Nuclear Age Peace Foundation

Category: Nuclear Waste

  • Radioactive Reservation: The Uphill Battle to Keep Nuclear Waste Off Native American Land

    Nuclear waste is not just an issue for those who live near a nuclear reactor or waste site. It is an issue that in time – due to deadly, toxic waste that will remain harmful for thousands of years – will have adverse affects on the entire world. However, the reality within the United States is that one group has been disproportionately affected by waste policies since the inception of the US nuclear program – the Native American population. In the quest to dispose of nuclear waste, the government and private companies have disregarded and broken treaties, blurred the definition of Native American sovereignty, and directly engaged in a form of economic racism akin to bribery.

    Many people consider treaties between Native American tribes and the United States government to be a topic reserved for history books, yet few realize how hard many Native American tribes are still battling over treaty rights being denied to them. The nuclear waste storage issue has become the most recent excuse for the government to breach treaties made with Native American tribes and perhaps the most well known example is the proposed waste storage site at Yucca Mountain. The planned nuclear waste dump site lies on sacred land to which the Shoshone people have rights based on the Treaty of Ruby Valley. The Western Shoshone Tribe has sued the government, but with little success in halting the plans for the permanent storage of 77,000 metric tons of nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain. The government has attempted to offer the Shoshone monetary compensation for the use of their land as a radioactive dump. However, the Shoshone people have refused the bribe and they continue to reiterate that they would rather have their land nuclear free than money in their pockets and their land desecrated beyond repair.

    The issue of nuclear waste has played a key role in obscuring the definition of Native American sovereignty. Although sovereignty is a simple concept, contradictory government policies have skewed its definition and made it a sticky subject for even the politically astute to comprehend. By turning their nose up at treaties and claiming Native American land as their property for nuclear testing and radioactive waste dumping, the government has blown gaping holes into Native American sovereignty rights. Sadly, the government’s view on sovereignty is that “.an Indian Tribe is sovereign to the extent that the Untied States permits it to be sovereign.” (United States v. Blackfeet Tribe, 1973). No Native American nation can be a truly autonomous entity if the United States government can choose when they wish to give them sovereignty.

    In the late 1980s, the United States government seemed to make a complete 180 degree turn when it began to support the idea of Native American sovereignty, but the goal was still the same: to place nuclear waste storage sites on Native American lands. The Department of Energy appealed to native tribes to host temporary nuclear storage sites on their land, mostly based on the fact that restrictions placed on such sites are not as strict on reservations because of their sovereign status. In the words of the Grace Thorpe, an activist against the dumping of nuclear waste on native reservations and a member of the Sac and Fox tribe, “The real irony is that after years of trying to destroy it, the United States is promoting Indian national sovereignty — just so they can dump their waste on Native land.”

    The broken treaties and the confusion injected into the issue of Native American sovereignty are disturbing to be sure. However, the most disturbing aspect of United States nuclear waste policy is the blatant economic racism this policy exhibits. As a whole, Native Americans are the most poverty stricken ethnic group in the United States. On average, 23 percent of Native American families live in poverty, which is almost double that of the national poverty rate of families at 12 percent. Nuclear utility companies and the United States government take advantage of the overwhelming level of poverty on native reservations by offering them millions of dollars to host nuclear waste storage sites.

    No matter how pretty a picture the government paints about their “benevolent” efforts to improve the economic development of the reservations, this policy is virtually a bribe to try to coerce Native tribes into taking nuclear waste out of the hands of the government. An example of this occurred in 1989; Waste Tech Incorporated approached a small Navajo community with an offer to provide 175 jobs, a hospital, and a minimum of $100,000. In exchange, the community would allow Waste Tech to put a toxic waste incinerator and a dump to bury the dangerous toxic ash on their land. At the time, the tribe had a 72 percent unemployment rate. The tribe was targeted by this company because of their poor economic condition. The government itself has almost exactly copied this tactic and solicited Native American tribes with a reservation to host a waste site.

    Yucca Mountain is just one more example to add to the list of the United States government’s existing nuclear waste policies that are transparently racist, violate long-standing Native American treaty rights and disregard Native American sovereignty or use it for their own ends. Millions of dollars are being spent to bribe a minority portion of the population to take stewardship of the majority’s nuclear waste. Is this the best method the United States government can devise to deal with the issue of nuclear waste? Or is it just the simplest option available to the government with the least public visibility? With the billions of dollars spent each year on nuclear weapons and power plants, wouldn’t a more feasible option be to, first and foremost, stop producing new nuclear waste and redirect some of this money to solving the ever growing problem of nuclear waste? Since its formation, the United States government has subjugated and subdued Native Americans, and it is time to reverse this trend, beginning with the government’s policies on nuclear waste.

