Japan is set to build an offshore airport for U.S. military and Japanese commercial planes in Nago City, northern Okinawa, almost six years after Tokyo and Washington agreed to relocate the U.S. Marine Corps' Futenma Air Station in Ginowan City, central Okinawa. On Monday, the central government and Okinawa Prefecture signed off on a basic construction plan.
According to the plan, the facility will be completed on a reclaimed site of up to 184 hectares over a coral reef area 2.2 km from the central part of Henoko. The runway will be 2.5-km long (including a 500-meter overrun section) and 730 meters wide. The construction cost is estimated at 330 billion yen and the maintenance cost at 80 million yen a year. An environmental impact study is expected to begin this year or next.
Okinawa attaches a number of key conditions to this project. The most important of these is the demand that military use of the airport be limited to 15 years. The prefectural and municipal governments are also calling for the conclusion of an agreement governing the use of the joint air base and for environmental measures to protect the marine ecology in surrounding waters. It remains to be seen how the central government will respond to these requests in specific terms.
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