The seabed in Oura Bay in the background was discovered to be unsuitably soft, presenting a problem for land reclamation work off the coast of Henoko in Nago, Okinawa Prefecture. The rejection of a plan to build a controversial U.S. military base by the prefectural government in Okinawa is expected to trigger a series of familiar legal maneuvers to get shovels back in the ground.
But officials close to Okinawa Governor Denny Tamaki are showing greater confidence that they will come out on top, despite the fact that the prefectural government has failed in its past legal attempts to stop the base-relocation project.
A prefectural official said that there were clear defects in the central government's plan. There are too many problems with the soft seabed. Land reclamation work on Henoko in Nago has been going on so runway functions can be transferred from U.S. Marine Corps Air Station Futenma in heavily populated Ginowan, also in Okinawa Prefecture.
The central government was forced to apply for a design change to deal with the problematic unstable seabed, described to be as soft as mayonnaise, discovered on the site off the coast of Henoko.
On November 25, Tamaki held a news conference to announce he is rejecting the application and vows to continue to fight the project.
The construction work will never be completed, he said. It is important for the central government to suspend all work and set up a forum for dialogue that we asked for to resolve the situation. Tamaki blasted the central government for starting the land reclamation work in December 2018 without looking into the surrounding seabed.
Before the construction work is completed, the minimum required study should have been conducted, Tamaki said. The current situation is related to pushing ahead with the project while there were uncertainties involved. The central government submitted an application to change the construction design in April 2020 to address the problem. The Okinawa prefectural government submitted 452 questions on 39 broad categories to the Okinawa Defense Bureau regarding changes to the plan.
The application could not be approved.
The central government officials are not backing down either.
Prime Minister Fumio Kishida met with reporters on Nov. 25 after the Okinawa prefectural government announced its rejection of the application and said, We will pay close attention to what Okinawa does. The government maintains its position that the Henoko move is the only way to solve the problems associated with the Futenma base, according to Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirokazu Matsuno.
Tokyo is expected to resort to measures it has used in the past when the Okinawa prefectural government retracted past approval of construction work for the Henoko project.
One has been to ask the land minister to rule on the retraction based on the administrative complaint law. The land minister has nullified the retraction in all cases.
Okinawa also took up the matter with the Central and Local Government Dispute Management Council and asked it to decide whether the land minister's decision was legal. The matter was out of its jurisdiction, and the council did not rule for the prefecture.
The last case involved a rejection of an application made by the central government, despite the fact that previous measures involved changes in decisions made by the Okinawa prefectural government.
Even if a Cabinet minister nullifies Okinawa's decision, construction work can resume because the central government has not gained approval for the change in the plans.
Okinawa could take the matter up with the dispute management council and the courts to drag out the process and prevent work on the soft seabed from starting.
That is leading central government officials to believe in the autumn of 2022 that the Okinawa gubernatorial election will be held. If a candidate more favorable to the Henoko project defeats Tamaki, the central government could start work again.