    Bayley Lopez is a Lena Chang Intern at the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation and currently a sophomore at Stanford University. This Article expresses her point of view as a person of Native American descent; it does not express the opinion of all native Peoples.

  • The Museum of Attempted Suicide

    An enormous Mosler bank vault sits abandoned and forgotten on the dry lake bed of Frenchman Flat. It is ugly, and rusting, a big cookie jar from Hell — yet it is in some sense America’s greatest monument to hope and clear thinking.

    That giant safe at the Nevada Test Site is a relic of an Atomic Energy Commission experiment in 1957 (“Response of Protective Vaults to Blast Loading”). Filled with stocks and bonds, gold and silver, cash and insurance policies, it confirmed that our official valuables, contracts and financial instruments, could survive nuclear war. The test must have seemed like a good idea at the time, a masterpiece of steel-and-concrete realpolitik. After all, safes had tested well — quite by accident — at Hiroshima in 1945, when four Mosler vaults in the basement of the Teikoku Bank near Ground Zero were discovered in the ruins with their contents miraculously intact. In fact, American troops entering Hiroshima some weeks after the bombing, reported hundreds of small safes resting in the city’s ashes.

    Today at the Nevada Site all that remains of the vault’s reinforced concrete “bank building,” itself specially constructed for the test, are a few shards of blasted concrete and a tangle of rusting, arm-thick steel reinforcing rod, swept back like so many cat’s whiskers in the wind.

    Just before dawn on June 24 1957, a 37-kiloton fission bomb, code-named “Priscilla,” was suspended from a helium balloon about half a mile from where the big safe stands. In the path of Priscilla’s shock wave the Atomic Energy Commission had built its own tiny twentieth century city. Priscilla rocked that mini-civilization in southern Nevada with twice the explosive force of the bomb that leveled Hiroshima. Its flash — far brighter than the sun — was reflected back off the moon, and soldiers covering their eyes in trenches two miles away claim they were able to see the bones in their hands.

    Domed shelters of 2-inch thick aluminum alloy were flattened like so many soda pop cans stamped flat on a job site. The shock wave hammered reinforced concrete shelters, industrial buildings, cars in an underground parking garage, community shelters, a railroad trestle, a 55-ton diesel locomotive, parked airplanes, dummies in Russian and Chinese protective clothing, and a man-made pine forest rooted in concrete on the desert floor. Anesthetized Cheshire pigs in little protective suits were roasted alive in Priscilla’s thermal pulse. We’ll never know for sure but Priscilla’s heat, like that of the Hiroshima bomb, must have instantly incinerated unsuspecting ravens in mid-flight. Later that morning, the fallout cloud drifted eastward, where in the months to come it mingled with residual radioactive products from other atmospheric tests and eventually dispersed around the globe. Today, anyone in the world born after 1957 carries in his or her bones at least a few atoms of Strontium-90 fallout from Priscilla.

    In 1957, at about the moment that human self-extinction first became possible, many policy-makers already believed all-out nuclear war with the Soviets to be an inevitability. In fact, some of those planning the Priscilla shot, and assumedly curious to discover whether our stock and insurance certificates could survive it, must have known that full-scale nuclear war could theoretically end all life on earth. That year, hardly a decade after the atomic bomb had been but an exotic laboratory device, it was already a commodity; Priscilla was just one of 6,744 nuclear weapons in the U.S. stockpile. (The Soviets had 660.)

    Here at Frenchman Flat we rehearsed our failed attempt at global suicide. It would have been a grand, charismatic gesture, spectacular pornography — the human species going out with a great bang, nothing dreary and plodding like AIDS or global climate change. It would have been visible throughout the solar system; and as Priscilla did indeed show, our valuables, safely locked away, would indeed have survived us.

    The Nevada Test Site, a particularly desolate thousand square miles of the Great Basin, was chosen in 1951 for our nuclear tests partly because it’s ringed by low mountains, naturally shielded from the prying eyes of the outside world. Today, if you stand amid the charmless wreckage at Frenchman Flat, another thing is clear: It is also impossible to see out of the basin; the place is disconnected from the rest of Nevada, from America, from civilization itself. It is a lifeless, humorless, Planet of the Apes location. These could have been the ruins of a future we stopped in its tracks — the ruins of Las Vegas, Vienna, or Tokyo, your town or my town, bombed back to the Stone Age.

