FUKUSHIMA--Takeshi Yabuki couldn't believe his eyes last summer when he saw patches of bare land on the side of a mountain despoiling the idyllic view.

A friend asked him what the brown spots were, and Yabuki realized that trees on Mount Azumayama, which is touted among the 100 most scenic mountains in Japan, had been felled.

The mountain was being developed for a mega solar project by a Canadian renewable energy company, which has been involved in numerous such efforts across the world.

Yabuki, 82, who had worked for a financial institution before his retirement, quickly moved to form a local residents' group to help block the work.

Yabuki and his group collected more than 1,700 signatures on petitions and submitted them to the prefectural and municipal governments in March.

More people are signing to protest the project, which is provisionally called the Takayu hot spring solar power plant.

The city government said it has been flooded with complaints about the project from residents in recent months. After snow that had covered the mountain melted, the swaths of the bare surface have become more conspicuous and infuriated residents.

Construction work began in November 2021 on the mountainside between 300 to 600 meters in elevation, about 10 kilometers west of JR Fukushima Station.

About 105,000 solar panels will be installed on the 60-hectare site, an area equivalent in size to 13 Tokyo Domes.

The solar farm, with an output capacity of 40 megawatts, is scheduled to be completed in February 2025.

The developer plans to generate electricity for five to 10 years after doing so for the first 20 years under the feed-in tariff system, which requires electric power companies to purchase renewable energy at prices set by the central government. 

After the 2011 Fukushima nuclear accident, the prefectural government has pushed an ambitious goal to meet all the electricity demands in the prefecture through renewable energy by around 2040.

FUKUSHIMA DOTTED WITH SOLAR FARMS

There are 26 solar farms with an output capacity of 1 megawatt or more in Fukushima, the prefectural capital, including those under construction, according to the city government.

One is a facility that sits in a forest five kilometers from the city center. Boasting 80 megawatts, it has the largest capacity among the solar farms within the city limits.

But few have raised the ire of locals for they are virtually invisible from afar.

The project under construction at Mount Azumayama is the first where damage to a scenic vista has been at the center of controversy, according to city officials.

The city tried to protect the landscape by stressing the preservation of it during the environmental impact assessment of the proposed project.

“Mount Azumayama is not just a critical tourism resource for the city, but also a source of spiritual comfort for local residents,” the mayor stated in the city’s opinion submitted to the prefectural governor in 2020.

The developer, in preparing a document for the environmental assessment, conducted a study regarding views of the facility seen from several locations in the city and stated that the siting would not pose a problem.

“We plan to provide a low-saturated coloring to the facility so that it will blend into the surrounding environment and will be less conspicuous,” the paper read. “We anticipate that the effect on the vista will be minor.”

The industry ministry, which oversees solar projects, approved the developer’s final assessment in 2020.

“The environmental impact is deemed to have been lessened as protective measures have been taken wherever possible,” the ministry said.

In 2021, all the procedures required for the environmental impact assessment were completed.

But the developer’s assessment turned out to be at odds with the reality.

On the view of the site from the west exit of JR Fukushima Station, the developer said it is not visible even from the second floor of the station, where the ticket gate for Shinkansen is located, since it is blocked by commercial buildings situated near the station's roundabout.

But the site is clearly visible from the train station’s third floor, where the bullet train platform is located.

The effect on the vista was not under consideration when the prefectural government considered granting a permit for forest development to build the solar farm in 2021.

Minutes of a meeting produced by the prefectural government’s panel of experts on forest conservation obtained by The Asahi Shimbun showed that the developer said the issue of the view of the planned solar farm was resolved.

“We have already obtained the industry ministry’s approval in the environmental assessment process,” the developer said at the meeting. “It is a large-scale development project set at a mountain, and we do not anticipate a situation in which bare plots resembling a lake will appear.”

The prefectural governor is supposed to grant a permit for forest development as long as a project is not considered to cause a problem in terms of controlling natural disasters, including flooding, securing water and preserving the natural environment.

As for the preservation, at issue is the ratio of the remaining forest after the development, not the vista altered by the construction of the facility, according to prefectural officials.

The developer told The Asahi Shimbun that it has been aware of local grievances.

“We have already begun installing vegetation sheets and planting trees so that the large patch of bare surface will cease to exist,” the developer said. “We will accomplish what we stated in the environmental assessment by accelerating efforts to plant vegetation and trees.”

But the municipal government is not convinced by the assertion.

“Will the land developed be covered by green acreage soon?” said a city official handling the project. “We will continue to prompt the developer to steadily implement the planting."

Under the current legal framework, the industry ministry gives the green light to a solar project and the prefectural government approves forest development for it. However, the municipal government that will host the site has no authority to stop it. 

Last year, the Fukushima mayor declared his opposition to future mega solar projects in the city under a “No more mega solar” slogan.

He called for a system that aims to meet energy needs while allowing local leaders to have a say on the projects.

Apart from aesthetic reasons, the project has also raised concerns among local farmers.

They complained that water for agriculture use has become muddy due to runoff from the land under development triggered by heavy rainfall.

(This article was written by Susumu Okamoto and Yukiko Sakamoto.)