Photo/Illutration Makoto Yamada, president of the Daimaru Besso inn, bows in apology at a news conference in Fukuoka on Feb. 28. (Minako Yoshimoto)

FUKUOKA--The top official of a luxurious onsen inn in Chikushino, Fukuoka Prefecture, apologized on Feb. 28 for changing the water in its large bath only twice a year and for regularly failing to add chlorine for disinfection purposes. 

“I sincerely apologize from the bottom of my heart," said Makoto Yamada, president of the management company of the Daimaru Besso inn, at a news conference in Fukuoka.

The inn only changed the hot water in its large bath two days a year, even though a prefectural ordinance requires it to do so at least once a week.

The news conference was the first time that Yamada addressed the inn’s failure after it was revealed by Fukuoka prefectural officials and other sources. 

He read from a document prepared beforehand.

Yamada said, while looking at the document, “I wasn’t serious enough about observing the law. I took (the issue of changing the hot water) lightly as I thought it was good enough because some hot water (in the large bath) changed with the 'gensen kakenagashi' method.”

Gensen kakenagashi denotes the supply of water to an onsen bath by letting natural hot spring water from the original source continuously flow into the bath.

The inn also adds hot water that is circulated and filtrated to the hot spring water in the large bath. 

On the failure to regularly add chlorine to the bath water, Yamada said, “It was for a selfish reason, which was that the smell of chlorine doesn’t agree with me.”

A Fukuoka prefectural ordinance requires the entire amount of hot water in a public bath be changed at least once a week if it is filled with circulated and filtrated hot water and is used daily.

The ordinance also requires the residual chlorine concentration of hot water in such a bath be 0.4 milligrams or more per 1 liter of hot water.

According to the prefectural government and other sources, the inn changed the entire volume of hot water in the large bath only on two days a year when the inn was closed.

The inn also regularly failed to put chlorine in the hot water and maintain the required level of the chemical in the bath.

In a check last year, the prefectural health center determined that the large bath contained up to 3,700 times the allowed maximum number of bacteria from the Legionella genus.

The long-standing Daimaru Besso inn opened in 1865. Emperor Hirohito (1901-1989), posthumously known as Emperor Showa, is among the guests who have stayed there. 

(This article was written by Yoshitaka Unezawa and Eiji Zakoda.)

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