    Today, as we sweat over whether North Korea has four bombs or six, or whether Iran has any at all, remember that in 1957, only 12 years after the Trinity test, the United States was manufacturing ten nuclear bombs per day, 3000 fission and fusion bombs every year. The largest in our ’57 arsenal was the 5-megaton Mark 21, powerful enough to flatten 400 Hiroshimas (or Fallujas or Oaklands) at a pop.

    Filling that vault with stocks and bonds in 1957 now seems a surreal gesture of hope, a vain defense against a future that never happened: Imagine the survivors — a hairless, sterilized post-nuclear Adam and Eve, dry heaving (like the radioactive feral dogs that roamed the deserted streets of Chernobyl) — crawling toward the bank vault in their bloody rags, trying to remember the combination, praying for their Chrysler stock, or grandpa’s gold watch, or their Prudential personal liability policies.

    Or imagine another future, one in which no humans remain to open the vault. This is the Twelve Monkeys future in which the global suicide only rehearsed at the Nevada Test Site in 1957 actually succeeds and no one mops up the radioactive slop or collects the insurance — with only ants and cockroaches left to puzzle over a warm, blasted vault on the radioactive sands of what was once Nevada.

    But cooler heads prevailed. Someone drifting off on a 47-year nap in 1957, when nuclear war seemed inevitable, might wake today startled to find that those crimes against the future have so far been held at bay. Our nuclear arsenal peaked at 30,000 weapons in 1966, and has stood at about 10,000 for the past five years. We have — so far — spared ourselves that future, mainly because of the hard work and clear thinking of two generations of leaders who understood what the wreckage at Frenchman Flat meant. Give them credit. Give credit to Dwight D. Eisenhower and Henry Cabot Lodge for introducing a plan for nuclear disarmament in 1957, only weeks after the Priscilla shot; and give credit to JFK for the Atmospheric Test Ban Treaty; to Richard Nixon for the SALT and ABM treaties; to Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush and Mikhail Gorbachev for negotiating START I and START II. Give credit to Carter and Ford for signing strategic arms limitation agreements with Brezhnev. Give credit to thousands of dissident scientists, activists and ordinary citizens whose relentless pressure helped tip the balance away from madness. Above all, give credit to hundreds of clear thinking selfless men and women in the U.S. and Russia who recognized a slippery slope to Hell when they saw one, and were willing to do the hard work of negotiation and compromise.

    The insects and sagebrush have returned to the silent desert at the Nevada Test Site, and ravens once again circle above the vault. But the nuclear dog sleeps with one eye open. Weapons far larger than Priscilla are on alert today, no more anachronistic than rifles or anthrax. Twenty miles north of Frenchman Flat, the tower for “Ice Cap,” a shot put on hold in ’92 when George Herbert Walker Bush suspended American nuclear testing, still stands patiently ready to receive its bomb. As mandated in George W. Bush’s current “Nuclear Posture Review,” the Nevada Test Site is today in the process of ramping up its “ready status” from 2 years to 18 months.

    Meanwhile, the United States and 70 other nations maintain thousands of deeply buried, hardened underground bunkers for their top military and civilian officials, a defense against future nuclear war. This is the Frenchman Flat vault scenario writ large. And just in case — after withdrawing support for the ABM treaty — the Bush administration is aggressively pursuing the development of “usable bunker busters,” the first new generation of nuclear weapons since the Cold War. On the grounds of the Nevada Test Site, five miles west of the bank vault, stands the just finished $100,000,000 Device Assembly Facility, poised for either the disassembly of weapons from our stockpile, or for the assembly of new weapons.

    In these edgy times, when the possibility of nuclear war seems a thing of the past, a visit to Frenchman Flat should be a requirement for holding public office in America. To stand amid the rusty junk, amid the ruins of a ghastly future that was turned back — deliberately and methodically turned back by statesmen — is to reach a deep understanding of what is possible. This is the bone yard of a very bad idea, recognized for what it was.

    Jon Else is a documentary cinematographer and director whose films include ‘ Cadillac Desert ‘, ‘ Sing Faster ‘, and ‘ The Day After Trinity ‘. He teaches in the Graduate School of Journalism at the University of California, Berkeley. Earlier this year, for a new film about nuclear weapons, he spent several days working at the Nevada Test Site and so visited, not for the first time, the vault at Frenchman Flat.

    Published on Friday, August 13, 2004 by TomDispatch.com

  • One-on-One with Kristen Morrison

    Recently, Kristen Morrison, a senior at UCSB and Renewable Energy Coordinator with us here at the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, addressed the Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors asking them to block any and all shipments of spent nuclear fuel and radioactive waste traveling through Santa Barbara County on its way to Yucca Mountain in Nevada. Compressed within Kristen’s 20 minutes of comments to the county Board of Supervisors were 1 year of volunteering with the Foundation, a number of leadership trainings, coursework on environmental issues as well as the echoing encouragement and support from family and friends. Ultimately, the county Board of Supervisors agreed with Kristen and the other concerned citizens working on this important issue, voting unanimously to oppose the Department of Energy’s plans to ship toxic waste through the county. I spoke with Kristen about her project:

    Why do you feel this issue is important?

