March 18, 2005#624
NUCLEARMONITORA Publication of World Information Service on Energy (WISE) and the Nuclear Information
& Resource Service (NIRS), incorporating the former WISE News Communique
IN THIS ISSUE:
Yucca Mountain: water infiltration documents falsified.
Western Shoshone National Council filed lawsuit 1
Death threats against Belene opponent; debate around NPP
decision heats up 2
Sweden: Barsebäck shutdown contested in court 4
Mobilization against food irradiation in France 5
"Public hearings becoming secret shams in
George Bush's America 6
Proposals for a moratorium on reprocessing:
the case of Japan 8
In brief 9
World Information Service on Energy
founded in 1978
YUCCA MOUNTAIN : WATER
INFILTRATION DOCUMENTS FALSIFIED.
WESTERN SHOSHONE NATIONAL
COUNCIL FILED LAWSUIT
On March 16, the U.S Geological Survey and the U.S. Department of Energy have announced that in
1998, USGS scientists were falsifying documents about water infiltration and climate at the proposed
high level nuclear waste dump at Yucca Mountain.. Meanwhile the Western Shoshone National Council
filed a lawsuit because Yucca Mountain is an area long held as significant to the Western Shoshone
Nation and included within the boundaries of the 1863 Treaty of Ruby Valley.
(624.5666) NIRS - At the very same
time that over 200 environmental and
public interest organizations were
petitioning DOE to disqualify the Yucca
Mountain site from any further
consideration as a high-level
radioactive waste dump due to the fast
flow rate of water through the site in
1998, scientists were falsifying
documents about water infiltration.
Environmental groups again call upon
DOE to do what it should have done in
1998 - disqualify the earthquakeplagued,
geologically-fractured, leaky
Yucca Mountain site from any further
consideration as the national nuclear
waste dump.
In 1996 and 1997, DOE discovered the
radioactive isotope chlorine-36 at
unnaturally high concentrations deep
in the heart of Yucca Mountain. The
only explanation for this was that sea
water, radioactively activated by nucear
bomb blasts in the South Pacific
starting the 1940’s and 1950’s, had
traveled with the weather, fallen as
rain on Yucca, and percolated down
800 feet deep through the fractured
geology to the proposed repository
depth in less than 50 years. This was a
clear violation of DOE’s own “Site
Suitability Guidelines,” which clearly
stated that if rainwater flows through a
potential repository site and back out
into the accessible environment in less
than 1,000 years, the site must be
disqualified from any further
consideration.
Thus, in November and December of
1998, NIRS and over 200 environmental
and public interest organizations
petitioned DOE to disqualify the Yucca
Mountain based on DOE’s own “Site
Suitability Guidelines.” The Nuclear
Waste Policy Act clearly stated that
should a potential repository site be
disqualified for violating DOE’s Site
Suitability Guidelines, the Secretary of
Energy shall simply report the
disqualification to the President and
Congress so that next steps could then
be considered.
However, instead of disqualifying the
Yucca, DOE responded to the petition
by saying it needed more time to study
the site. But in late 2001, less than a
month before Energy Secretary Spencer
Abraham notified Nevada Governor
Kenny Guinn that he intended to
recommend Yucca as suitable for a
repository to George W. Bush, DOE
simply removed its 17-year-old (1984
to 2001) Site Suitability Guidelines
WISE/NIRS Nuclear Monitor 624, 18 March 20052
from its books. DOE has time and time
again changed the rules in the middle
of the game to keep the geologically
unsuitable site alive. In this case,
because Yucca couldn’t satisfy the
safety, health and environmental standards,
DOE simply eliminated them.
Now it appears that at the very same
time that the national environmental
and public interest movement was
petitioning DOE to disqualify the Yucca
site due to the fast flow rate of water at
the site, USGS scientists were falsifying
documents about water infiltration
into Yucca, as well as climate documents.
This is especially scandalous
because Yucca could become much
more wet over time than it is now due
to climate change, so the issue of water
infiltration could become much more
significant to environmental
protection over time.
In order to protect public health and
safety, environmental organisations
urge Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman
to do the right thing and disqualify
Yucca Mountain from any further
consideration as the national highlevel
radioactive waste dump.
Western Shoshone
On March 4, the Western Shoshone
National Council filed a lawsuit in the
federal district court in Las Vegas,
Nevada. The complaint, which lists the
United States, and the Secretaries of
the Departments of Energy and
Interior as defendants, seeks
declaratory and injunctive relief to
prevent high-level radioactive waste
storage and burial at Yucca Mountain.
Yucca is an area long held as significant
to the Western Shoshone Nation
and included within the boundaries of
the 1863 Treaty of Ruby Valley. A
hearing could be scheduled by the
court as early as the end of March.
Western Shoshone National Council
Chief Raymond Yowell delivered the
following statement on the court
house steps.
“The Western Shoshone National
Council (WSNC) has filed this lawsuit
against the plan of the United States
Department of Energy to make Yucca
Mountain the dump for nuclear waste
from the United States (…). Yucca
Mountain is located in the Territory of
the Western Shoshone Nation, as
described in Article 5 of the 1863 Treaty
of Peace and Friendship entered into
between the Western Shoshone Nation
and the United States, at Baa Gaa Zoo
also now called Ruby Valley, Nevada..
Article 6 of the U. S. Constitution states
that “(T)reaties are the supreme law of
the land.” This Treaty, then, overrides
all other U.S. laws. Under the Treaty,
there were five uses which the United
States of America and the Western
Shoshone Nation agreed could occur
on Western Shoshone Territory. Those
five uses are the establishment of (1)
settlements, (2) mines, and (3) ranches,
and the construction of a (4) railroad,
and of (5) roads.
The agent of the United States of
America who negotiated and signed
the Treaty, the United States Congress
which ratified the Treaty, and the
Western Shoshone Nation all agreed
that those were the only five uses
which would ever occur on Western
Shoshone Territory. If any other uses
are contemplated, they can not occur
unless the Treaty is modified by the
consent of both the Western Shoshone
Nation and the United States.
