Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
4. Analysis on Enabling Conditions
What made this New Village Building enable? From several records and
interviews with villagers, involved in the negotiation with Chubu Electric
Power Company, following points can be pointed out.
4.1.
Enabling conditions for new village building
First, Chubu Electric Power Company was so eager to build Ikawa Dam
to supply electricity for regional reconstruction and industrialization that
they accepted larger cost for land-for-land compensation than the cost for
land-for-money compensation.
Second, villagers had been long aware of the possibility of dam construc-
tion in their village. One of villagers, involved in the negotiation, clearly
remembers his childhood when survey teams occasionally visited and con-
ducted preliminary survey. Therefore, when the issue was put on the agenda
formally, villagers were ready to discuss the request among them and were
quite active to do so.
Third, and most importantly, Shizuoka Prefecture Government (local
government) played very active role in this compensation scheme. In the
next part, further analysis on this point will follow.
4.2.
Role played by the local government
Shizuoka Prefecture Government took active role in threefold. First, her
basic position was as a
stakeholder
of Ikawa Dam construction. The con-
struction of Ikawa Dam and its hydroelectric power plant was not only
corporate target of Chubu Electric Power Company but also a part of
Comprehensive Development Plan of Shizuoka Prefecture. For her economic
growth with industrialization, electric power supplied by Ikawa Dam was
perceived quite essential. Also, in then Japan, the development of major
rivers was under the authority of the governor not of the central minister.
Therefore, it was also possible for prefecture government to have a genuine
stake in the river development within her territory.
Second, she played a role as an
arbitrator
between villagers and Chubu
Electric Power Company. It was in the first term of newly elected governor
and just 4 years since public election of governor was realized in postwar
Japan. Therefore, expectation to the authority of publicly elected governor
was high in local development. This expectation was also revealed when
the decision on the amount of solatium, which was the last issue undecided