    Currently nuclear energy produces 20% of our nation’s power. When it was first established back in the 50’s it was thought to be clean, safe, and cheap. Today nuclear energy has proven to be the opposite. After billions of dollars in research, and an endless supply of lethal radioactive waste it is safe to say the nuclear energy has only proven to be expensive, dirty and dangerous. Therefore we feel it is important to educate the public about the reality of nuclear energy and instead work toward a future of renewable energy. Yucca Mountain is proposed to be the US’s first nuclear waste repository, which will inevitably perpetuate the nuclear power industry. 77,000 tons of radioactive waste is scheduled to be shipped from over one hundred reactors across the country. Therefore if we are able to block waste transportation the Yucca Mountain project will be shut down and ultimately lead to the halt of nuclear energy production.

    Why did you feel it was necessary to speak with the County Board of Supervisors about toxic waste transportation?

    There are many channels of communication that will get our message across. Legislation is an important part of progressive social change. The Board of Supervisors is the governing body in the county with the legal voice to speak to higher legislative bodies of our government. Addressing the Board of Supervisors represented a key stage in our escalation plan and general campaign efforts.

    How did you start your campaign called “Don’t Waste Santa Barbara”?

    I started this campaign last summer with another UCSB student named Marissa Zubia. At the time, she was the Renewable Energy Coordinator and I was a volunteer here at the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation. Frequently, the Foundation hosts speakers on peace and security issues and other pressing concerns of our time. Through this speaker series, Marissa and I met a local activist named Dave Fortson with the Santa Barbara County Action Network. Dave shared his thoughts on the importance of young people getting involved in the community for the betterment of society. Combined with all the positive energy that’s already here at the Foundation, Dave’s charisma and devotion sparked our interest and the next thing I knew Marissa and I were dreaming up all the ways we could make a difference. We both were interested in the same issues of environmental justice and ecological consciousness so we came up with the campaign idea “Don’t Waste Santa Barbara”, which serves to educate the people of Santa Barbara on dangers of high level radio active waste transportation through our city. We drafted a county resolution to oppose the transportation of high level radioactive waste through Santa Barbara County. It took us about 3 months to get on the Board of Supervisor’s agenda, but after many phone calls, research, and writing we were finally in.

    Were there any unexpected setbacks or obstacles along the way?

    Absolutely! There were many challenges and hurdles that made us both second guess what we were doing, and more than once we had to remind one another how important even the smallest contribution is to making a difference. Even though our work is merely a drop in the bucket, it is that drop that will become part of a very large flow moving toward a better world. Another wonderful aspect which encouraged us the whole way through was having a good time. We laughed a lot and became good friends.

    How did you prepare?

    We hosted an educational forum with four expert speakers, discussing the dangers of nuclear waste storage and transportation. We met regularly with our mentors and project board members, strategizing ways to get our message across. We contacted Santa Barbara city council members who encouraged us to write a county resolution opposing nuclear waste. District Supervisor, Gail Marshall, endorsed our resolution and the next thing we knew we were on the agenda to present it to the entire county.

    Can others take what you did in Santa Barbara and do it where they live?

    Being proactive in the community is essential everywhere, whether rich or poor, small or large. I was surprised by the positive response that I received as a student standing up for what I believe in and speaking out. A lot of times, we as young people get the message that society doesn’t want to hear from us and won’t respect what we have to say, but it is hard for them not to respect you when you research your issue and develop a convincing, passionate argument.

    Can they really stop the shipments or is this more of a symbolic victory?

    The resolution serves as the county’s declaration to stop the waste. It is not law; however, if enough communities across the nation create the same resolution the government would be forced to recognize the people’s will and thus it could be turned into a law.

    What is next for you?

    We would like to expand our campaign to the state level. For example, we’re researching whether other counties in California, if any, are pushing on the same issues. We may then work with them to form a statewide alliance

    Congratulations and good luck, Kristen!

    Are you a young person organizing for change in your community? Do you have a success story that you would like to share? We want to hear from you! Send us your success story. Write me at youth@napf.org.

  • What Does the US Department of Energy Have In Store For the Yucca Mountain National Nuclear Waste Repository?

    2002: The Department of Energy continues work on unresolved scientific issues as it prepares an application for a construction permit that will be submitted to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC).