All across this country, U.S. Federal
District Courts have found that
Treaties with the Indian Nations
remain in full force and effect as
binding contracts. The Western
Shoshone Nation has always abided by
the Treaty and regarded the Treaty as a
binding, enforceable agreement
between the Nation and the United
States. We seek by this lawsuit to have
the Treaty of Ruby Valley enforced to
stop this project which threatens to
desecrate our sacred lands. The
Western Shoshone Nation does not
consent to the use of Yucca Mountain
as a dump for the most toxic substance
ever created by man.”
Sources: NIRS Press statement, 16
March, 2005: Western Shoshone
National Council statement, 4 March
2005
Contact: Michael Mariotte at NIRS;
Western Shoshone National Council
attorney Robert R. Hager, +1-775-336-
7586.. Julie Fishel, Western Shoshone
Defense Project, wsdp@igc.org
DEATH THREATS AGAINST BELENE
OPPONENT; DEBATE AROUND NPP
DECISION HEATS UP
The discussion on the building of the Belene nuclear power plant in Bulgaria got in the end of February
an unexpected spin, when long year Belene opponent and Goldman Environmental Award winner Albena
Simeonova received a death threat. The personally delivered threat followed several anonymous ones
over telephone and two year campaign by Simeonova to stop the plans to build two new reactors.
(624.5667) WISE/NIRS Brno Simeonova
is one of the largest
organic farmers in Bulgaria and her
fields near the town of Nikopol all fall
within the 30 km zone of the planned
NPP Belene. One of the first members
of Ekoglasnost / Friends of the Earth
Bulgaria, and founder of the Bulgarian
Green Party, Simeonova was one of the
key people to stop the Belene project
in the beginning of the 1990s. When
the project was restarted in 2002, she
started organising regional opposition
as well as involving international
organisations as Greenpeace, WISE/
NIRS and the environmental lawyers
network ELAW and joined the national
Bulgarian BeleNE coalition.
18 March 2005, WISE/NIRS Nuclear Monitor 624 3
world-wide, many of the petitions
coming from countries that have
known themselves manipulations by
the nuclear lobby like Japan and Spain.
In Bulgaria, the news of the threat
caused a wave of media attention and
gave a new impulse to the debate on
the necessity of the Belene project.
Because the Bulgarian authorities
feared for the image of this EU
accession state, they directly contacted
Simeonova and set up some measures
to protect her from possible attacks.
Local solidarity has helped to stabilize
the situation. Nevertheless, Simeonova
received one more threat, be it this
time not any longer on her life, but
rather on her organic farm.
In the mean time, Bulgarian
authorities stepped up their lobbying
campaign for support of Belene.
Belene promotor Milkos Kovachev was
promoted from Energy Minister to
Minister of Economic Affairs. The
Bulgarian Foreign Minister Solomon
Passi visited Vienna and received a
supporting statement from IAEA
secretary general ElBaradei, that was
strongly pushed in Bulgarian and
international business media. He was
confronted with the news of the threat
on Mrs. Simeonova during his
following lobby visit to the European
Parliament in Strasbourg. In a reaction
on the negative publicity this caused,
What happened 25 years ago? We go back to news from our 1980 WISE Bulletin, comparing anti-nuclear news then and now.
Then
In WISE Bulletin vol. 2 nr. 2 we wrote about a demand for a debate in the former German Democratic Republc (GDR): “The
Synode of the protestant church of Mecklenburg in East Germany has demanded a public debate ‘on the possibilities and
dangers of the peaceful use of nuclear power’ “. (WISE Bulletin vol. 2 nr. 2, January/February 1980)
Now
The first nuclear power reactor had started operation in 1973 at Greifswald. Four more reactors were operated at Greifswald
and one at Rheinsberg. The Greifswald reactors were of the Soviet VVER design, four VVER 440-230s and one VVER 440-213. In
addition, three VVER 440-213s were also under construction at Greifswald and another two VVER 1000-320s at Stendal. In
1990, following reunification of East and West Germany, all the reactors were temporarily closed and construction suspended
to allow detailed analysis of the safety problems. As a result, the first four reactors at Greifswald were permanently closed.
The German safety agency then put forward proposals for Greifswald 5 (the VVER 440-213) and Stendal, should these reactors
be awarded an operating license. Consequently, these reactors were abandoned as the utility felt it was not economic for
them to bring them up to German safety standards. At Greifswald the upgrading of a 213 model reactor was expected to
amount to between DM500 million and DM2 billion (1991 equivalent - US$277 - 1.100 million). (Agenda 2000 and the
Implications for Nuclear Safety; A. Froggatt and M. Weltin, March 1998)
After the end of World War II, the Soviets started mining of uranium in the GDR. Subsequently, the Wismut company started
mining in the Southern part of the country. Information on this huge operation was not publicly accessible until the
environmental activist Michael Beleites published his famous underground report (Pitchblend - Uranium Mining in the GDR
and its Impacts; in German) in 1988. With the political changes in 1989, it came to light that large areas had been devastated.
With the unification of Germany in 1990, uranium production was terminated. (WISE Uranium, www.antenna.nl/wise/
uranium/uwis.html)
The GDR used to dump low-level waste in the Morsleben salt dome. The dome is under threat of flooding and collapse.
Because of this and other factors, the German government decided in May 2000 to stop dumping waste in Morsleben. (WISE
News Communique 555, 5 October 2001)
25 YEARS AGO
The threats were passed on by the
director of a local wine company, part
of the Varna registered TIM group
which allegedly was promised
contracts for security work and
supplies for Belene.
A solidarity action launched by local
Bulgarian organizations, Greenpeace,
WISE/NIRS, Bankwatch, Friends of the
Earth Europe, ELAW and the European
Greens caused a wave of over 2000
letters and e-mail messages to
Bulgarian’s Prime Minister Simeon
Saxe-Coburg, the Ministers of Interior
and Energy and the President of the
Bulgarian parliament. The petitioners
demanded safety guarantees for
Simeonova and guarantees that the
decision procedure on Belene would
be freed from manipulations. In
addition, WISE/NIRS and Greenpeace
asked support from the local
authorities in Nikopol.
