentary awards.It is available in North America from IcarusFilms (http://icarusfilms.com/).

Recommended citation: Sakurai Kunitoshi,'Japan’s Illegal Environmental ImpactAssessment of the Henoko Base,' The AsiaPacific Journal, Vol 10, Issue 9, No 5, February27, 2012.

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