    2003: The Department of Energy completes a detailed transportation plan, working with 45 states on routing and security, and with the NRC on waste canister designs and safeguards.

    2003: Courts expected to rule on the first of five lawsuits already filed by the state of Nevada challenging the Yucca Mountain project.

    2004: The Department of Energy plans to apply for a construction permit. The NRC licensing process is expected to take three to four years.

    2007: Construction of the Yucca Mountain National Nuclear Waste Repository expected to begin.

    2010-2034: 3,200 tons of highly radioactive waste per year will be shipped by rail, truck and barge to the Yucca Mountain site. The site’s initial capacity is 77,000 tons of waste. However, with congressional approval the site could be expanded to hold up to 120,000 tons, to be filled by 2048.

    2035 and beyond: The Yucca Mountain site is expected to remain open for 100 to 300 years, after which it would be shut in.

    source: US Department of Energy

     

  • Yucca Mountain: A Salient Solution?

    In the push to open a national nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain, Nevada, the nuclear power industry claims that it is better to consolidate the nation’s waste at one site, rather than leave it at nuclear reactors across the country. Yucca Mountain is initially planned to hold 77,000 metric tons of nuclear waste, with possible expansion in the future. Although there is intense earthquake and volcanic activity at the site, risks of transporting the highly radioactive wastes cross-country, as well as the proposed dump’s rising costs, the decision to locate the national nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain is based on providing welfare to the nuclear lobby and the utilities that operate nuclear power plants.

    The Yucca Mountain proposal entails transporting highly radioactive waste from temporary storage sites in 45 states by train, truck and barge routes that come within miles of some 50,000,000 people. If you would like to see how close the proposed shipments come to your own residence, visithttp://www.mapscience.org. In the past 25 years alone, over 600 earthquakes of 2.5 or greater on the Richter Scale have struck within 50 miles of Yucca Mountain. In 1992, a 5.6 quake cracked walls, shattered windows, and caused some one million dollars in damage to the Department of Energy (DoE) field office studying the site. A 1999 quake derailed a train on a railway that could be used to haul nuclear waste to Yucca Mountain. The most recent earthquake registered a magnitude of 4.4 on June 14th, 2002.

    Even if Yucca Mountain opens, high-level nuclear waste will remain at every operating reactor site (unless the industry plans to permanently close its reactors-an unlikely scenario), including in California. According to the Department of Energy’s Environmental Impact Statement, there currently are 2,040 metric tons of lethal high-level radioactive waste in California. Following a 38-year waste shipment program, which would include anywhere from 13,690 shipments (if primarily by rail) to 14,479 shipments (if primarily by road) in California, we still would have 1,681 metric tons of this waste within our borders! This is because Yucca Mountain is limited, by law, in how much waste can be placed there.

    Clearly, Yucca Mountain would not solve the nation’s radioactive waste problem, it would just spread it across our highways and railways. The Senate, which is expected to vote on this issue in the next week, should reject the earthquake-prone Yucca project and begin working on a real solution to nuclear waste. The best alternative to Yucca Mountain is to stop making nuclear waste and to convert existing waste into dry cask storage to be maintained in the interim at reactor sites. While nuclear waste already exists, creating more nuclear waste without having a safe or scientifically credible means of disposal is simply irresponsible.

    What can you do?

    Write a letter or call your Senator and urge them to oppose the nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain. The vote is expected to take place on 9 July, so your urgent action is needed now!

    To find your Senator, call the congressional switchboard or visit the following websites to locate contact information. You can also find local district contract information in the government pages of your phone book.

    Congressional Switchboard is 202-225-3121

    Senators:
    http://www.senate.gov/contacting/index.cfm

    Resources

    How close are YOU to proposed Yucca high level nuke waste transportation routes & the closest nuke reactor? Find out at http://www.mapscience.org

    Nuclear Information and Resource Service http://www.nirs.org

    Public Citizen http://www.publiccitizen.org/atomicroad

     

  • Bush Administration Stops One Dirty Bomber, But Targets US Cities With Largest Dirty Bomb Program in History

    While Attorney General Ashcroft announced the capture of an alleged al Qaeda operative intending to make a radioactive “dirty bomb,” the Bush Administration has given the rubber stamp for thousands of potential dirty bombs to move across the United States to a leaky dump at Yucca Mountain. A national nuclear dump in Nevada, located far from the sites of waste generation would result in millions of shipping miles of high-level nuclear waste – the most concentrated nuclear material on the planet. The routes (barge, rail and truck) would be general commerce routes that link trade centers. Major US cities in 43 states are in the cross hairs for Yucca shipments, which in the current era, could well become dirty bombs if exploded in transit.