The call for support for Simeonova
was picked up by alternative media
WISE Amsterdam/NIRS
ISSN: 1570-4629
Reproduction of this material is
encouraged. Please give credit when
reprinting.
Editorial team: Dirk Bannink and Tinu
Otoki (WISE Amsterdam), Michael
Mariotte (NIRS). With contributions
from NIRS, WISE Czech Republic,
Public Citizen Belgium, WISE Sweden,
Citizens’ Nuclear Information Center
(CNIC) and Laka Foundation
The next issue (625) will be mailed
out on 8 April 2005
WISE/NIRS Nuclear Monitor 624, 18 March 20054
Energy Minister Miroslav Sevlievski
visited the IMF delegation in Bulgaria
to get another supportive statement
for the project. This in spite of the fact
that neither the IAEA has any mandate
on energy policy, nor that the IMF has
any mandate to finance nuclear power.
Sevlievski’s ministry is expected to
come with a new proposal for a
decision on Belene after a court
hearing on the decision procedures,
filed by Ekoglasnost, WISE/NIRS and
Greenpeace on April 4th.
Several more court complaints have
been raised by different Bulgarian and
international organisations and
individuals on the validity of the
Environmental Impact Assessment
approval by the Ministry of
Environment in the last days of
December 2004. Complaints include
procedural questions as manipulations
of hearings, insufficient availability of
information and others, as well as
complaints concerning the content of
the EIA report and the Ministers
decision.
In an attempt to squelch the wave of
complaints, the authorities tried to
remove Greenpeace from the
procedure on far fetched formal
grounds, but a resulting appeal only
will add extra delays and most
probably re-installment of Greenpeace
as complainant.
Source and Contact: Jan Haverkamp,
WISE Czech Republic, Nad Borislavkou
58, CZ - 160 00 Praha 6, Czech Republic.
mobile: +420.603 569 243.
E-mail: jan.haverkamp@wisebrno.cz
SWEDEN: BARSEBÄCK SHUTDOWN
CONTESTED IN COURT
On 16th December last year the Swedish Government announced that the second and only remaining
reactor at Barsebäck (600 MW), across The Sound and only 20 km (13 miles) from Copenhagen, would
be closed by the end of May 2005. The first reactor at Barsebäck was shut down in November 1999.
(624.5668) WISE Sweden - Although
all of Denmark and many Swedes have
demanded closure of “BB2” for years,
the announcement came somewhat
unexpectedly. The Government has on
at least three earlier occasions said the
reactor would be closed within specified
time frames — but never followed
through (see also NM 617.5643:
Sweden: Barsebäck to shut down in
2005?). Barsebäck 2 (like its former
sister reactor) is among Sweden’s
oldest and smallest. It is also one of
the “dirtiest”.
The Government is empowered to take
the decision by the “Law on Nuclear
Phase-Out” (Lagen (1997:1320) om
kärnkraftsavveckling) from 1997. The
Parliamentary foundation is a tri-party
agreement on nuclear phase-out
between the ruling Social-Democrats,
the Left Party and non-socialist Center
in 1999, as renewed in October 2004.
Newly appointed Minister of
Sustainable Development Mona Sahlin
called the decision “an important step
in [Sweden’s] conversion to
environmental sustainability” and
recalled the national referendum of
1980, in which nearly 80 per cent
supported the idea of “putting an end
to the nuclear parenthesis”.
With the announcement Sweden
recessed into the holiday season. But
on 19th January, the Municipality of
Kävlinge, in which the Barsebäck
reactor is located, contested the
decision, filing a complaint with the
Supreme Administrative Court
(Regeringsrätten), which is charged to
oversee government policy.
The Swedish Environmental Code (in
accordance with EU law) requires that
any hazardous project or project that
may be expected to have environmental
impacts must be preceded by
an EIA (environmental impact
assessment). The decision to shut
down BB2 falls into the second
category, Kävlinge argues, inasmuch as
the 600-odd MW electricity that BB2
produces will have to be replaced,
most probably by Danish coal-fired
generators, they contend.
The Government had foreseen the
argument in its announcement last
December, which argued that no EIA
would be necessary, either on the part
of the state or the reactor owner:
“Current regulations require an EIA
only when an operator takes measures
that exceed the bounds of the
operator’s license. The license to
operate [the Barsebäck reactor]
provides for the discontinuation of
energy production for whatever
reason.”
The decision to shut down Barsebäck 1
was taken before the Environmental
Code took effect.
The Court ducks
The Court responded to Kävlinge’s
complaint March 1st. The response was
somewhat disappointing to all
concerned in that it skirted the
substance of the complaint, instead
dismissing the complaint on a
technicality. “Parties” in the sense of
the law (1997:1320) are individual
citizens or legal persons, the Court
ruled; a municipality cannot approach
the court under the law.
The Mayor of Kävlinge finds the ruling
remarkable in that the Municipality
would most definitely be a “party” in
the EIA proceedings under the
Environmental Code, had proceedings
been held.
Only days later the complaint was filed
again, this time by the mayor and two
other members of the municipal
council. Later in the week, several
residents of the community joined the
fray. The Court may in fact receive
dozens of complaints, as the
Municipality has urged the public to
file before the deadline, 16th March.
Should the Court once again find for
the Government, Kävlinge plans to
18 March 2005, WISE/NIRS Nuclear Monitor 624 5
appeal to the European Court of
Justice. The municipality is fighting for
its economic survival. In the words of
Mayor Roland Palmqvist: “Closing the
plant would mean that we lose a hightech
place of employment that
generates a lot of revenue. It means a
lot to the local economy.” Attracting
new investment to the site of a nuclear
plant under decommissioning might
indeed prove difficult.
Not a blink
In late February, the Swedish Radiation
Protection Authority (SSI) issued a
press release in which they emphasize
that safety regulations continue to
apply even after the decision to take
the reactor off line and into the
decommissioning phase.
