Murky Waters: An Environmental History of Tokyo’s Waterways and Bay, 1888–1964
From the late nineteenth century, city planners and politicians primarily looked upon Tokyo’s waterways as conduits of commerce and paid little attention to the deteriorating water quality in the city’s rivers, canals, and bay. The result was that as the city grew and industrialized, its waterways became increasingly polluted with effluent coming from the city’s homes, businesses, and factories. By the 1950s, many of these waterways were so polluted, few balked as the government began burying or covering over many of these open waters in preparation for the 1964 Tokyo Olympics.
In the first section of this paper, I discuss the plans and projects carried out along the city’s waterways and bay during the Tokyo Municipal Reform Projects (1888-1918) and after the destruction caused by the 1923 Kanto Earthquake. In doing so, I focus on the economic and public health imperatives within which these plans were drafted and carried out. In the second section of the paper, I shift my focus to the waters flowing into and out of the city to show how a toxic combination of biological and chemical pollutants led to the frequent closure of waterside swimming areas and regular die-offs of fish and seaweed beds in the bay. Focused on a period before the municipal government regularly monitored water quality in its waterways and bay, this paper also discusses how a meaningful measure of water quality can be reconstructed through a nuanced reading of newspapers articles and literary works that describe the city’s murky waters.