Aomori Prefecture rejects proposed high-level nuclear waste delivery

The Federation of Electric Power Companies (FEPC) of Japan asked Aomori Prefecture on Thursday to accept a new proposal for nuclear waste returned from overseas to be delivered to the prefecture, only to be refused.

During the day’s meeting with Aomori Gov. Soichiro Miyashita at the prefectural government office, FEPC Vice Chairman Toshiharu Sasaki presented the idea of delivering to Aomori a small amount of high-level radioactive waste from foreign countries, instead of a larger amount of low-level radioactive waste that was set to be sent there under an earlier arrangement. The high-level and low-level nuclear waste was generated from the reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel from nuclear power plants in Japan.

Miyashita refused the new proposal, saying, “I can neither understand nor cooperate.”