    The radioactivity in these containers-primarily from commercial nuclear power–dwarfs the amount of persistent radioactivity released by nuclear weapons. Indeed, each truck cask contains the radiological equivalent of 40 times the persistent radioactivity released by the bomb that destroyed Hiroshima. A rail shipment contains as much as 240 times more than released at Hiroshima. While shipping containers are touted as robust, the US Department of Energy’s own tests have shown that rocket launchers that are for retail sale in many countries around the world are capable of penetrating a shipping cask, releasing deadly amounts of radioactivity.

    “The Yucca Mountain nuclear waste shipments would travel through thousands of communities and each and every one of them will be a rolling risk of terror. Here in DC the rail route travels through tunnels nearly under the US Capitol. How can the US Senate stand by and allow this program to go forward?” asked Mary Olson, Director of the Southeast Office of Nuclear Information and Resource Service. “My home in Asheville, NC is at the cross roads of three major nuclear waste routes so we call it the ‘Atomic Crossroads’ — but so is Albuquerque, Atlanta, Indianapolis, St Louis, Chicago, Lansing and hundreds of other US cities.”

    The US Senate will make the crucial decision about Yucca, likely in the next few weeks. The State of Nevada has vetoed President Bush’s approval of this flawed scheme. Congress has the opportunity to uphold or override Nevada’s veto. The US House has sided with Bush. “The senators in states with nuclear reactors should be clear that they are not getting rid of all the nuclear waste, Yucca just makes room for new waste to be made, and converts their cities and states to potential terrorist target ranges,” said Kevin Kamps, Nuclear Waste Specialist at NIRS.

    Up to 100,000 shipments over 30 years are projected depending on how much is moved by truck, barge or rail. “Providing security over a 30 year period for tens of thousands of moving targets is not realistic” Kamps continued. “These shipments will be no secret; the containers are so large that it would be practically like trying to hit a barn if a terrorist decided to shoot at one! Putting dirty bombs on the rivers, roads and rails through our cities will NOT increase our security; Yucca Mountain is the exact wrong plan.”

    Senate action on Yucca Mountain is expected in the coming weeks.
    -NIRS-

  • Turning the Tide: The need for a Pacific Solution to Aid Conditionality

    Greenpeace Pacific, Suva, June 2002

    Excerpted from Teresia K. Teaiwa, Sandra Tarte, Nic Maclellan and Maureen Penjueli

    Chapter Two: THE NUCLEAR SUPERHIGHWAY
    Japanese aid and the transhipment of radioactive materials through the Pacific
    By Nic Maclellan

    Japan is a major donor of Overseas Development Assistance (ODA) to Pacific island nations, doubling its aid to the region between 1987 and 1995. By 1999, Japan was the largest bilateral aid donor to Tonga, Vanuatu, Samoa and the Solomon Islands, and the second largest donor to Fiji, Papua New Guinea, the Marshall Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, Kiribati, Palau, Nauru and Tuvalu (1). Since 1991, Japan has participated in OECD donor coordination meetings with Australia, New Zealand, the United States, the United Kingdom, France, the European Union, the United Nations, the Asian Development Bank and the World Bank, as OECD countries contributed over US$7.7 billion in aid to the region in 1995-9. In spite of this, only about two per cent of overall Japanese ODA – about $138 million a year – goes to the South Pacific, and there have been reports that aid to island countries will be reduced if current plans to slash the ODA budget are implemented (2).

    Since 1989, Japan has been a post-Forum dialogue partner with the Pacific Islands Forum (formerly the South Pacific Forum) – the sixteen-member body that links Australia, New Zealand and the independent island nations. For some years, Japan has been the third largest contributor to Forum Secretariat activities, after Australia and New Zealand. Between 1988 and 2000, Japan contributed US$6.7 million to the Secretariat, with the latest grant in 2001 amounting to US$401,000. Forum Secretary General Mr. Noel Levi CBE notes: “Japan’s financial support, through extra-budgetary funding, has been fundamental to the implementation of our key programs.”(3)

    Japan also contributes funds to other regional inter-governmental organisations, such as the South Pacific Regional Environment Program (SPREP) and the Forum Fisheries Agency (FFA).

    Japan’s aid program and diplomatic efforts support broader national interests, as noted by Japan’s Fisheries Minister in July 2001: “Japan does not have a military power, unlike US and Australia … Japanese means is simply diplomatic communication and ODA. So, in order to get appreciation of Japan’s position, of course that is natural that we must do, result on those two major truths (sic) (4).” As mentioned in Chapter One, Japan is seeking the support of the growing islands’ bloc at the United Nations, in its efforts to secure a permanent seat on the UN Security Council. Japan also seeks ongoing access to Pacific fisheries and forest resources. Japanese corporations are interested in rights to the island nations’ undersea mineral wealth in the 200-mile exclusive economic zones (EEZs) – signing an agreement in February, 2000 for deep ocean mineral exploration in EEZs around the Cook Islands, Fiji and the Marshall Islands.

