Chubu Electric Power Co. is asking fishery cooperatives in Mie Prefecture to return 1.5 billion yen that it paid them in 1994 for their cooperation in winning support for a nuclear power plant.
The project was shelved due to local opposition.
Chubu Electric is now asking for a meeting with the two cooperatives of fishermen, whose business would have been affected by the Ashihama Nuclear Power Plant had it been built at a site spanning the border between the towns of Kisei and Nanto.
To win cooperation for preliminary research on the planned site and to compensate for anticipated damage to the local fishing fleet, Chubu Electric paid 650 billion yen to a fisheries cooperative in Nanto and 850 billion yen to another in Kisei.
But last month, Mie Gov. Masaya Kitagawa withdrew prefectural support for the 37-year-old project, citing local opposition, and Chubu Electric had to scrap the plan.
"We paid (the money to the cooperatives) in advance because of the trouble they would be suffering from the preliminary research," a Chubu Electric spokesman said. "Since we have given up on the project, it would be natural to want the money back."
Negotiations won't be smooth, since the money has already been distributed to co-op members, and many of them have spent it, the sources said.