Moreover, SSI will be particularly
attentive to the operator’s adherence
to regulations in coming months. The
authority has also asked the operator,
Barsebäckskraft AB (BKAB), a
subsidiary of Vattenfall and Sydkraft/
E.On, to submit its plan for
decommissioning the reactor no later
than 15th May.
New billions on their way?
On March 10, the Ministry of
Sustainable Development announced
the appointment of the Government’s
negotiator in the matter of compensation
to BKAB’s owners. The
agreement reached in 1999 concerning
BB1 resulted in the award of SEK 6
billion (US$906 million or 677 million
Euro in current rates) to Sydkraft and
Vattenfall. Although the ownership
structure has changed since then,
compensation for the second reactor
will be calculated according “the same
basic principles”, in the words of the
Ministry press release.
Sources: Ministry of Environment,
press release, 16 December 2004;
Swedish Radiation Protection
Authority, web news, 24 February 2005,
www.ssi.se ; Ministry of Sustainable
Development, press release, 10 March
2005; Sydsvenska Dagbladet, web
edition, 7 March 2005,
www.sydsvenskan.se ; REALTID.SE
(web news service, Spray), 7 March
2005.
Contact: Charly Hultén at WISE Sweden
MOBILIZATION AGAINST FOOD
IRRADIATION IN FRANCE
In France, March 5 was announced as a nation-wide campaigning day against food irradiation. Over
300 people gathered in front of the six food irradiation facilities based in the country to protest
against this dubious technology.
(624.5669) Public Citizen Belgium Food
irradiation is the process by
which food is exposed to high doses of
X-rays or gamma rays (produced by
Cobalt 60 or Cesium 137). Irradiation
kills bacteria and extends the shelf life
of food, but it also destroys vitamins
and creates new chemical compounds,
some of which are suspected to
promote cancer and to cause genetic
diseases.
In the EU, only dried herbs and spices
are allowed for irradiation, but some
states, including France, the Netherlands
and Belgium, have received
exemptions from this law for products
such as frog legs, onions, garlic,
shrimp, chicken, grains or even some
fruits and vegetables. Since 1999, all
irradiated food has to be labelled with
the phrase “Treated with ionization”.
However a report by the European
Commission has shown that, on over
5000 controlled food samples, 2.7%
were irradiated and yet unlabelled.
A wide range of organisations, from
farmers unions to consumer organizations
and environmental associations,
have joined to denounce food irradiation
and the lack of information
around it. The movement is engaged in
a nation-wide campaign which aims at
informing citizens and putting pressure
politicians to ban food irradiation.
We ask for comprehensive
enquiries on irradiated food sold in
France and for immediate removal of
all unlabelled irradiated food from the
market.
Consumers, when informed, are in the
great majority opposed to food
irradiation. After the mad cow and
foot and mouth diseases, people want
more than ever to know where their
food comes from and how it has been
active. Irradiation plant workers are
exposed to radiation hazards and
several have died or been exposed to
near-fatal doses at facilities throughout
the world. (e.g. El Salvador, Italy,
Norway, Israel). There have been
many incidents where waste has got
out of the facilities sometimes in the
trash, sewers or adjacent properties.
The dangers to the health of workers,
the public and the environment
posed by the use of radioactive
materials are many. Irradiation is
another unsafe, unnecessary element
in the nuclear fuel cycle.
FOE Melbourne Newsletter,
(southern hemisphere) summer
2005 and Laka-archives
Anti nuclear activists in Australia
held a Food Irradiation Tour in
Melbourne on Nov. 15. There were a
number of activities aimed at public
awareness about this technology.
Larger-than-life “fruit and vegetables”
handed out information leaflets; in
the afternoon meetings were
organized which had a fantastic turn
out and a speakers lunch took place.
While the focus of the tour and
campaign was on the effect of irradiation
on food, it is vital to remember
that food irradiation encourages the
proliferation of nuclear technology.
Cobalt-60 is manufactured in a
nuclear reactor and is highly radioFood
Irradiation Tour Melbourne
WISE/NIRS Nuclear Monitor 624, 18 March 20056
produced. This can only be achieved if
food is produced locally. Food irradiation
does the exact opposite. It is
meant to support mass food production,
a system where contamination
becomes the norm, thus requiring
decontamination through irradiation.
It supports the globalization of food
supply, that is the export of fresh food
from one part of the world where
labor is cheap and environmental
regulations low to another where it is
not considered “competitive” anymore
to produce food.
No wonder the number of irradiation
facilities in developing countries is
growing so fast, particularly in countries
like India, Brazil or Thailand
which export great amounts of food.
There is a strong feeling that this kind
of technology, just like genetic engineering,
benefits a handful of greedy
transnational companies to the
detriment of all citizens, workers and
consumers.
Mobilisation against food irradiation
already proved to be effective. In 2003
the inhabitants of Noiron sous Gevrey,
a small village near Dijon, strongly
opposed the opening of a new food
irradiation facility. As a result the
company, Isotron, finally removed its
project. The demonstrations on March
5 are an encouraging step in our
struggle.
Source and Contact: Morgan Ody,
Public Citizen. Rue de la Sablonnière
18, 1000 Bruxelles, Belgium.
Tel: +32-2-218 2242
Fax: +32-2-218 4509
“PUBLIC” HEARINGS BECOMING SECRET
SHAMS IN GEORGE BUSH’S AMERICA
One distinguishing feature of the U.S. nuclear regulatory scheme was that the public could take a meaningful
role in the licensing of nuclear facilities, and sometimes even in major operational changes that would require
license amendments that could trigger public hearings. Members of the public could challenge the issuance of
reactor licenses at the beginning of the process, before construction started, and they could also challenge the
quality of the construction and whether or not the completed reactor should be allowed to operate.
(624.5670) NIRS - These proceedings
were adversarial and offered the
participants legal protections and
rights, including the opportunity to
obtain necessary documents from the
license applicants and the Nuclear
Regulatory Commission (NRC) itself,
to make those documents public, and
to publicly cross-examine witnesses.