    Close diplomatic and development ties throughout the 1990s have not ended island concern over environmental and resource issues involving Japanese corporations, including whaling, tuna and the transhipment of plutonium, MOX fuel and high-level radioactive wastes through the Pacific. In 2000, Japan offered to establish a US$10 million “goodwill” trust fund for Forum Island countries to address concerns over a possible fire, sinking, collision or accident involving nuclear materials. The issue is subject to ongoing negotiations between the Pacific Islands Forum and the nuclear nations involved in reprocessing Japanese spent nuclear wastes.

    Japan and nuclear energy

    Japan has a large nuclear power industry, and arranges for its spent nuclear fuel to be reprocessed at the British reprocessing plant at Sellafield and the French reprocessing plant at La Hague. (Reprocessing involves chemically separating uranium and plutonium from used nuclear fuel, in order to reuse the plutonium). The reprocessing companies – COGEMA in France and British Nuclear Fuels Ltd (BNFL) in Britain – are government owned and controlled, while ten Japanese energy corporations make up the Overseas Reprocessing Committee (ORC). These three companies own the British-based shipping firm, Pacific Nuclear Transport LTD (PNTL), which carries nuclear wastes by sea on vessels such as Pacific Pintail and Pacific Teal.

    Japan started transhipment of nuclear wastes to Europe back in 1969, but the program escalated in the 1990s as it attempted to develop a plutonium-fuelled fast breeder reactor. In coming years, Japanese nuclear corporations plan to ship 600 tonnes of spent fuel to France. After reprocessing, the separated plutonium and high level radioactive wastes are scheduled to be shipped back to Japan, because supply nations vetoed the use of aircraft for safety reasons. Depending on the route, the ships pass through the EEZs of Pacific or Caribbean island nations.

    Japan maintains massive stockpiles of separated plutonium in Europe (20.6 tonnes in France and 6.9 tonnes in Britain, as of late 2000). Japanese corporations Mitsubishi, Toshiba, Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) and Kansai Electric Power Company (KEPCO) hope to bring these stockpiles of weapons-usable plutonium from Europe to Japan by the year 2010. Shipping radioactive wastes back and forth across the oceans allows Japan’s nuclear industry to avoid responsibility for the build-up of nuclear pollution in Japan, as there is no viable method for the long-term storage of high-level nuclear wastes.

    A shipment of plutonium from Europe to Japan in 1992 aboard the Akatsuki Maru brought international condemnation, culminating when the United States government ordered Japan to send an armed escort vessel with the plutonium transport ship (5). The Akatsuki Maru, carrying a tonne of plutonium, passed between Australia and New Zealand, and then through the waters of Pacific island nations, including the Solomon Islands, New Caledonia, Vanuatu, and the Federated States of Micronesia.

    Because of concerns after the Akatsuki Maru shipment and public opposition to the use of plutonium in Japan, reprocessed materials are now transported as mixed plutonium/uranium oxide (MOX) fuel, to be burnt in light water nuclear reactors. Many Japanese citizens are opposed to Japan’s plutonium economy, because of concerns over nuclear proliferation, cost and pollution. There are many safety problems with Japan’s reprocessing and nuclear industry, exemplified by the December 1995 fire and accident at the Monju prototype fast breeder reactor, the March 1997 fire and explosion at Tokaimura reactor, or the April 1997 leak of heavy water coolant at the Fugen plutonium-fuelled reactor. Confidence was also shaken by the corporate and government failure to respond quickly to the September 1999 Tokaimura nuclear accident (Tokaimura hosts four nuclear power plants and was the site of Japan’s worst nuclear accident, which killed two people and exposed at least 439 others to radiation) (7).

    The demand for MOX shipments has faltered, in the face of Japanese citizen opposition. In February 2001, the Governor of Fukushima Province, Eisaku Sato, acknowledged the “impossibility of MOX use at present.” Governor Sato stated: “The JCO criticality accident [at Tokaimura in 1999] and the MOX fuel data falsification problem heightened prefectural citizens anxiety and distrust over government nuclear policy, and the acceptance of the MOX use program in the prefecture has yet to recover (8).” The same month, TEPCO announced that it had suspended construction of all new nuclear power plants.

