Toxins at Tokyo’s new fish market site

TOKYO // High levels of toxic chemicals were found in final groundwater tests at a new building due to replace the world’s largest fish market, in Tokyo, reports said yesterday.

The controversial project to replace the Tsukiji market has already been delayed over fears about toxic contamination.

The city’s new governor, Yuriko Koike, postponed the market’s move – set for November last year – until she got the results of final groundwater testing at the site, a disused gas plant.

Postponing Tsukiji’s move prompted Ms Koike to suspend plans to build a tunnel under the market’s current location leading to an athletes’ village for the 2020 Olympics that the country will host because it could not be built in time.

The 588 billion yen ( Dh18.86bn) relocation plan has been marred by problems, including the discovery that contractors failed to fill in a basement at the new site with clean soil as a buffer against underground pollution.

Results of the final testing showed that levels of toxic materials, including benzene, detected in underground water at the new site were above nationally set limits, Japan’s Yomiuri Shimbun newspaper and Jiji Press wire service said.

It came after a previous test also showed high levels of mercury in the facility’s basement.

Plans to uproot the popular 80-year-old market have been in the works for years.

But Ms Koike pledged to reconsider the plan. “What we have to uphold is food security,” she said yesterday, according to Jiji Press. “We may have to study further.” However, Ms Koike has not said if she would consider scrapping the relocation if the test results are bad.