In order to protect the health of the citizens, the Soil Contamination Countermeasures Act was enacted in May, 2002 for the purpose to facilitate the implementation of counter-measures against soil contamination by formulating measures to apprehend situations of soil contamination, and was enforced in next year February. However the revised Act was enacted in April, 2009 and enforced in next year April because some problems came to be recognized after six years from former enforcement.
One of the problems is the increase in discovery of soil contamination which is not regulated by the Act. And the fact that removal was chosen overwhelmingly became clear by the data gathered from the local authorities. As a result, the revised Act was enacted in April, 2009 and it was enforced in last year April.
From a viewpoint of the actual enforcement, there is a tendency for the half of the number of area designated to be remediated, although about 850 areas have been designated in 8 years. And it was confirmed that the number of area designated had increased in last and this year. It is thought that the opportunity for the soil survey obligated by the Act has increased by the legal revision.
Furthermore, the Designated Areas are mostly located in Tokyo which is followed to Osaka and Kanagawa prefecture. On the other hand, there is no area designated by the Act in 4 prefectures ; therefore the area designated by the Act is concentrated on some particular areas in Japan.
Official Data shows that the soil survey based on the Act is increasing clearly. And it is assumed that the number of the Designated Areas and the land, which cannot perform removal for remediation since the land price is cheap, have increased recently. Therefore, it is required to gather the information about the instruction positively by local authorities and new countermeasure technology so that landowners could take the correspondence taken into consideration from the broad viewpoint.
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