The Tsukiji market is the world’s largest and most influential fish market. (Photo: Stock File)

Famous fish market to move to questionable site

JAPAN
Friday, January 30, 2009, 03:00 (GMT + 9)

The Japanese government is planning to move world famous fish market Tsukiji to a site contaminated with benzene and cancer-causing chemicals, claim fish sellers and buyers strongly opposed to the idea.

The world’s largest and most influential fish market will be moved to reclaimed land in Tokyo Bay by 2014, says the Metropolitan Government.

The relocation will be financed by the sale of the existing site, only two blocks away from the Ginza shopping district, the most expensive land in Japan.

The site is estimated to be worth at least USD 2.1 billion, reports Bloomberg.

Fish sellers oppose the move, claiming that the new zone won’t be safe. The new site was once occupied by the Tokyo Gas Company, and the soil there is contaminated with trace amounts of arsenic, benzene and petrochemicals.

Governor Shintaro Ishihara. (Photo: ACCJ)

The government has said it will spend JPY 58.6 billion (USD 649 million) to clean up the area.

"We want the people of Tokyo to feel safe," said Governor Shintaro Ishihara, adding that the cleanup is the largest one ever planned in Japan.

However, concern over food safety has been a hot issue in the country since last year, when 35 people got sick from eating frozen beans and dumplings tainted with pesticides from China.

"The planned clean-up isn’t enough," said Haruo Yamazaki of "Ichiba o Kangaeru Kai," a group formed to protest the move.

The group has been running an awareness campaign, which featured a July protest rally attended by 10,000 people.

Tsukiji is the size of 43 football fields and is one of Japan’s most popular tourist attractions.

The new site would make the trip longer for tourists and for the 40,000 buyers and sellers who come each day to the market.

The Tokyo metropolitan government says the new site will be a more efficient use of land, and that they can install conveyor belts, electronic tagging, and other hygiene improvements at the new market.

The government also says that the move will put the fish market closer to airports and major roads, and will cut down on travel time for fresh fish.

Plans to relocate or renovate the market have been discussed since 1975.

"These kinds of decisions always bring out a sense of nostalgia that part of the city is being lost," said Issenberg Sasha Issenberg, author of The Sushi Economy: Globalization and the Making of a Modern Delicacy. "The reality is that no one wants to build condos next to a stinky fish market."

Meanwhile, The Yomiuri Shimbun reports that the government suppressed a study that said levels of the carcinogenic chemical benzopyrene in the soil at the planned relocation zone were 115 times higher than previously thought.

The metropolitan government did not pass the new information on to a panel of experts who were designing the cleanup. The panel was dissolved in July.

Benzopyrene does not pose a danger to humans even at the higher concentration, said Tatemasa Hirata, professor at Wakayama University and chairman of the disbanded panel. However, he said, the government should have announced the findings.

 Related articles:

- Tokyo fish market to re-open to 'ill-mannered' tourists
- Tourists to be barred from Tokyo tuna auctions
- Strike cuts fish trading by near quarter

By E. Fiske
editorial@fis.com
www.fis.com

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