Aburagi Dam - History

History

After the (then-government managed) Yawata Works steel company commenced operations in the Kitakyūshū area, the heavy chemical industry rapidly began the flourish, and the local population increased. The supply of water established during the Meiji period had become insufficient, leading Yawata Works to construct several dams to supply municipal water, such as the Kawachi Dam. This area experiences Setonaikai climate patterns, with low annual rainfall, and frequently faces water shortages; the expansion of the Kitakyūshū Industrial Zone further worsened these water shortages. The river basin was once part of the Ogasawara clan's Kokura Domain, a grain producing region where some 150,000 units of grain were produced annually. However, due to the aforementioned Setonaikai climate, farmwater was in extremely short supply. To help alleviate the problem, the Kyoto and Tagawa districts had several agricultural-use reservoirs built, but this wasn't a fundamental solution to the problem.

Maintenance of the Imagawa River hadn't progressed by much. While the area normally suffered from water damage, the June 1953 Kitakyūshū Flood wreaked havoc upon the Chikugogawa, Ongagawa, and many other rivers in the Kitakyūshū area. Many levees were destroyed, causing substantial destruction. Due to the damage caused by the heavy rains, the Ministry of Construction (now the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism) began the Comprehensive River Development Project for the Chikugogawa River; the project was widely expanded to cover repairs to the Ongagawa River and Imagawa River basins in Fukuoka Prefecture, though comprehensive repairs to the Imagawa River basin proved difficult due to its relatively large population and abundance of farmlands.

In 1950, the second Yoshida cabinet enacted the Comprehensive National Land Development bill. The bill was meant to accelerate local development in an attempt to revitalize the exhausted Japanese economy after the Pacific War. The bill designated 22 localities for development as part of the "Special Regional Comprehensive Development Plan." "Tsushima," "Aso," and "Southern Kyūshū" were selected from within Kyūshū. To rebuild and strengthen the Kitakyūshū Industrial Zone—heavily damaged as a result of air raids during the war—the entire Kitakyūshū area was named under the Kitakyūshū Special Regional Comprehensive Development Plan. Irrigation improvements were concurrently planned, as securing water was necessary for industrial districts, as well as expanding farming areas to deal with food shortages. The plan was strengthened by the Japanese post-war economic recovery, and further expanded under the National Comprehensive Development Plan.

Based on this perspective, the Ongagawa, Murasakigawa and Imagawa River water systems—the largest rivers in Kitakyūshū—were at the center of the Comprehensive River Development Project, with flood prevention of the river basins, improved water supply, and expanded irrigation forming the heart of the project. Fukuoka Prefecture pressed forward with construction of multi-purpose dams, and with support from the national treasury, the Rikimaru Dam on the Yakiyamagawa River (part of the Ongagawa River water system), the Jinya Dam on the Chūganjigawa River, and the Masubuchi Dam on the Murasakigawa River were planned. River development projects in the form of multi-purpose dams were also drawn up for the Imagawa River water system, and in 1965 a dam in Aburagi, which is in the Tagawa District's Tsuno, entered into construction under the Imagawa Comprehensive Development Project. This became Aburagi Dam.