Despite this, it was an imperfect
process that was usually long and
expensive, rarely resulted in clear-cut
victories, and, with outgunned
grassroots groups normally going up
against both the utility applicant and
NRC staff, often resulted in frustration.
Still it was a real process, and
whatever the shortcomings, it often
served to expose critical information
about construction flaws, plans
utilities sought to keep secret, accident
consequences and more into the public
domain. Public hearings and other
legal actions played a major role in
ensuring that reactors like Shoreham,
Zimmer, Marble Hill and Midland
never operated or were cancelled
before completion.
And overseas, the NRC hearing process
was often used as a benchmark for
existing licensing procedures and paved
the way for greater transparency in
licensing processes in some countries.
The changes began in the late 1980s
when the nuclear power industry,
disgruntled with the public’s role in
the process and angered by revelations
of shoddy construction often revealed
by effective public involvement,
prevailed on the NRC to ban public
hearings after an initial construction
permit had been granted.
Then when Yankee Rowe, the first
reactor to go through the NRC’s relicensing
process, was permanently
closed instead of having its license
renewed the industry complained
again and NRC responded by declaring
almost all relevant safety issues
(including issues like where to put the
reactor’s radioactive waste) “generic” meaning
that they applied to all relicensing
decisions and thus could not
be brought up in any of them.
Next, NRC made it near impossible to
challenge the construction of dry casks
for high-level radioactive waste by
asserting that once it had approved a
cask design, no public hearings were
necessary.
Finally, after a small citizens group in
Louisiana successfully stopped the
proposed Louisiana Energy Services
(LES) uranium enrichment plant on
numerous grounds—such as the owner
not being financially qualified to build
or run the plant and overt
environmental racism—the NRC
overhauled its procedures to sharply
limit the public’s ability to use legal
protections such as discovery and
cross-examination in licensing matters.
Public Citizen and NIRS took the NRC
to court over this rule change and in
December 2004, while losing on the
issue of whether the NRC had the
authority to make the change, won
judicial language that such protections
must be used when necessary.
All of these moves took the NRC more
than a decade to institute, and
represent the erosion of public rights
and involvement that those not
directly involved have yet to grasp.
And, even so, NIRS, Public Citizen and
various regional and local grassroots
groups are currently involved in major
and expensive interventions against
three utilities seeking Early Site
Permits for new reactors and against
the latest incarnation of the LES
18 March 2005, WISE/NIRS Nuclear Monitor 624 7
project, in New Mexico (See also WISE/
NIRS Nuclear Monitor 614.5632 “New
Mexico: LES Licensing Hearings”).
In George W. Bush’s increasingly
paranoid, rigid and repressive
America, the enemy is not just made
up of phantom terrorists but also the
American people. The answer is to
“protect” the American people by
preventing us from obtaining
information about hazardous facilities
in our neighborhoods, by requiring
people seeking to participate in
“public” hearings to sign gag orders
(legal requirements that forbid people
from publicly disclosing “protected”
information used in “public” hearings)
to avoid the possible disclosure of any
information that might in any slight
way be helpful to “them”, and by
keeping secret anything that might
scare us into not accepting a new
nuclear facility.
The latest blow came in October, when
the television network NBC used
documents available on the NRC’s
website to walk, with cameras, into a
part of a medical facility that
contained a small amount of radioactive
material. Well if NBC can do
that, so could Osama Bin Laden! NRC
immediately shut down almost all
access to its website and to documents
about nuclear facilities in general.
Of course, such documents had been
publicly available for decades with no
apparent harm to the American reality
or psyche. It is hard to imagine that
either NBC or Osama would have been
able to actually leave the premises
with any radioactive material, or what
either could actually do with the
material other than contaminating
themselves.
But, as a pretext, it was perfect. Not
only could the NRC remove all access
to its information but when it began
reviewing the information available
and making it accessible again, the
result was “redacted” information - in
other words, NRC excluded everything
it prefers to keep hidden from the
prying public. Furthermore, NRC could
use the terrible threat of further
embarrassing exposure by television
networks (after all, posting an online
map of how to obtain radioactive
material was not ever a smart move) to
keep the public from ever learning
anything it decides is not in the public
interest, or, more precisely, not in the
nuclear industry’s interest.
As a solution to the thorny problem of
what to do about public hearings,
discovery of documents and more, the
NRC came up with a simple solution make
all that secret too! So, in
subsequent proceedings the NRC will
require that members of the public
sign “protective”, or gag, orders. If a
group involved in a license proceeding
sees a non-redacted version of a
document, usually essential to the
case, it cannot make that information
public, at risk of jail. If members of
the public attend a hearing where an
issue related to a “redacted” document
emerges, then the room is cleared.
How many people will attend hearings
if asked to leave every few minutes?
The original versions of NRC
documents are usually the relevant
ones whereas the “redacted” versions
rarely contain any useful information.
An additional ploy to discourage
public participation perhaps?
In the LES case currently being
pursued by NIRS/Public Citizen, all or
substantial sections of more than 60
documents have been declared offlimits
to the general public, including
the entire case file to the original LES
hearing, which ended in 1998 without
apparent threat to the American
heartland, but with a traumatic
outcome for LES in its license denial.
If these documents come up during the
public hearing, NIRS/Public Citizen
staff will have to leave the room since
we both refuse to sign “protective
orders” (although, to keep the case
going during appeals, our attorney and
experts have signed them).
These documents are not just about
security plans, advanced enrichment
technology and other matters that are
genuinely secret—as activists have
pointed out for decades, accepting
nuclear power means accepting a
national security state—there are
materials involved in most nuclear
projects that are, and should remain,
secret, no one disputes that.
But in the LES case for example, the
NRC withdrew its Draft Environmental
Impact Statement and substituted it
with a new version. The major
difference between the two? The new
version does not include the required
discussion on accident sequences and
the consequences for the local area.
Could terrorists really use such a
discussion to attack a facility?
