Quote: › Japan's hot springs losing their bounce, sinking fast
Shukan Post (Feb. 23)

After months of frigid weather, your skin's dry and flaky, your joints throb, and you're convinced the sensible way to get warm and cozy is to do things the Japanese way; which means heading for a major spa resort, like Beppu Onsen (in Oita) or Kusatsu Onsen (in Gunma), getting naked, and soaking away all your aches and pains, right?

Maybe. Or maybe not, reports Shukan Post (2/23). The way things are shaping up, it might make more sense to just plan a vacation in the southern hemisphere.

It seems that on February 6, Japan's Environment Agency sent to the Diet proposed revisions in the law that would make it obligatory for hot springs operators to periodically submit samples of their water for analysis once every 10 years. And establishments found unable to meet these standards would lose their right to bill themselves as true "onsen."

Some background here: A scandal had previously erupted back in 2004 on the topic of "phony onsen" operators who basically filled their tubs with tap water and poured in bath salts. That scandal -- revealed by none other than Shukan Post -- led to the Environment Agency's forming an ad hoc onsen subcommittee to investigate and make recommendations, leading to the proposed revisions in the law.

Last November, moreover, a furor erupted over reports that from July of this year, a new and stricter version of Japan's water pollution control law would go into effect.

The problem is that chemicals present in some hot springs can, in high concentrations, be injurious to human health. According to a report issued by the World Health Organization, absorbing enough boron can wreck your kidneys. And fluorine will speckle the enamel of your teeth with unsightly brown spots. Ewwwww.

According to the new law, if the above substances are present in more 10 milligrams per liter for boron or 8 milligrams for fluorine, an operator can be jailed for up to three months or fined up to 300,000 yen.

Compliance to the law to ensure the waters are safe won't come cheap. Scrubbing devices, needed to remove impurities from the water in order to meet the new purity standards, can run ruinously high -- as much as 40 million yen.

Take Kusatsu, a town in Gumma Prefecture with some 180 hot springs inns and hotels, most of which are small, family-operated establishments. As nearly 90 percent of the population is dependent on tourism, if the law is enforced to the letter, the place might very well become a ghost town.

Locales under the thumb of the new statue, Shukan Post warns, include some of Japan's best known spas: Jozan-kei, Shin-Atsubi, Akiu, Shirahama and Beppu all have high levels of boron, and Shin-Tamagawa, Kusatsu, Gero and Dogo, among others, are high in fluorine.

Tadanori Matsuda, a professor at Sapporo International University also known as "Dr. Onsen," is outspoken in his criticism of the new law.

"Requiring expensive purification equipment will drive the small hotels out of business, leaving only the large operations to survive," he asserts. "In the end, only the 'phony' spas using re-circulated water will remain, and that will ultimately lead to the ruin of Japan's onsen culture."

Matsuda does concede there is some logic to the law, but points out it was never intended to eliminate all harmful substances.

"Its objectives can be met even by a slight improvement over the environmental standards," he asserts.

From anyone's perspective, concludes Shukan Post, the law is shot through with contradictions. Instead of making bathing safer or weeding out the phonies, it's no joke to say this is nothing more than a power play by a bunch of bloodshot-eyed bureaucrats. (By Masuo Kamiyama, People's Pick contributor)

February 17, 2007

source : Mainichi Daily News