It's sink or swim for polluted beach
Tokyo metropolitan government was forced to declare Odaiba Seaside Beach Park off-limits for swimmers, and to warn against even seemingly innocent wading. The water, iffy at the best of times, had become so contaminated with fecal matter that it posed a health hazard... About 1.6 million people, many of them children and windsurfers, visit the beach each year....
The situation has forced the government to come up with.... a strategy to combat coliform bacteria contamination by constructing a new water purification plant and a 100-meter floating boom to ward off waste by completely enclosing the beach.
One city official remarked: ``The boom can't keep out all outside water, so it won't be possible to swim in the ocean. People should feel safe, however, to come out here and splash around.''
---25 Jan 2003, The Asahi Shimbun
See a real FG swimming at Odaiba:
http://www.bepentruus.nl/images/Japan/95.JPG
http://www.akimoto.com/kimama/image/odaiba.gif
