State ordered to open Isahaya Bay dike

SAGA, Japan, June 28 Kyodo - The Saga District Court on Friday ordered the state to open the Isahaya Bay dike in Nagasaki Prefecture for five years, ruling in favor of some 2,500 fishermen who claim the government's project to fill in the bay has damaged the seawater environment in the area and their fishery businesses.

''A substantial degree of evidence has been established that the closure has
caused damage to the inside of the bay and the nearby fishing areas,''
Presiding Judge Ryuichi Kamiyama said.

''The state's refusal to cooperate in a mid- to long-term assessment of the
possible outcome of the opening is nothing but interference with efforts to
document the damage claimed by the plaintiffs,'' he said.

The plaintiffs are from four prefectures alongside the bay in the Ariake Sea --
Fukuoka, Saga, Nagasaki and Kumamoto.

While ordering the continuous opening of both floodgates in the north and south
of the dike for five years, the court added that the government should
recognize the causal link between the project and the environmental change, and
carry out mid- to long-term research during the years.

''In the wake of this ruling, I strongly hope that a mid- to long-term
inspection will be conducted, based on which appropriate policies will be
implemented,'' Kamiyama said.

But the judge declined to recognize a correlation between the closure and
damage in all of the Ariake Sea, citing insufficient verifiable evidence, while
granting the government a three-year moratorium on the opening of the dike as a
preparation period.

According to the ruling, the fishermen from the four prefectures alongside the
bay claimed that the current in the Ariake Sea has weakened since the bay was
closed by the 7-kilometer dike in 1997, causing the generation of red tides and
leaving local fishery businesses in the doldrums.

Akio Managi, the lead lawyer representing the plaintiffs said, ''It was a
reasonable ruling and we highly praise it.''

''The government should not appeal the ruling and open the gates,'' he said.

Meanwhile, Teruhisa Yutaka, assistant chief of the Ministry of Agriculture,
Forestry and Fisheries' farm land management division, said, ''We have to take
the ruling seriously, but we are concerned about the opening's possible impact
on the fishing environment.''

But the court rejected the plaintiffs' demand for an immediate provisional
injunction for the opening, maintaining that it cannot be said the environment
in the Ariake Sea would suffer unrecoverable damage unless immediate action is
taken.

The government authorized the land reclamation project, designed to create
farmland as well as to prevent floods, in 1986.

The local fishermen filed their first lawsuit seeking an injunction against the
project in November 2002. The court granted their demand in August 2004 and
reclamation work was suspended.

But the Fukuoka High Court authorized the resumption of the project and the
Supreme Court upheld the decision in September 2005, prompting the plaintiffs
to file a lawsuit eventually to demand that the government remove the dike and
open the floodgates.

Despite strong opposition from local fishermen, the project, which cost 250
billion yen, was completed in March this year. A total of 41 companies and
individuals have already started farming on the 680 hectares of farmland.==Kyodo