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Julian Ryall

The rural Japanese town of Hitachiomiya sprawls down the Naka River valley in northwest Ibaraki prefecture, surrounded by lush forests and overlooked by the picturesque Yamizo mountains. Just 140km (87 miles) from Tokyo, its golf courses attract weekend players, while onsen hot spring resorts in the surrounding hills keep local business steady year-round.
The local tourism association’s website highlights traditional festivals, campsites, hiking and cycling routes, alongside unique sights – including a complex of cave tombs on Mount Raijin, an ancient cedar grove and centuries-old temples and shrines.
Today, however, tourism representatives and municipal officials are more tight-lipped about the area’s attractions.
This week, Hitachiomiya Mayor Sadayuki Suzuki accepted a request from the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry for his community to undergo a preliminary survey to determine whether the town’s geology is suitable for a repository to store Japan’s large – and growing – stockpile of highly radioactive nuclear waste.

In a statement issued on Monday, Suzuki said the area showed a “relatively high probability of exhibiting favourable characteristics according to the scientific characteristics map”, adding that land was available “to install above-ground facilities for final disposal”.
The mayor said that “local business leaders” had asked him to approve the initial review, known as a literature survey, which would scrutinise documents on the region’s suitability and examine, among other things, its history of seismic activity.
Suzuki told constituents that he aimed to “contribute to national policy and promote the sustainable development of the region”. He stressed that agreeing to the initial assessment was not a commitment to building a permanent storage facility, further promising a series of town hall meetings with residents.
“We will carefully listen to your opinions and consider what is best for the future of our city,” he said.
While no official figure has been disclosed for Hitachiomiya, the towns of Suttsu and Kamoenai in Hokkaido each received up to 2 billion yen (US$12.8 million) in government subsidies after agreeing to similar literature surveys in 2020.
If the first survey is favourable, two additional phases of on-site testing will follow, with a strong focus on seismic conditions. Seismic risk is a sensitive subject for Hitachiomiya, located just 110km from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant that was devastated by the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami. These subsequent phases come with further financial incentives, with large annual subsidies if a facility is finally built.

Asked about the potential impact on tourism, both the local tourism association and city hall declined to comment. Local businesses were equally guarded, likely eager to avoid attracting unwanted attention.
Kunitaka Yoshino, who runs the Santa No Yu onsen, said he was “not thinking about it much”, while an employee at the nearby Shikisaikan onsen echoed that sentiment, saying: “It’s not our problem.”
Experts, however, warn that simply entertaining the proposal could inflict lasting damage. Kumi Kato, a professor in the faculty of tourism at Wakayama University, fears the association alone could ruin Hitachiomiya’s reputation.
“The danger is that the town could be seen as an ‘unfortunate place’ where the government paid to dump nuclear waste,” Kato said. “Of course local people would get money from the government, but is that really going to be enough compensation?”
Kato pointed out that 15 years after the Fukushima disaster, the prefecture still struggled to shake off negative perceptions. “Japanese people still ask if it is safe to visit Fukushima because there is quite low awareness of the situation there even today,” she said.
Frequent news coverage of reactor decommissioning and off-site topsoil transportation continues to fuel public concern and online speculation – factors that could easily spill over to hit small tourism operators near Hitachiomiya.

Hajime Matsukubo, secretary general of the Tokyo-based Citizens’ Nuclear Information Centre, said that while the local tourism sector might initially welcome a large influx of workers, the decade-long study period carried severe reputational risks.
“The ryokan, restaurants and shops in town might think that constructing a storage facility will bring lots of workers to the community, encouraging them to support it. But these studies take at least a decade,” Matsukubo said. “In that time, people will link the name Hitachiomiya with nuclear waste and won’t want to go there. There is a huge contradiction here that will damage both the community and local tourism.”
Public resistance is already surfacing. On Tuesday, a group of residents held a demonstration outside the city hall.
In interviews broadcast by local network Tokyo MX, one protester said: “As a citizen, I am against it. We don’t know what kind of radioactive leak will occur.” Another added: “They say the council will decide whether to accept the investigation, but the citizens should be the ones to decide first. I want them to properly listen to our opinions.”
The Japanese government and nuclear utility operators have spent decades searching for a permanent repository for the thousands of tonnes of highly radioactive waste produced since the country’s first commercial reactor opened in 1966. But communities have consistently turned down government subsidies, citing safety concerns over waste that experts say can take up to 100,000 years to decay to safe radiation levels.
Pressure to find a permanent solution has intensified since the Fukushima accident, yet communities once swayed by lucrative state handouts are growing increasingly reluctant to take the gamble.


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Hitachiomiya weighs state handouts against lasting stigma as residents protest against a preliminary survey for radioactive waste storage


Hitachiomiya weighs state handouts against lasting stigma as residents protest against a preliminary survey for radioactive waste storage.


Fukushima nuclear disaster and water release

Nuclear waste plan for Japanese resort town sparks backlash: ‘not our problem’

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}Hitachiomiya weighs state handouts against lasting stigma as residents protest against a preliminary survey for radioactive waste storage

Hitachiomiya weighs state handouts against lasting stigma as residents protest against a preliminary survey for radioactive waste storage