Iwate fisheries continue struggle to recover

MIYAKO, Iwate Pref. — One rainy day in early September, Shigeru Fujita, a 62-year-old fisherman, gazed at the devastated fishing port in Miyako, Iwate Prefecture.

Farm's future: A scallop farmer in Miyako, Iwate Prefecture, holds young scallops on Sept. 8. The quake-tsunami disaster wiped out most of the farm's fully grown scallops, and it will take three to four years before the young ones are ready for sale. KYODO

The huge tsunami spawned by the March 11 quake destroyed two of his fishing boats and his warehouse in a matter of minutes. The town's fish market was also wrecked and piles of debris remain untouched at the port in the city's Taro district.

Fujita has joined with other fishermen to place an order for a new vessel — but doesn't know when it will arrive or even when the port will reopen and he can resume fishing.

"I feel anxious every day," Fujita said. "What is going to happen in the future?"

Iwate's coastal towns are renowned for their fishing businesses, thanks to the Kuroshio Current from the south and the Oyashio and Tsugaru currents from the north that meet off the prefecture.

Taro fishermen primarily catch salmon, and harvest kelp, abalone and wakame seaweed. But the March tsunami destroyed about 900 of the city's 960 boats, along with the fish market, as well as most of the wakame processing factories, refueling facilities and cranes.

It also wrecked portions of the huge tide embankments — locally dubbed the "Great Walls" — that had been erected to protect the city from tsunami.

The March disasters caused an estimated ¥7.5 billion in damage, according to a local fisheries cooperative association, which is trying to rebuild processing facilities, install new cranes and resume wakame cultivation.

But local fishermen have no idea when they will receive their new vessels.

The central and local governments, together with local fisheries associations, are subsidizing nearly the full cost of purchasing new vessels for fishermen in devastated coastal communities such as Miyako.

But this has generated a massive amount of orders for new fishing boats all along the Tohoku region's tsunami-hit coast, and manufacturers are unable to meet the surge in demand, meaning the fishermen have to wait.

"Those in the fishing business can't do anything until they receive their new boats," said Masahiko Hatakeyama, a 43-year-old official in Taro's local fisheries cooperative association in Miyako.

Hatakeyama is worried that less than 100 boats for fishing abalone — compared with the 540 before the tsunami struck — will be built and delivered to the tsunami-wrecked town before November, the peak season for catching abalone.

In Otsuchi, about 50 km south along Iwate's coast, only 30 of the town's 650 fishing boats survived the catastrophe, according to the local fisheries cooperative association.

All sea farm facilities were also destroyed and there are no plans to rebuild two of the town's four fishing ports in the near future, the association said, adding total damages to its fisheries industry are expected to total billions of yen.

The association said it plans to harvest wakame seaweed next spring, but just as in Miyako, a shortage of vessels is preventing the town's fisheries industry from recovering.

According to the Iwate Prefectural Government, out of the 111 fishing ports in the prefecture, 108 had their seawalls or moorings destroyed, and a total of 9,672 fishing vessels were destroyed by the tsunami. Nearly all of Iwate's fish markets, fisheries processing facilities and sea farms were also damaged, it said.

The total amount of damages to the fisheries industry in Iwate Prefecture was estimated at more than ¥371.5 billion as of Sept. 2.

The central government has said that 319 fishing ports in seven prefectures ranging from Hokkaido to Chiba — about 10 percent of the country's 2,914 fishing ports — were damaged in the March disasters.

But the coastal towns in Iwate, Miyagi and Fukushima prefectures bore the full impact of the monster waves, and nearly all of their ports were destroyed or severely damaged.

In addition, debris from the catastrophe, estimated at tens of millions of tons, is still floating off the coast or washing up at ports, the central government said.

Farms that cultivate sea products such as wakame, kelp, oysters and scallops, as well as large fixed fishing nets, were all damaged on March 11, it said.

The Iwate Prefectural Government said it is building temporary tide embankments and other port facilities, and has helped eight fish markets to reopen.

It also said 17 local fisheries cooperative associations are working to resume operations at sea farm facilities.

"We will restore (fisheries industry infrastructure) so that local fishermen can resume their fishing operations," said Koen Osawa, a prefectural government official.

The central government plans to remove debris floating dangerously in ship lanes and near ports by the end of the current fiscal year, which ends next March, and restore most of the ruined port facilities by the end of fiscal 2013. It also aims to rebuild sea farms and large fixed fishing nets by the end of the fiscal 2012.

But the needs of local fishermen are not being fully addressed as central government officials have made few, if any, visits to damaged ports, the Otsuchi fisheries association said.

For example, the government is offering subsidies for fishermen to buy new boats, but while port facilities remain damaged they will be unable to process their catches, the association said.

Masato Koshita, an official at the association, called on central government officials to visit wrecked ports and inspect the damage firsthand before drawing up measures to revive the local fishing industry.

Some fishermen say they have already given up hope of continuing their business.

They include a 77-year-old Otsuchi fisherman who lost his job when his employer's vessel was swept away by the tsunami. As his employer has been hospitalized since the disasters, the prospects of restarting his business appear dim.

His 75-year-old wife said she often sees people on television encouraging tsunami-hit communities to hang in there, but what they need to survive is money, not kind words.

