TEPCO says it no longer owns Fukushima Fallout

Excerpts …

In defending a lawsuit from a Fukushima Prefecture golf club, lawyers said the radioactive cesium that had blighted the Sunfield Nihonmatsu golf course's fairways and greens was the club's problem. The utility has taken a similarly hard line defending claims from ryokan (inn) and onsen (spa) owners. TEPCO's lawyers used the arcane legal principle of res nullius to argue the emissions that escaped after the tsunami and earthquake triggered a meltdown were no longer its responsibility. "Radioactive materials (such as cesium) that scattered and fell from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant belong to individual landowners, not TEPCO," the utility told Tokyo District Court.

The court rejected TEPCO's argument, but ruled it was the responsibility of local, prefectural and national governments to clean it up.

Mr Yamane said that, before the disaster, Sunfield Nihonmatsu, about 45km west of the stricken plant, was regarded as one of the region's finest courses and was enjoyed by about 30,000 players a year. He said the course was showered with fallout from the accident and sections of it were now reporting readings of almost double the criteria for evacuation of 20 millisieverts a year imposed by the Japanese government for regions around the plant.

"The highest radiation amount we measured on the course was 51 microsieverts per hour (in a drain). We are getting more and more concerned about the amount of cesium on the ground," Mr Yamane said. "Up to the end of September there was still staff working to maintain the course, but on advice from the prefectural government we had to ask them to leave."