By YUTO YONEDA/ Staff Writer
March 16, 2021 at 18:59 JST
Plaintiffs suing the government over its decision to approve Kobe Steel Ltd.’s plan to expand its coal-burning plant head to the Osaka District Court on March 15. (Yoshinori Mizuno)
OSAKA--Citizens living near a Kobe Steel Ltd. coal-fired power station lost a lawsuit seeking to have the government nullify its approval of the company's environmental impact assessment for two units it plans to add to the site.
The Osaka District Court dismissed the plaintiffs’ demand on March 15. The plaintiffs said they will appeal the ruling.
The case is significant as it is the nation’s first administrative lawsuit to dispute authorities’ approval of an environment impact assessment concerning a coal-burning plant, according to the plaintiff's lawyers.
“It's an unjust ruling,” said Yutaka Hirooka, 73, who leads the group of 12 plaintiffs. “Climate change and air pollution is a question of our survival. We will continue to fight until we can feel at ease in the coming years.”
According to the ruling by the court, Kobe Steel began a project to build two units totaling 1.3 gigawatts in output capacity at its existing plant in Kobe by March 2023.
The plaintiffs argued that the industry ministry should not have approved Kobe Steel’s environmental impact assessment as the company did not consider the effect of particles smaller than 2.5 micrometers in diameter that will be emitted by the new units.
But in its ruling, the court said Kobe Steel’s opting out of a study of PM2.5 was “not unreasonable” as many aspects of such particles have yet to be scientifically established.
As for the company’s decision not to consider other potential fuels, such as natural gas, to fire the plant, the district court said the law does not require the plant operator to weigh alternatives.
Kobe Steel submitted a report on the projection of air pollution and other impacts from the additional units and measures to address them to the industry ministry in accordance with the Environmental Impact Assessment Law. The report was submitted in May 2018.
After evaluating the Kobe Steel’s report, the ministry gave the green light to the project on the grounds that the company is taking adequate environmental measures.
The project got under way in October the same year. The residents filed the lawsuit the following month.
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