Newly appointed Environment Minister Tamayo Marukawa said Thursday the ministry will continue to lobby Fukushima residents to back the construction of storage and disposal facilities for radioactive waste generated by the Fukushima nuclear crisis.
The government is building a temporary storage facility in the tainted towns of Okuma and Futaba, which host the heavily damaged Fukushima No. 1 power plant.
Decontamination efforts have been underway in dozens of municipalities to remove radioactive material ejected by the triple core meltdown in March 2011, which tainted the air, sea and land surrounding the plant.