Minamata Bay
Introduction
Dancing cats, suicidal cats, birds dropping from the air - dead … it was strange and it was disturbing. Fish were dying and floating in the bay and washing ashore. Numb lips and hands were not worth mentioning. Normal people suddenly began blurting out, as if in the throws of Turrets syndrome. Others began trembling and suddenly slurring words. These symptoms, if not the people themselves, were uncomfortably ignored or overlooked. It was all very strange, and it was somewhat embarrassing. The town of Minamata was on the rise and nobody wanted to miss out. But there was no mistake; this was a strange and frightening time in Minamata.
Rationale
In this section on Minamata Bay and Minamata Disease, we will address New Mexico science and social studies standards. These standards include knowledge on investigations, atoms, elements, molecules and ecosystems. (Appendix C) We will learn about genetics in terms of congenital disease with United Streaming video and written research. 3 3 Additionally, students will develop an understanding of how society can sometimes work against itself. We are going to study how different groups and entities have a propensity towards self-interest, especially in the short run that sometimes results in more harm than good.
Background
The town of Minamata is on the island of Kyushu, Japan. Kyushu is the southern most island and the third largest of the four main islands out of the approximately 3,000 making up the Japanese nation. Minamata is in a large, beautiful bay on the west side of Kyushu. Minamata has been a small fishing and farming town for hundreds of years. The people have historically been mostly poor and mostly healthy.
In 1901 a company called Nippon Chisso was looking for a place to build a factory. This would be an economic boon for any town that had visions of moving up in the world, the Minamatans approved the project and in 1907, Chisso built a fertilizer factory in Minamata. The people were disappointed to find out that all the "good" jobs went to educated people from other towns and the Minamatans only got the "blue collar" factory labor jobs. Still, there were plenty of jobs and paychecks and the town grew, and the citizens prospered. The fishing and farming industries continued to be very important in Minamata.
The town and the factory both continued to grow. Between 1926 and 1943, Chisso was responsible for about 50 percent of the taxes in Minamata and accounted for about 25 percent of employment. By mid 1956, Chisso Corporation employed nearly 60 percent of the town's workforce, 3 2 including a company hospital.
Chisso dumped the factory waste into Minamata Bay - not an unusual practice, with the result being fewer fish in the bay. Knowing the factory probably had much to do with the change in fish population, Chisso gave a certain amount of money to the fisherman, periodically, for their inconvenience. Some people call the payments "hush money," where others call it "indemnity money" for possible damage to fishing waters. 3 3 This system was satisfactory for all the principal parties. The factory could continue with business as usual. Giving money to make up the fishermen's losses was cheaper than disposing of the waste in a more environmentally responsible manner. The fishermen were compensated economically, and the town continued to prosper.
In 1932, Chisso started manufacturing vinyl chloride and acetic acid, used in making plastics and rubber products. These chemicals use mercury in their manufacture. A byproduct of this process is a highly toxic organic mercury compound, methyl mercury. Over the years, fish continued dying, and the payoffs to the fishermen for the loss of their fishing habitat also continued. The fishermen's acceptance of the buyouts was an implicit sign that they agreed, even if they didn't like it. By this time, the Chisso factory had become part of the town's identity and the Minamata economy depended on its success. The fishermen were paid for their lost fish and everything else in their lives was fine. (Discussion point - is it right for a rich company to pay affected citizens instead of correcting the problem? Is it right for the citizens to take the money without questioning the cause of the problem?)
Strange goings on
The cats started acting strange in the early 1950s. Some people called it the Dancing Cat Disease. 3 3 , 3 4 Some said the cats were committing suicide when they ran towards, and leaped into, the sea and died. About the same time, strange things were happening to people too - but this was not something they wanted to talk about. There were concerns about contagiousness, about insanity, or that they were possessed by the devil - for with their contorting faces, they looked like monsters. 3 5 People would suddenly shout or howl, sometimes for hours. Faces would twitch and warp. Limbs twisted and people would fall down. In addition to the suicidal dancing cats, birds were falling dead from the air. Dogs would disappear and be found dead far away. Seaweed stopped growing in the bay and fishermen were catching two-headed fish. 3 5
As the occurrences increased in frequency and intensity, the symptoms were given a name, the "Strange Disease." 3 2 As the symptoms and the victims increased, the condition started being called "Minamata Disease." Between the 1930s and 1956, when researchers discovered the cause of Minamata disease, the town and surrounding area was being devastated by heavy-metal poisoning, primarily from mercury, that had built up in the food chain of the sea, ending in the diets of the families in and around Minamata. (See diagram 2, above) They did not know what was going on. Fear of contagiousness led to people ostracizing and shunning victims. One story told of a craftsman in Minamata, Yahei Ikeda, who blamed the victims for their troubles, and encouraged people to avoid them. Neighbors turned against neighbors in those days. Eventually, some of those who felt strongest, like Ikeda, that the victims deserved their fate had the treatment turned on them when they showed symptoms of the disease. 3 2 (discussion point - What can people do when they need help, but their community fears their disability?)
