The March earthquake brought a huge amount of detritus, and there is really no place to put it all. Large amounts of garbage remain both in residential areas as well in rural communities. Miyashiro Prefecture is considering putting some of this garbage on 80 hectares of farmland which was not able to be planted. Farmers will have to be appropriately compensated because the soil will potentially suffer further damage.
How much garbage is there? Almost three million tonnes in Kessennuma City in Miyashiro Prefecture. Finding a place to put the stuff is just a start: facilities to burn it are planned as well. In Iwate Prefecture, there is five million tonnes of detritus, and it will take twice the area of current garbage dumps. That's a lot: at the present there are 140 hectares of landfill in the prefecture.
Renting this land to use as a garbage dump has huge symbolic significance, as it spells the death knell for more rice fields in the area. Already, many of the farmers saw their plots damaged when the earthquake caused the land to sink and many more lost their machinery. Unless someone has a plan, the tsunami will be the end of quite a few farmers's careers.
The whole project is a little depressing. There is going to be salt and heavy metals amongst the garbage which will wash into the soil with rain. If you want to protect the soil, then you spread some kind of tough sheeting over the ground, which has to be protected from holes. That also means there has to be some kind of drainage mechanism in place.
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