Probably not, especially if there is
actual, rather than pretend, security at
the plant. If that is the case, it could be
argued that maybe the plant is too
dangerous to build. What is clear is
that the people who lose are the
residents of eastern New Mexico/West
Texas, who now cannot learn what this
facility to be built in their midst could
actually do to them.
LES is not the only example; nearly the
entire proceeding pitting the State of
Utah against the proposed Private Fuel
Storage high-level waste parking lot
was secret. So is the Blue Ridge
Environmental Defense League’s
challenge against the use of MOX fuel
in the Carolinas. The NRC recently
announced a new policy about access
to classified information for the
upcoming Yucca Mountain proceeding,
for which public interest groups have
demanded clarification, since it
appears that it is intended to prevent
public access to anything concerning
the Yucca proceeding that the
government would prefer to keep
under wraps.
And, given the current climate, any
challenges to nuclear facilities that
might prove effective or that might
reveal what the nuclear power industry
prefers to hide—that you are more
likely to be killed by their operations
than by terrorists—will become
increasingly impossible.
One rational response to the very real
possibility that terrorists, rogue
nations or other enemies of the hour
are targeting nuclear facilities would
WISE/NIRS Nuclear Monitor 624, 18 March 20058
be to close those facilities and find
better means of attaining the same
goals. But George W. Bush has already
announced his support for the
construction of dozens of new nuclear
reactors that would add new targets
across the country instead of reducing
the threat. Apparently effectively
addressing the security threat would
be too rational.
Instead, in George W. Bush’s America, a
compliant NRC and an aggressive
nuclear power industry, concerned
only with its own well-being, have
conspired to create a situation where
the American people will be left in the
dark, unable to challenge nuclear
facilities, unable even to learn what
the potential impacts of those facilities
are on their communities.
But not to worry, Big Brother knows
best, and Big Brother will keep all that
bad information away from the bad
guys. Unfortunately, it is the American
people who are the most affected
people in this real-life scenario. And
far from protecting us, this Big Brother
would make us even more vulnerable
to attack, from within and without.
What it won’t protect us from are those
who would make profits while making
us more insecure.
Source and contact: Michael Mariotte
at NIRS nirs@nirsnet.org
PROPOSALS FOR A MORATORIUM ON
REPROCESSING: THE CASE OF JAPAN
On 5 January IAEA Director Mohamed ElBaradei, proposed a five-year moratorium on constructing uranium
enrichment and nuclear reprocessing facilities. He envisages this freeze as being “until we have completed
our work on how we can have an international arrangement for the fuel cycle.” The moratorium proposal
represents a recognition of the inherent proliferation risk associated with the nuclear fuel cycle.
(624.5671) CNIC - The proposal to
internationalize uranium enrichment
and reprocessing is no doubt strongly
influenced by a belief that
governments would not agree to a
moratorium without the prospect of
an alternative supply of uranium
enrichment and reprocessing services.
It also flows from IAEA’s mandate to
promote the ‘peaceful use’ of nuclear
energy.
However, it is highly debatable
whether this is a valid approach. The
22 February report of the Expert Group
on Multilateral Approaches to the
Nuclear Fuel Cycle (commissioned by
ElBaradei) is very vague about whether
multilateral approaches would
actually reduce proliferation risks,
acknowledging proliferation risks for
all of the options that it canvasses.
The proposal for a moratorium and
for internationalization of the fuel
cycle come in the lead up to the NPT
Review Conference to be held in May.
There is a sense of crisis surrounding
the NPT. ElBaradei is to be
commended for trying to inject a new
sense of urgency into the negotiations.
However the internationalization idea,
born as it is of a belief in the
legitimacy of the ‘peaceful use’ of
nuclear energy, is likely to create more
problems that it solves. As it is, it
seems that the moratorium idea will
be dead on arrival at the NPT.
Several key countries have already
expressed their opposition to the
moratorium proposal. Their
objections relate to the view that it
would infringe on their “inalienable
right to…develop research, production
and use of nuclear energy for peaceful
purposes”(NPT Clause IV). Whether
this clause gives parties to the NPT an
inalienable right to have uranium
enrichment and reprocessing facilities
is debatable, but it is difficult to tell
some countries that they can’t
interpret it in this way, when other
countries have been allowed to do so.
Japan has notified the IAEA of its
opposition to the moratorium. Media
reports indicate that Japan is afraid
that it may have to suspend operation
of the Rokkasho Reprocessing Plant if
the freeze takes effect. Apparently
ElBaradei has suggested that Japan and
some other developed nations may
effectively be exempted from the
measure, saying it would be
introduced on a voluntary basis.
This would defeat the purpose of the
moratorium, since only countries with
no interest in developing fuel cycle
facilities would participate. Japan
might become more receptive to the
idea if it were told that it would
become a nuclear fuel cycle center for
North Asia, but even when Rokkasho is
operational Japan will still be unable
to cope with the spent fuel generated
by its own nuclear power plants, and it
is not even able to supply one third of
its own uranium enrichment
requirements.
Japan is already capable of producing
nuclear weapons at relatively short
notice. Rokkasho adds to this
capability and also sets a bad example
to other would-be proliferators. It
creates another level of discrimination
in the NPT framework.
The NPT already discriminates
between nuclear weapons states and
non nuclear weapons states. Now there
will also be discrimination among the
non-nuclear weapon states. Such a
regime is bound to create resentment
and fuel desires to acquire nuclear
weapons.
If the Rokkasho Reprocessing Plant
ever becomes operational, it will set a
bad precedent as the only large scale
reprocessing plant outside of the
nuclear weapons states. On the other
hand, if Japan heeds the calls for a
moratorium on new enrichment and
reprocessing plants, this would send a
18 March 2005, WISE/NIRS Nuclear Monitor 624 9
very good signal to other states that
are thinking of developing such
facilities. Japan could do the world a
great service by announcing at the NPT
Review Conference in May that it is
suspending developments at the
Rokkasho Reprocessing Plant. This
could be just the impetus that the nonproliferation
regime needs.
