New Toyosu Fish Market Built Without Consultation With Experts

Above, the Tsukiji Fish Market in December 2010. Photo by Armand Vaquer.

It looks like the Tsukiji Fish Market will remain at its current, and historic, location for a while longer.

Toxins in the soil at the new fish market location could still contaminate fish and other seafood because the new market was built without having experts consulted.

According to Asahi Shimbun:

Without consulting experts, the Tokyo metropolitan government decided that thick concrete basement floors were sufficient to block known toxins in the soil at the site of the proposed Toyosu fish market, sources said. 

The project to relocate the world-renowned Tsukiji fish market in Chuo Ward to the Toyosu district of Koto Ward has become hugely controversial amid reports the metropolitan government defied a proposal made by an experts’ panel in 2008 to cover the site with fresh soil and build the new market on top of it as a precaution against contamination caused by a Tokyo Gas Co. factory that once stood there. 

The metropolitan government instead created cavernous basement spaces below the three main structures of the new market without adding new soil. The Tokyo government section in charge of the project made the decision without approval from the panel, arguing that “creating the floor of the basement with thick concrete will work as a substitute for landfill.”

So, until this problem is corrected, the Tsukiji Fish Market remains in Tsukiji. Somebody definitely screwed up!

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