About 290 cubic meters (377 cubic yards) of soil with a relatively high surface radiation level are likely to be shipped from the western Japanese town of Yurihama, Jiji Press and Kyodo news agencies said.

The soil is part of the 3,000 cubic meters left by the Japan Nuclear Cycle Development Institute.

According to the institute's plan, a US firm will dispose of the soil in the United States at a total cost of more than 600 million yen (5.6 million dollars), Kyodo quoted sources as saying.

It remains to be seen what will be done with the remaining soil, it said.

The plan, if realized, will open the way for a solution to a long-standing legal row between the local community and the institute, the sources were quoted as saying.

The soil originated from test-drilling of uranium by the institute's predecessor, the Power Reactor and Nuclear Fuel Development Corporation, or Donen, in the 1950s and 1960s, it said.

It was revealed in August 1988 that the soil had been left behind in Yurihama, triggering an outcry from the local community which demanded the contaminated soil, it said.

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