The new pollution regime

New regulations

While Oita's pro-growth coalition met the formal standards of conditions one and two fairly quickly, it had a harder time with condition three: environmental assessment. Oita's environmental pollution worsened in the early 1970s. The number of telemetering sites in Oita not meeting national sulfur dioxide standards of 0.020 ppm peaked in 1973 (four out of eighteen sites). Sulfur dioxide air pollution in Oita City reached its peak in 1974 (0.030 ppm at ground level). In January 1974, the Oita Doctors’ Association announced that air pollutionrelated diseases in Oita had tripled or quadrupled, in some cases, over the past ten years. Under these circumstances, if an assessment found that a new project would contribute much pollution at all to the area, the public, the pro-growth elites worried, might deem it unacceptable.

To make matters worse for Oita's pro-growth coalition, in 1974, the national pollution regime got tougher. The Diet passed a set of tougher measures to reinforce the 1970 anti-pollution laws. The EA announced that all prefectures would have to meet standards of atmospheric sulfur dioxide concentration of 0.023 ppm or below (by March 1978). The EA increased its pressure on Oita and other prefectures to meet those limits. Targeting Oita, the EA stated publicly that the Oita government's “development first” attitude had prevented a solution to Misa/Iejima's pollution. This statement implied that Oita had not strictly implemented the new anti-pollution laws. Since the EA still held the ax of NIC Phase Two plan disapproval over the governor's head, this was a worrisome criticism.