Discovery
As noted earlier, the first mention of the problems in Minamata was in 1950 when the cats seemingly went crazy before suddenly dying. Then the birds started falling from the sky, dogs disappeared, and fish floated. It was happening to people too, but quietly because people were afraid of being shunned and hated. Nobody knew what caused it or if it was contagious. It was a great mystery.
Eventually, a Chisso company doctor, Dr. Hajime Hosokawa figured it out in 1956. Dr Hosokawa was given the task of finding the source of the disease. When he discovered it was coming from the factory, Hosokawa was told to stop his research and keep quiet. 3 5 The next year, Kumamoto University made a study that supported Hosokawa's findings, that heavy metals in the fish was causing the disease.
People started finding out, but they didn't want to say anything because in their culture people just didn't complain - especially if it might cost them or their neighbors their jobs. They preferred to be stoic. Chisso was, by this time, complicit, or ignorant, but in either case, they were clearly more concerned with profits than the health of their workers and the town. In 1958, the government stepped in to help Chisso by making it look like the company was going responsible. One way they did this was to ban the sale of fish caught in the bay. In banning the sale of fish, the government unintentionally forced the fishermen and their families to eat even more of the contaminated fish, since they could not make any money to buy "good" food. If the government banned consumption of the fish, Chisso (or the government) would have to help those fishermen financially. (Discussion point - How can you decide who is responsible? The doctor left quietly, Chisso said nothing, the government side-stepped the problem)
Finally, in 1959, Kumamoto University identified the exact substance, methyl mercury, and where it came from - Chisso. Chisso paid "condolence money" without admitting responsibility. 3 4 The victims were pressured into taking the money by their community, where challenging the town's main employer was considered selfish, even if they did not want to. The money amounted to $ 83 per child with the disease and $ 278 for an adult. In the event of a death, the family would get $ 889. 3 6
The government wanted Chisso to take care of it, so they paid the money to the victims and then they moved the waste to another location - from the bay to the Minamata River. That led to more dead animals and more sick people in different areas and just more problems. So they bought a new waste treatment process called a Cyclator Purification System. Chisso made a big deal out of the unveiling of the new wastewater treatment. This gave the citizenry confidence and they were no longer as afraid of the fish. In later testimony, it came out that the Cyclator was installed "as a social solution" and did nothing to remove organic mercury." 3 5 Chisso knew it would not work and they kept dumping the same waste in the same way. The community, feeling safer, ate more fish.
By 1968, there was new technology that made the process Chisso used obsolete for making their chemical products. They used new processes that did not require mercury. By 1969, other than congenital cases, new cases of Minamata Disease were fewer and fewer until there were no more.
Resolution
After all alternative explanations for the cause of Minamata Disease were exhausted (e.g., dumped military munitions), 3 2 and after the company stopped using mercury, the head of Chisso offered sympathy and officially apologized. In 1972, Chisso was officially held "responsible for their negligence" with regard to their holding back of information before the Kumamoto University report verified Hosakawa's findings in 1959. Chisso never accepted responsibility in their apology. The question of responsibility is difficult to parse if you consider the times - historically, medically, and culturally. Amends and compensation were handled through the courts. Over the next 20 - 30 years, monetary amounts were disbursed. 3 4 , 3 6 Most of the people who got sick from eating fish have died and only those who were born with it are left - mostly living in horrible conditions and dying young.
Eventually, 1.5 million cubic meters of contaminated sludge were removed from Minamata Bay. There was enough mercury in there to make it worth mining, which Chisso did. Chisso paid about two thirds of the cost to clean the bay. Today, in Minamata, there is a large museum dedicated to the environment and memorial commemorating the unfortunate period in Japan's history.
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