UPDATE - Japan set to open controversial sluice gates
Date: 28-Mar-01
Country: JAPAN
Author: George Nishiyama
It did not specify a date for the possible opening of the gates, an omission likely to further inflame the seaweed farmers.
The gates, at the Isahaya Bay land reclamation site on the southern island of Kyushu, have become the centre of heated controversy, with critics charging they are a prime example of pork-barrel public works projects doing more harm than good.
Last month, a flotilla of more than 1,100 fishermen blockaded the gates, demanding that they be opened, while another group of fishermen has asked the farm minister not to bow to such pressure, saying such a move would damage the current environment and reduce their catch.
A ministry panel studying the cause of the damage to the seaweed crop yesterday submitted a report to the farm minister, recommending the gates be opened to study the effect on the environment in the bay.
But the panel did not specify a date for the possible opening of the 294 steel gates, which span a seven-km (four-mile) long stretch of sea and were built in 1997 to enable land reclamation and to prevent floods.
The panel said the government should first carry out a study of the environment with the gates closed, and set numerous conditions for opening the gates.
RESEARCH, CONDITIONS
"First, we have to do research with the gates closed. (The opening) will be after that... I don't know how long it will take," Farm Minister Yoshio Yatsu told a news conference.
The farm ministry had maintained that no link existed between reported environmental problems and the land reclamation.
Seaweed growers say the reason their famed Ariake seaweed, or nori, has lost its commercial value is a sharp increase in plankton, which consumes the seaweed's nutrients, since the gates were thrown up.
Environmentalists and opposition politicians dubbed the wall a "guillotine that killed nature" and say it led to pollution in the sea outside the gates, caused killer red tides and thus the huge drop in seaweed production.
The price of the greenish-black seaweed that is a staple of Japanese dishes - wrapping specialties from rice balls to sushi - has soared as much as 60 percent from a year ago as production has plummeted.
About 50 years ago, Japan decided to drain Isahaya Bay when the postwar, famine-struck land was looking at ways to increase rice output.
Critics say that purpose is no longer valid given the fact that Japan grows more rice than its people can consume.
Ariake Sea nori is one of Japan's most well-known, accounting for 40 percent of total production of the wafer-thin sheets of seaweed.
Production in the 10 months to the end of January was about 3.8 billion sheets, a 25 percent drop from the same period a year earlier.
