The planned relocation of the famous Tsukiji fish market in Tokyo will be delayed by a year from 2014 to 2015.
Tokyo Gov Naoki Inose said the move was being postponed for a year due to unexpectedly extensive contamination of the earth in the proposed new site at Toyosu in Koto Ward, Sankei Shimbun reported Saturday.
In 2008, the soil around the proposed new site was found to contain benzene in quantities 43,000 times the Japanese environmental regulation limit. The metropolitan government has so far spent 58.6 billion yen trying to remove the contaminated soil, but discovered further contamination as they dug deeper, Inose said.
Digging work would have to go deeper to bring up uncontaminated soil, he said. As a result, construction of the new market is expected to be delayed until fiscal 2015.
© Japan Today
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serendipitous
Sounds like a great place to have a fish market.....Another Ishihara initiative and he sold the Tsukiji land for 2 trillion yen apparently.
Yubaru
Yeah right, on contaminated soil. Something smells awful fishy about Ishihara's "initiative".
wanderlust
More hidden contamination? Just like Universal Studios site in Osaka, pollution courtesy of one of Japan's biggest blue-chip companies, denied of course.
There was no real need to move it anyway...
alliswellinjapan
Doubt whether awaiting contamination removal of same location is really the only way to go.
Ivan Coughanoffalot
Where is all this contaminated soil going? And might it not be a better idea to throw this huge amount of taxpayers' money at the reconstruction of the Tohoku area, instead of the bizarre demands of the shambolically corrupt former feudal lord of Tokyo?