MATSUE, Shimane Pref. -- Following the ruling coalition's termination of a 37-year-old controversial project to reclaim part of Lake Nakaumi and create 1,470 hectares of farmland, local municipalities are scrambling for new central government spending to make up for the aborted project.

Takehiko Hobo, a professor of finance at Shimane Univ., asks Matsue Mayor Masataka Matsuura on Monday to take steps toward restoring Lake Nakaumi's water quality, as local residents and fisherman listen behind him at City Hall.

Municipal governments around Lake Nakaumi are calling for construction of new roads and even reclamation of other parts of the lake to "revitalize the local economy" following the scrapping of the project.

Criticizing the requests as the "same old tactics," local citizens' groups opposed to the project said the local fishing industry should be promoted instead, and that administrators should restore the lake's natural conditions by destroying part of the embankments that were built for the fill work so the water will flow naturally.

"If the government is canceling the project, it should restore the conditions of the lake first," said Kiyoshi Sakamoto, head of a fisheries association at Lake Shinji, which lies west of Nakaumi and is connected to it by a river running through Matsue. "The embankments block the water flow and that is damaging the quality of water not only in Lake Nakaumi but also in Lake Shinji."

Sakamoto said that beginning five years ago, a mass of corbicula, edible mussels, started dying off in Lake Shinji. He and his fellow fishermen believe that slow water flow has reduced oxygen in the lake, which in turn has made it difficult for corbicula to survive there.

The Nakaumi project is one of 233 public works projects the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, New Komeito and New Conservative Party asked the government to scrap Monday.

As a result of persistent requests by the Shimane Prefectural Government, the three parties agreed that the central government should "sincerely deal with" requests from local communities to revitalize the areas affected by the project's scrapping.

Shimane Gov. Nobuyoshi Sumita told reporters that he will make every effort to bring about the spending requests by concerned municipalities.

Under the Nakaumi project, which dates back to 1963, five areas of Lake Nakaumi were to be filled in to create 2,540 hectares of farmland. The plan also called for desalination of brackish Nakaumi and Shinji lakes to secure freshwater for farming.

With the fall in rice consumption in the 1970s, the need for farmland declined nationwide and triggered doubts about the need for the project.

Although work at four of the five areas was completed by 1989, drainage of the largest section -- known as the Honjo area -- as well as work on the desalination plan, were suspended in 1988 amid strong opposition from local residents.

Fishermen -- who were particularly angered -- feared the project would damage the water quality in the lakes and destroy a variety of fish and shellfish there. Corbicula from Lake Shinji accounted for nearly 60 percent of the national output.

Amid such circumstances, neither the prefectural government nor the Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Ministry, which is in charge of the project, were able to give convincing explanations about whether the land to be reclaimed could attract enough farmers. In fact, about one-fifth of the farmland in the already-completed two sections near Honjo remains unused.

In 1996, Sumita lobbied unsuccessfully to have the project resumed, but the governor later had to give it up due partly to Shimane's fiscal difficulties.

It was earlier estimated that completing the Honjo area reclamation, on which 50.8 billion yen had already been spent, would cost an additional 27 billion yen. But new calculations revealed in 1999 showed that the cost would reach up to 52 billion yen, of which the prefecture would have to shoulder 5 billion yen.

As preparations for the reclamation, some facilities for drainage of water from the Honjo area have already been built, and removing them or rebuilding them for other purposes would cost 30 billion yen. Until the last minute, Sumita wanted to keep the project "shelved" rather than terminated so the prefecture would not have to incur such additional costs.

Although municipal governments around Nakaumi had earlier supported the project, Matsue Mayor Masataka Matsuura, a former Home Affairs Ministry bureaucrat, was quick to change the city's strategy. As soon as he realized the project was doomed, he compiled a set of new public works proposals worth 40 billion yen, including building a new road that would cut through Lake Nakaumi.

"The Honjo area's project has been sitting for nearly four decades. Because of that, we could not draw a long-term plan for revitalizing the area," Matsuura said. "If it is to be scrapped after all these years, new measures to revitalize the local community are necessary."

However, Bin Nishimura, a city assembly member who has campaigned against the Nakaumi project, criticized such moves by local administrators, saying they were merely seeking new wasteful public works spending.

"All they can think of is how to get money from the central government to do public works projects," Nishimura said. "This is the result of (the late Prime Minister Noboru) Takeshita's pork-barrel politics, in which municipal heads just relied on the LDP kingmaker to bring public works projects to the region."

Shimane -- from where Takeshita was elected to the Lower House 14 times since 1958 -- enjoyed until a few years ago the highest per capita public works spending out of the nation's 47 prefectures.

Despite the heavy spending, however, Shimane remains one of the poorest prefectures and continues to suffer a long-term depopulation trend.

Takeshita, who exerted strong influence on LDP politics for more than a decade after leaving his post as prime minister in 1989, died in June. His death is believed to be one of the factors that paved the way for the ruling coalition's review of many controversial public works projects.

Nishimura said the lavish spending by the central government has kept local residents from thinking of creative ways to revitalize the region and make its economy more self-sustaining.

Despite the termination of the reclamation project, Shimane Prefecture still hangs on to the desalination plan, saying freshwater is still needed for farming in other areas. Due to lobbying efforts by the prefecture, the desalination project was not mentioned in the coalition agreement, although it is unlikely that desalination alone would be carried out.

Takehiko Hobo, professor of finance at Shimane University, said both projects should be scrapped and the community revitalized by restoring water quality and protecting the environment.

"Nakaumi and Shinji are brackish lakes, which nurture a variety of unique species. Protecting the lakes and using them without threatening the ecosystem is what we should aim at," Hobo said, suggesting they be designated a Ramsar Convention wetland of particular importance.

He cited the example of wetlands in Kushiro in eastern Hokkaido to which an increasing number of tourists have flocked since the site was registered under the convention in 1994.

"Many politicians and government officials say social infrastructure is important for us to live, but they only think of building roads, dams and airports. What is indispensable for us to live is nature and a balanced ecosystem," Hobo said.