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A ProposalAppeal
To All the Committee Members
A Proposal to the “Intelligent Committee
on the Northern Yamato Thoroughfare”
The Ministry of Land,
Infrastructure and Transport formed the Underground Water Investigation
Committee in September last year and after the two-year research into the water
level of the Nara Palace site, they concluded saying, “its underground water
and buried cultural properties would not be affected so much”, even if they
should build a tunnel under the palace site.
But according to the
professional research and analysis by the Society for Protecting the Heij?ky? Capital Site
themselves, the Committee took no account of the present drying up of the
underground water and made a simulation on the underground water level
supported by the boring data only at 16 spots.
So the Society made ten
points public and came to a conclusion that “ the report was not accurate and
unreliable”. (Cf. another sheet−１)
The Cultural Properties Investigation Committee set up afterwards made
a proposal: “ it is good that they should not build a tunnel just under
the Nara Palace site, World Heritage, and the expressway should keep a
distance as possible even within its buffer zone”
On the other hand, for the report of the Underground Water Investigation
Committee, the Cultural Properties Investigation Committee, forming an
incorrect estimate as “the analysis by highly accurate model”, also proposed
that “it should be possible to cut a tunnel underground”
. But the proposal, to our regret, may safely be said to be considered a
mere casual idea in disregard of builders’ differentials in their technical
skill, some defective tunneling work and the range of simulated errors
At the Intelligent Committee on the Northern Yamato Thoroughfare, there
has been a discussion going ahead with ‘Public Involvement Process’ but we
cannot but feel strong apprehensions
about the stage of decision about ‘Public Involvement Process’ discussed on
those defective reports and proposals both of the Underground Water
Investigation Committee and Cultural Properties Investigation Committee.
It comes to this that we greatly expect you the members of the
Committee to examine the following proposals and to carry out your task
earnestly.
Concrete Heads of the
Proposal
As we mentioned in the foregoing statement, the Underground Water Investigation Committee set limits to their investigation on the premise that first of all the underground tunnel should be built and intentionally would not make an investigation unfavorable to the construction of the tunnel.
. You are required to investigate once more the underground water so that the problems we have pointed out (another sheet−１) can be made clear.
. 2 Hearings
The planning on the World Heritage Nara Palace area is not mere domestic affairs. When are you asking the World Heritage Committee for their opinion?
If you are not expected to do so, it may be said to disregard international courtesy. Please be sure to put the Hearing at the World Heritage Committee into practice.
You also need to give each specialist organization a chance to have a hearing individually, which has requested not to construct a tunnel in both areas of the Nara Palace site and the Heij?ky? Capital site.
Holding a public hearing and a symposium, you are required not only to stick to your one-sided opinion for building a road but also to state “ the importance of the preservation of buried cultural properties” and “the cultural importance of the World Heritage Nara Palace”.
You also need to give your approval to a specialist delegate from the Society for Protecting the World Heritage Nara Palace site from an Expressway participating in such a meeting as a panelist.
. 4 An Open Forum
You must give the inhabitants of Nara-ken (prefecture) and Nara-shi (city) an opportunity of joining in an open forum since they need to state their broad views on the problem. You are also required to give your consent to a delegate from the Society for Protecting the World Heritage Nara Palace site from an Expressway participating in the forum as a panelist.
5 How to
collect the views of the inhabitants of Nara-ken
(prefecture)
and Nara-shi (city)
○ About questionnaires:
. (i) You should not ask such a silly question as “the need of an expressway in the area is keenly felt. Yes, or No”.
. In an unavoidable case if you ask that question, you
must set out a questionnaire in which the following facts are put down clearly:
first, it will cost each inhabitant of Nara-ken (prefecture) about
300,000 yen to build about 50-kilometer expressway within the prefecture and
secondly the expenses 30% 100,000 yen will be for each
person of the prefecture to bear.
(ii) Never use such an expression as “the means of the solution to a
traffic jam” when an expressway is to be built.
Because we have had no standard of judgment on a traffic jam in Japan;
so even if we have to slow to a crawl within Nara-ken(prefecture),
there is no concept of a ‘traffic jam’.
(iii) You are required to gather information through a questionnaire
which records not only one-sided assertion of the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure
and Transport but also the opposite opinion of the Society for Protecting
the Heij?ky? Capital Site,
World Heritage, from an Expressway.
○ You need to make use of e-mail and
intensive method of various views.
Society for Protecting the Heijokyo Capital Site
,World Heritage,
from an Expressway