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Copyright of Log Newspaper is the property of Duncan McIntosh Company, Inc. and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. [Extracted from the article]

The article reports on a dispute between California coastal municipalities and the government body California Coastal Commission over the relocation of sewage plants and similar facilities from the Pacific Ocean coast. It is said that municipalities, including Morro Bay, California claim that moving the plants would be expensive, while the Commission is concerned about both coastal erosion and possible tsunami damage.

Japan is opening part of the evacuation zone around its leaking nuclear power plant for the first time since last year's disasters, easing restrictions to allow up to 16,000 evacuees to return home briefly if they wear protective gear. The 12-mile perimeter around the Fukushima Daiichi plant remains largely intact, but the government said Friday that it would reclassify the least contaminated areas into three categories based on their radiation levels. Two towns will reopen starting Sunday and a third in mid-April. But most residents are waiting until the area is further decontaminated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

TOKYO -- A year after a huge earthquake and tsunami caused nearly catastrophic meltdowns at a nuclear plant, Japan is still grappling with a crucial question: was the accident simply the result of an unforeseeable natural disaster or something that could have been prevented? Japan's nuclear regulators and the plant's operator, Tokyo Electric Power, or Tepco, have said that the magnitude 9.0 earthquake and 45-foot tsunami on March 11 that knocked out cooling systems at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant were far larger than anything that scientists had predicted. That conclusion has allowed the company to argue that it is not responsible for the triple meltdown, which forced the evacuation of about 90,000 people. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]