CNIC hopes that Rokkasho will not
escape attention at the NPT Review
Conference in May.
We are aware that a seminar is being
planned and that people from both
Japanese and non-Japanese NGOs will
attend. We are also aware that the
Japanese government is very sensitive
about this issue. We sincerely hope
that this seminar will be a great
embarrassment to them.
Source and Contact; Philip White,
International Liaison Officer, Citizens’
Nuclear Information Center, Tokyo,
Japan. http://cnic.jp/english/
IN BRIEF
to the public, let’s make sure they hear
from us anyway. People from outside
the U.S. are also encouraged to write.
This is a global issue!
Global Network Against Weapons &
Nuclear Power in Space,
globalnet@mindspring.com
Japanese Kepco admits negligence,
not fault, in fatal reactor pipe blast.
Kansai Electric Power Co. in Japan
admitted it failed to inspect a
secondary cooling pipe that ruptured
in August, killing five workers at its
Mihama nuclear plant, in a report
released by the utility on 1 March. But
the report stops short of saying Kepco
was responsible for the accident in
Fukui Prefecture, simply saying that
poor communications between
subcontractors and Kepco employees
was a contributing cause. The five who
were scalded to death and the six who
were injured as a result of the 9 August
accident at the No. 3 reactor were
employees of Nihon Arm Co., a Kepco
subsidiary. The report says Nihon Arm
and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd.,
which was in charge of inspecting
secondary cooling pipes at the reactor,
submitted to Kepco a checklist of
items to be inspected. But for reasons
that remain unclear, 42 items were
omitted. These omissions included the
pipe that ruptured. Antinuclear
activists say Kepco’s report is vague
about the utility’s role in the accident.
The Japan Times, 3 March 2005
Threats prevents exhibition by antinuclear
artist, sponsored by nuclear
utility. An exhibition of works by the
late Austrian artist and environmentalist
Friedensreich Hundertwasser in
Switzerland has been cancelled after
NASA’s next nuclear space mission.
The nuclear industry views space as a
new market and is feverishly working
to convince the global public that
launching nuclear power into space
will be safe. But rocket technology can
and does fail. Launches from the
Kennedy Space Center in Florida have
a 10-20% failure rate. In 1996 a Russian
Mars mission, carrying plutonium onboard,
failed to achieve proper orbit
and burned up as it reentered Earth
orbit, spreading deadly plutonium
over the mountains of Chile and
Bolivia. The plutonium production
process is also dangerous. Between
1994-1996, while fabricating the
plutonium radioisotope thermoelectric
generator (RTG’s) for the 1997
Cassini mission at Los Alamos Labs in
New Mexico, the DOE reported 244
cases of worker contamination.
In order to meet the growing demand
for plutonium for future space nuclear
missions, NASA is now planning to
expand plutonium production
facilities at the Idaho National
Laboratory. The next plutonium
mission set for launch is the New
Horizons mission to Pluto. New
Horizons will carry a RTG that
transforms heat from decaying
plutonium-238 into electricity to
power the spacecraft’s instruments.
The New Horizons mission is set to
launch from the space center in
Florida in January or February, 2006.
The Global Network will be organizing
opposition to this launch and your
help will be needed.
Please send your comments to NASA
(at osspluto@hq.nasa.gov ) by April 11
opposing the launch of nuclear power
on the New Horizons mission. Even
though NASA does not want to listen
Swiss organizer Lindemann received
threats. The exhibition of
Hundertwasser, a life-long outspoken
opponent of nuclear power, was
sponsored by Axpo, a Swiss electricity
group that also runs three nuclear
power stations.
A foundation set up by Hundertwasser
(who died in 2000 at the age of 72),
which says it has the moral rights over
his work, said in Austria that it had
not been consulted about the project
and had opposed it. “We cannot
tolerate that the name of Hundertwasser,
who was always engaged
against nuclear energy, should be
associated with a company that runs
nuclear power stations. It’s a violation
of his memory and his image,” a
spokesperson said.
According to a statement by Axpo, the
exhibition was meant to “put art in the
center and not to deal with the
controversy about nuclear power”.
But then, maybe, they should have
stayed far from it.
Statement Axpo, 9 March 2005; AFP,
9 March 2005
SMP missed MOX target; more
financial uncertanties. Admitting
to CORE (Cumbrians Opposed to a
Radioactive Environment) in
February that the active commissioning
of Sellafield MOX Plant’s
(SMP) MOX fuel assembly stage
had still not started, the company
has now confirmed that, because of
continuing problems, SMP is likely
to miss its target of producing 3
MOX fuel assemblies by March 31.
This target, already reduced from
12 to 3 assemblies, was set out in
BNFL’s much vaunted 2004/05 ‘Near
WISE/NIRS Nuclear Monitor 624, 18 March 200510
Term Work Plan’. This must have
serious implications for BNFL’s ability
to meet its next crucial target that
of producing and delivering
the 3 assemblies to Switzerland this
summer in time for the Swiss
power station Beznau’s annual outages
for refueling. If this is missed
(for the third year running) SMP
revenues to the Nuclear Decommissioning
Authority (NDA) will not
materialize and further MOX work
may have to be sub-contracted.
Despite having first introduced
plutonium into the plant some 39
months ago, SMP has still not
produced one single MOX fuel
assembly. The continuing failure
has already led to at least 4 orders
from overseas customers being subcontracted
to BNFL’s rivals. With
lost contracts and not a penny yet
earned, and with additional plant
modification expenses involved,
the total cost of SMP is estimated to
have rocketed to around £700M
(Euro 800M; US$1070M.)
The NDA has been counting on
MOX production and reprocessing
at THORP to provide revenues to
help pay for the costs of clean-up at
Sellafield.
Moreover, according to a newspaper
report, one German
customer, the Brokdorf nuclear
power station, is resisting payment
to BNFL of ‘storage fees’ because
BNFL had failed to meet its reprocessing
deadlines. The paper puts
the storage fees at £2772 per day
(Euro 3185, US$4260). Delays in
payment at this level must also
impact badly on revenues expected
by the NDA from reprocessing
contracts.
