Why did high levels of PFOA contamination occur in Kibichuo Town, Okayama Prefecture, where there is no PFOA factory?

The pollution was caused by activated carbon, containing PFOA, which a local company had taken in from a company outside of town and left near the water supply.

Which exactly is the original owner, a company from outside town?

High levels of PFOA exposure has been discovered among residents, including a two-year-old child. The dam can no longer be used. Still, no one has come forward.

Kawahira Dam (Photo by Nanami Nakagawa on February 7, 2024)

Left outdoors for 15 years

Here is a review of the source of pollution.

The prefecture conducted water quality tests at several locations throughout town to determine the source of the contamination. They discovered 1,100 ng/L of PFOA in the Kawahira Dam, the water supply for the Enjo Water Purification Plant, which supplied PFOA-contaminated tap water.

They then evaluated the water quality of the river as it flows into the Kawahira Dam, upstream. The concentration rose further upstream, reaching a maximum of 62,000 ng/L.

A considerable number of “black bags” had been abandoned in the town’s “property ward” near the location. They were loaded with activated carbon, which had torn out of the broken bags and was dispersed around the area.

Activated carbon is often used to remove PFOA from water. The prefecture randomly sampled activated carbon at 30 locations and measured the concentration, detecting a maximum of 4.5 million ng/L, 90,000 times the national target of 50 ng/L.

The company that had left the activated carbon lying around was Man-ei Industry Co., Ltd., a company based in Kibichuo Town that had been in business for over 100 years.

Man-ei Industry is in the business of collecting activated carbon that contains chemical substances, removing them, and then handing the carbon back over to contractors in a condition where it can absorb chemicals again.

However, what was left at the property ward was activated carbon that had not had PFOA removed. The town and Man-ei Industry signed a land lease agreement on September 1, 2007. The activated carbon was placed there the following year, around 2008, meaning that it had been left there for 15 years.

The activated carbon was packed into plastic Flexible Intermediate Bulk Containers (FIBC) with a capacity of approximately one ton. Hundreds of FIBCs were placed on open soil, deteriorating due to rain and wind. When the prefecture began its investigation, the activated carbon had been scattered on the ground, and it needed to be placed in fresh FIBCs before removing it.

PFOA seeped through the soil and river and into Kawahira Dam, the water source.

Reference: Diagram of the relative positions

The dam is out of service

The scale of the damage is immeasurable.

There are more than 1,000 people living in the town of Enjo, which supplies water from the Kawahira Dam. Enjo Elementary School, which is located within the district, prepares lunches every day with this water. All 27 residents, including a two-year-old child, who underwent blood tests in advance were found to have been exposed to high levels. Future tests on residents may reveal new damage.

Furthermore, the Kawahira Dam, an essential part of daily life, could no longer be used. Large-scale construction work was carried out at the Enjo Water Purification Plant, which used the Kawahira Dam as its source of water, to switch its water source.

Mayor Masanori Yamamoto acknowledged that the compensation amount will be enormous. In an interview on February 21, 2024, I asked:

“Now that the Kawahira Dam is no longer operational, the town will have to continue to purchase water. Do you have an estimate about the losses that will occur?”

Yamamoto replied, “I think it will cost several billion yen to completely switch to a new water source,” and continued:

“We suffered damages as a result of the PFOA pollution, such as distributing plastic bottles or town officials performing certain tasks. It must amount to hundreds of millions of yen. So, in that regard, I would like compensation, or at least, if the cause can be properly investigated and, for instance, it turns out to be Man-ei, I would like compensation to be paid, of course.”

Nevertheless, does Man-ei Industry bear all the responsibility for the water contamination?

Despite detecting abnormal levels of PFOA in 2020, the town only announced to residents to stop drinking the tap water in October 2023.

Did the comapny that provided Man-ei Industry with activated carbon containing PFOA warn them about the dangers of PFOA in the first place? It seems necessary to describe the circumstances around this contamination.

However, the company in question has not come forward so far. Neither the town, prefecture, nor Man-ei Industry has revealed the company’s name.

Not a PFOA “manufacturing” company, but a “using” company

On February 5, 2024, I interviewed Koyoshi, head of the town’s Resident Affairs Division. The Resident Affairs Division is one of the divisions dealing with the PFOA contamination issue and is responsible for investigating the cause of the contamination.

I asked which company provided the activated carbon to Man-ei Industry. Koyoshi answered:

“In our investigation of Man-ei Industry, we were told that they were three major companies.”

However, he won’t tell me the specific names of the company.

When I replied, “Are those PFOA manufacturing companies? If so, it would be Daikin, Chemours-Mitsui, and AGC,” Koyoshi denied.

“They are not the three companies that you just mentioned.”

There are three major companies in Japan that manufactured PFOA: Daikin, Chemours-Mitsui, and AGC (formerly Asahi Glass). If they were not these three, the “major three” were not companies that “manufactured” PFOA, but companies that “used” PFOA. They use PFOA to make fluorine-coated frying pans and in the semiconductor manufacturing process. There are countless factories like this in Japan.

I then interviewed a former employee of Man-ei Industry, who had worked at the company’s Kibichuo Head Office during the time the property ward was in use and knew the company’s clients.

“We received used activated carbon from the Kansai region, including Okayama and Osaka. One of our major clients was Kuraray.”

Kuraray is a chemical manufacturer that originated in Okayama Prefecture. It was founded in 1926 as Kurashiki Kenshoku Co., Ltd., a manufacturer of synthetic fiber rayon in Kurashiki City, Okayama Prefecture. During the war, the company also produced plywood and wooden airplanes as a munitions manufacturer.

In 1950, the company was the first in Japan to successfully industrialize domestically produced synthetic fibers. After several name changes, the company became “Kuraray” in 1970. Currently, the company manufactures and sells resins, chemicals, textiles, and water treatment systems.

The company is headquartered in Tokyo, but has a research center in Kurashiki and the largest manufacturing plant in the country in Okayama. One of its businesses is the handling of activated carbon.

Kuraray, “There is almost no possibility of involvement”

I sent a questionnaire to Kuraray’s President and CEO, Hitoshi Kawahara, and received a reply from the IR and PR department.

First, I asked whether they were aware of the high levels of PFOA contamination in the tap water in Kibichuo Town. The answer was as follows:

Okayama Prefecture investigated the source of water pollution, which was prompted by a press release issued by Kibichuo Town on October 17, 2023, regarding the discovery of organic compounds at the Enjo Water Purification Plant. We acknowledged this matter after this investigation revealed a link to used activated carbon that was stored by Man-ei Industry.

Regarding whether they were aware that it was Man-ei Industry that caused the pollution, they said the following.

As mentioned above, we became aware of this through media reports.

Kuraray provided used activated carbon to Man-ei Industry. However, they have not publicly announced or apologized for the contamination. What is the reason?

We have determined that there is almost no possibility that our company was involved.

Why is Kuraray only willing to say that there is “almost no possibility of involvement” and unable to conclude that there is “no possibility of involvement”? I will report on this in the next issue.

To be continued.

(Originally published in Japanese on August 20, 2024. Translation by Mana Shibata.)

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