Truck driver busted for dumping soil in front of Diet Building
Mainichi
A dump truck driver was questioned for scattering soil in front of the Diet Building Wednesday afternoon in apparent retaliation for tough new crackdowns on overloaded vehicles, police said.
The Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) is trying to identify the driver and question him over the exact motives behind his actions. Investigators said the man has expressed his dissatisfaction over the crackdown on overloading.
At around 12:30 p.m. on Wednesday, the man drove his dump truck to the front gate of the Diet Building in the Nagatacho district of Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo, and dumped soil there, MPD investigators said.
Officers who were standing guard at the front gate overpowered the driver and took him to a police station for questioning.
In related news...
Residents decry soil dumping
Gomiuri Shimbun
Residents of Shiroyamamachi, Kanagawa Prefecture, are furious that the prefectural and municipal governments have failed for nine years to take steps to prevent landslides at a site where about 4 million cubic meters of soil from construction sites has been illegally dumped in their town, where part of the Metropolitan Intercity Expressway Network is planned to be built.
A study in 1998 pointed out the danger of landslides at the site, where a construction company brought in soil from Tokyo building sites. But the prefectural and municipal governments have only recently begun mapping out preventive measures after a November survey by the Construction and Transport Ministry raised the possibility of changing the plan for constructing the highway after deciding that it would be prohibitively expensive to remove the soil.
Over about six years starting in 1989, the construction firm in the prefecture transported excavated soil from building sites in Tokyo to the 20-hectare site along the Sagamigawa river.
The soil, capable of filling more than three Tokyo Domes, buried a valley about 20 meters to 30 meters deep, where a small stream ran....more...
