It’s been exactly one year since the T?hoku earthquake and tsunami changed Japan forever. The numbers are staggering: 15,850 deaths, 6,011 injured and 3,287 people still missing, according to the Japanese National Police Agency. The tragedy also took a heavy toll on northeast Japan’s storied fishing and seafood industries. The road to recovery has been long and trying, but the pieces are being put back into place, slowly but surely.
Radioactive water released from holding ponds at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant on 4 April 2011 contaminated sand lance as far as neighboring Ibaraki Prefecture. The fish exceeded Japanese government safety limits of 2,000 becquerels per kilogram of radioactive iodine and 500 becquerels per kilogram of Cesium-137. While the half-life of radioactive iodine is only eight days, it is 30 years for Cesium-137. The local fishing cooperative voluntarily suspended fishing and foreign countries imposed varying degrees of restrictions.
Sampling programs continue, but only a few areas were ever closed to fishing. Currently, in Fukushima Prefecture, no fishing is allowed. In Miyagi Prefecture, fishing partly resumed in June 2011. And in Ibaraki Prefecture, there is still no fishing for sand lance, though trawl fishing has resumed. Sampling tests conducted by the central and local governments found no ocean fish except bottom fish caught off Fukushima and Ibaraki with radioactive cesium above the limit as of 24 January 2012.
As most Japanese seafood is unaffected, exporters have simply adjusted to the added paperwork and testing requirements. Sushi and sashimi materials are regaining consumer confidence abroad. China is the only major market where delays in clearance are cited, causing shippers to stick to less time-sensitive frozen shipments.
Miyagi Prefecture previously led the nation in oyster production with 40 metric tons of oysters a day, but suffered a total loss in the tsunami, as the rafts, from which lines are suspended to culture the bivalves, were left in tangles on rooftops and at the ocean floor. As an example of the scale of destruction, a single oyster farmer in Kesennuma, Shigeatsu Hatakeyama, lost five boats and 70 rafts.
Volunteers from across the nation helped clear debris and untangle gear. After scrambling for seed oysters with which to restart production, the prefecture made its first harvest in November. But it has lost its first-place slot to Hiroshima. Katsuhiko Endo, head of the oyster section of Minamisanriku’s fishing cooperative, has estimated that the local industry could be thriving again in three years.
Tuna fishing vessels formerly based out of Kesennuma called last June at smaller nearby ports that were less severely damaged, because there was little cold storage or bait available in Kesennuma. City leaders worried that the boats may become permanently based in other towns, leaving Kesennuma without an economy once it rebuilds.
Many area towns have no economic base but fishing. Debris has been cleared and roads have been repaired. The large vessels that adorned rooftops are gone. But harbor rebuilding is still in the planning stage. To restart the industry, clearing debris and supplying support for those made homeless is not enough.
Fishing is a capital-intensive industry and many of the stakeholders are aged. There is ambivalence about whether to re-invest and from where the money would come. The fishing cooperatives have only so much credit available.
A general theme among the area’s fishermen is that without a massive infusion of capital their towns may die. With the Japanese legislature split between the ruling party and the opposition, obstructionism seems likely to hinder approval of any such aid.