The fish market near her temporary housing unit was completely destroyed in March, and all that remains are mountains of debris and twisted iron bars used to reinforce concrete.

"As there are no longer any fishing boats, (the local fisheries industry) will not survive," she said. "No one can survive nature's power."

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Nuclear refugees struggle to cope with uncertain future

Like thousands of other people, Miwa Kamoshita's life was turned upside down when the March 11 tsunami struck the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant, leading her and her family to voluntarily evacuate their home in Iwaki, some 40 km south of the crippled power station.

For the past five months, Kamoshita and her two children have lived a life in exile, moving five times — from a relative's house in Yokohama to an apartment in a western suburb of Tokyo, from the Grand Prince Hotel Akasaka to another hotel in Shibuya Ward, and finally to an apartment in Chiyoda Ward in late July that the metropolitan government has made available until the end of next July.

Although Kamoshita is relieved to have a secure abode for the next 12 months, the family has no idea where they will go when the exit date comes, still unable to figure out how to establish a stable family life now ruined by the nuclear disaster.

"There are too many things that I need to think over," Kamoshita, a 41-year-old stay-at-home mother of two boys, aged 4 and 8, told The Japan Times in late July.

"It's been like having a very long dream. I still get confused if what's happening is real or not, because things have been so extraordinary."

While the nuclear crisis drags on at the power plant, thousands of evacuees from Fukushima Prefecture — both forced and voluntary — have been in chaos, not knowing when they can return home and live there without fear of radiation exposure.

As of Tuesday, 51,576 Fukushima residents were living outside the prefecture, according to the prefectural government. The number is expected to increase by the end of this summer because many families with schoolchildren plan to move out before the new term begins.

According to a survey by the prefectural board of education, 1,081 children at public elementary and junior high schools plan to leave Fukushima during this summer holiday.

While those who have left may no longer need to worry about radiation exposure, many say life as evacuees is still highly stressful.

Kamoshita's husband, Yuya, said before March 11 he had been planning to start a farming business in Fukushima next year.

The crisis has ended that dream. Instead he returned to Iwaki in early April to maintain his current job in the education industry, leaving his family behind in Tokyo.

Since then, he has been driving back and forth — a round trip of some 400 km — almost every weekend to spend time with his family. But five months of this double life is eating away at him, both physically and mentally.

"I'm not feeling well. Before (March 11), I never had a car accident, but recently I rolled my car on the capital expressway and my car was totaled," he said. He was interviewed in late July in Tokyo while he was visiting his family.

"It's getting tough . . . I don't know" what to do.

Kanako Nishikata, a 33-year-old single mother of two who voluntarily fled the city of Fukushima for Yamagata Prefecture, said in early July it was much better for her children to be there because they can play outside without wearing a mask. But she was concerned about their future and she was having trouble finding a new job.

"I want something that gives me a sense of security and convinces me that I can make my own living in the future," said Nishikata, who was in Tokyo in late July to participate in a demonstration headed by several citizens' groups urging the government to include voluntary evacuees in its compensation guidelines.

Without knowing when she will return, Nishikata is still paying rent to keep her apartment back in Fukushima, fearing otherwise she won't have a home to go back to.

Yukio Yamakawa, director general of the volunteer group Tokyo Saigai Shien Network (Tossnet), said the government should give evacuees better information about contamination in their hometowns and when the radiation will drop back to normal levels.

"What people really want to know is how long it will take for their hometowns to be free of contamination. (But) they don't have that information," Yamakawa said.

If people are told they can't go back for the next five or 10 years, as long as that's the truth, they can make some plans and move on with their lives, Yamakawa said.

But without concrete information about the future, the only option left for those who want a stable life under the current situation is to choose between giving up on Fukushima and starting a new life in another prefecture or returning home, she said.

The choice to return to Fukushima is available only for voluntary evacuees.

Prime Minister Naoto Kan, who will step down next week, plans to visit Fukushima on Saturday to tell residents that some areas near the nuclear plant are likely to remain off-limits for a long time, but details remain unclear.

Five months after the disaster struck, local governments have started closing shelters. This is forcing evacuees to scatter to separate apartments and temporary housing built by authorities.

The Fukushima Prefectural Government plans to shut down all shelters by the end of October.

Yamakawa stressed the importance of helping evacuees form a sense of community and provide a means of communication so they won't be isolated.

Tossnet has set up an Internet-based mailing list for evacuees in Tokyo that allows them to share useful information, such as when gatherings and other events will be held.

About 50 people have signed up for the mailing list so far, Yamakawa said.

Yuya Kamoshita said he's at a loss for ideas about what he should do for the future of his family. But he is adamant that his children will not return to Iwaki for at least a decade, considering that radioactive cesium-137 has a half-life of 30 years.

Their youngest son often yearns to go back to his "real home."

But Kamoshita said "almost everything" that gave them joy in their life in Iwaki has been contaminated with radioactive materials, ranging from the mushrooms they used to grow to the blueberry bushes in their garden.

"Iwaki is still a wonderfully beautiful place," he said. "The air tastes much better than in Tokyo. If you don't know (about the contamination), even the food tasted better than here.

"But for me, they no longer taste better. I have lost my appetite."

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