Brokdorf had contracted around 75
tonnes of spent fuel to be reprocessed
at THORP. With ‘flagship’
THORP running almost two years
behind schedule because of
accidents and breakdowns and
more recent problems with
vitrifying the liquid high level
wastes produced by the process, the
Brokdorf fuel will clearly not have
been reprocessed as originally
scheduled in year 2000.
CORE Briefing 5/05, 14 March
2005
NRC proposes rule change fire code.
The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission
is moving to amend its fire
protection regulations to allow reactor
operators to abandon requirements for
assuring electrical circuit integrity
necessary to shutdown the reactor core
from the control room in the event of
a fire. The move comes as a dangerous
retreat from the agency’s inability to
enforce the nuclear industry’s fire code
established as a result of the 1974
Brown’s Ferry fire. Instead of assuring
compliance for the required protection
of redundant power and control
circuits with qualified fire barriers,
sprinklers, smoke detectors and
minimum separation requirements
between redundant cable trays, NRC
would allow operators to instead send
an operator to remote sections of the
reactor to manually operate valves,
circuit breakers and other components
necessary to shut down the reactor.
The move increases the risk and
uncertainty associated with safely
shutting down the reactor in the event
of an accidental fire or act of
terrorism.
The Federal Register of March 7, 2005
printed the agency’s proposed rule
change and provides for public
comments to be submitted by May 23,
2005. If you are interested in
submitting comments in opposition to
NRC relaxation of fire protection standards
at nuclear power stations, please
contact NIRS (pgunter@nirs.org) for
supplemental information or send
your comments by email to
SECY@nrc.gov or by mail to the
Secretary, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory
Commission, Washington, DC 20555.
‘Simple’ typing error causes nuclear
scare in Sudan. A stenographer for the
US Congress generated alarming
headlines in the Sudanese press this
week by giving the mistaken
impression the United States
conducted nuclear tests in the African
country in 1962 and 1970. The
Sudanese government asked the US for
an explanation and began its own
investigations into a website report
that a subcommittee of the US House
of Representatives Armed Services
Committee had talked about the tests
in Sudan. On the website it said
something about a previously
undisclosed “Sudan” nuclear test,
which “displaced 12 million tons of
earth and dug a crater 320 feet deep”
with more than a 1,000-foot diameter.
However, it turned out that the word
Sudan was merely a typing error for
Sedan, the name of a nuclear test site
in Nevada.
Reuters, 11 March 2005, & The
Washington Post, 11 March 2005
ITER; fight about location goes on.
The European Union wants to start
building the ITER nuclear fusion
reactor by the end of 2005 with or
without an international agreement,
European Research Commissioner
Janez Potocnik said on March 7. The
EU wants to build the 10 billion euro
nuclear fusion reactor in Cadarache,
France, north of Marseille, but would
prefer to have all partners on board to
share the cost. Six partners are
involved in the quest to construct
ITER— the European Union, Japan,
China, the United States, Russia and
South Korea. The EU and Japan are
competing to have it built on their
territory. The United States and South
Korea support Japan’s offer to build
ITER in Rokkasho, in northern Japan,
while the EU, China and Russia back
the bid of Cadarache.
“I intend to pursue a six-party
agreement until the last possible
moment,” Potocnik said “I am at the
same time determined that the
solution including the highest possible
number of parties should be found
soon, that is in due time to allow
construction to start before the end of
this year.” On the same day, Research
Minister Francois Biltgen of
Luxembourg warned that an
agreement had to be reached by the
end of June, when his country’s
presidency of the rotating European
Union presidency ends.
18 March 2005, WISE/NIRS Nuclear Monitor 624 11
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WISE Austria
c/o Plattform gegen Atomgefahr
But Takahiro Hayashi, deputy director
of Japan’s Office of Fusion Energy,
said: “There is no change in our
position, We have been conducting
technical discussions at the working
level, and we believe the Japanese
proposal about the project is superior
to the EU proposal.”
Reuters, 8 March 2005; AFP, 8 March
2005
Pakistan admits nuke sales to Iran.
After years of denials, Pakistan
admitted on 10 March that its top
nuclear scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan
sold crucial equipment to Iran but said
it knew nothing of his activities when
they occurred and insisted he will not
be turned over to another country for
prosecution. The admission by the
Pakistani information minister was
the first public acknowledgement that
Khan provided Iran’s secret nuclear
program with centrifuges, a crucial
component needed to enrich uranium
and produce nuclear material for
warheads. According to the minister
Khan helped Iran in his personal
capacity. On 14 March Pakistan denied
reports it was to send used centrifuge
parts to the UN atomic agency (IAEA)
to trace the origin of highly enriched
uranium contamination found in Iran.
The centrifuge parts would have been
compared with centrifuge components
Khan sold to Iran. The IAEA is
investigating contamination by
microscopic particles of highly
enriched uranium found in Iran at a
workshop in Tehran, at a pilot
enrichment plant at Natanz and at
other sites where there were
centrifuges.
The Associated Press, 11 March 2005,
Agence France Presse, 14 March 2005
Massive anti-nuclear demonstration
on May 1. On Monday, March 14, an
international group of walkers began a
7-week pilgrimage from the gates of
the Y-12 Nuclear Weapons Plant in Oak
Ridge, Tenn., to New York City. In New
York on May 1 the Nuclear
Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) Review
Conference at the UNHeadquarters (2-
27 May) will take place. Walkers from
Australia, the U.S., Japan, and England
express outrage at the ongoing
violations to the NPT and to assert
their conviction that the maintenance
and production of nuclear weapons
undermines international community
and world peace. The walk will
culminate in a massive demonstration
in Central Park in New York City on
Sunday May 1 to demand total and
immediate nuclear disarmament.
For a list of events during the NPT
conference, see
www.reachingcriticalwill.org/
legal/npt/RevConEvents.html
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The Nuclear Information & Resource Service
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