    The data falsification Governor Sato referred to seriously undermined Japan’s MOX program. The first 1999 shipment from the UK’s British Nuclear Fuels Ltd (BNFL) facility at Sellafield erupted in scandal when, while en-route, it was revealed that BNFL had deliberately falsified vital quality control data. For the next three months BNFL and Japanese authorities denied that quality control data for the MOX fuel had been falsified. However, after a legal challenge was mounted by Japanese NGO’s (supported by Greenpeace), BNFL finally admitted that falsification had taken place during the manufacture of the MOX fuel. The Japanese government and owners of the MOX fuel, Kansai Electric, rejected BNFL’s view that it remained safe to load the fuel into nuclear reactors and in early 2000 demanded it be returned to the UK. After negotiating for over six months, it was announced in July 2000 that the UK government had agreed to the return of the MOX fuel. BNFL agreed to a compensation package with Kansai Electric, whereby a total of 110 million UK sterling would be written off to fund direct compensation, new fuel, and the cost of a return transport. It was announced that the transport would take place within 2-3 years. This return shipment departed from Britain on April 26, 2002 – the sixteenth anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster.

    The Japanese and British Governments recognise the sensitivity of this return shipment, conducted three years after the fact. The Agreement for the return, signed by both parties on July 11, 2000, stated that: “maximum consideration will be given to the relationship with coastal states.” However, as recently as January 30, 2002 the Japanese Foreign Ministry stated to a member of the Japanese Parliament that all three routes between Japan and the UK remained an option for this shipment and they will be used in a balanced way.

    At the time of writing, the Pacific Pintail and a second armed nuclear transport ship, the Pacific Teal, are loading the plutonium MOX in Japan. The ships’ route was still unknown, and countries along the three possible routes were on alert for incursions into their territorial waters and EEZs.

    Evidence that the consistent opposition of en-route states is having an impact on Japan’s plans for future shipments has emerged over recent years. In early 2001, it was revealed that the Japanese Government was considering the option of moving plutonium and vitrified high level waste from Europe via the Northern Sea Route, north of Russia. While Greenpeace is opposed to such plans, it is noteworthy that one of the motives for this is the view of the Japanese Foreign Ministry that opposition in the South Pacific, Caribbean and Latin America is growing. The Northern Sea Route would avoid these regions. Further evidence that opposition from coastal states is impacting the Japanese nuclear program also comes via the Japanese Foreign Ministry. It intervened directly during 2000 and 2001 to prevent the signing of new reprocessing contracts between utilities and the French company Cogema, citing growing opposition from en-route nations. If signed, such contracts would lead to tens of shipments of spent nuclear waste fuel from Japan to Europe.

    In spite of the vulnerable financial situation of Japan’s plutonium economy, island nations have not yet been able to halt the transhipment of nuclear wastes. At the 1992 South Pacific Forum, leaders expressed their concern over the shipment of plutonium through Pacific waters, an expression of concern that has been repeated in every Forum Communiqué over the last decade.

    There is widespread concern that an accident could threaten Pacific fisheries, tourism and other vital industries, especially as the nuclear industry in Japan and Britain has recently been rocked by a series of scandals over safety. In the Japanese Diet (Parliament) on July 2,1999, questions were raised about whether Japan, Britain and France made any arrangements before the shipments, as required under the 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). The Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs admitted: “No arrangements exist. This has never been discussed between the three countries.” Some larger countries, like New Zealand, have sought and received assurances that the shipments will not pass through their EEZs, but these guarantees have not been given to small island Pacific states, which straddle the route to Japan through the Tasman Sea and central Pacific (9).

    Under international law, ships have the (debatable) right of “innocent passage” through EEZs. Negotiations to revise the existing international liability regime, known as the Paris Convention, are underway, however there are a number of constraints:

    • Unlike France and Britain, Japan is not a party to the 1960 Paris Convention on Third Party Liability in the Field of Nuclear Energy or the 1963 Vienna Convention on Civil Liability for Nuclear Damage
    • Non-OECD members such as Forum members states can only accede to the Paris Convention with the unanimous consent of all state parties
    • The Paris Convention does not cover economic loss arising from the perception of risk after an incident or accident. This is a key concern for island nations, as discussed below.

    In the mid-1990s, some Pacific island governments considered unilateral initiatives to restrict nuclear transport ships from passing through their EEZs (10). For example, in September 1997 Solomon Islands Prime Minister Bartholomew Ulafa’alu stated that his government was considering legislation to charge fees for nuclear waste shipments passing through his country’s waters. Media reports quoting diplomatic sources stated that in retaliation, Japan was considering suspending a $14 million ODA grant to build a new terminal at Honiara’s

    Henderson International Airport. Although the Japanese embassy then officially denied the claim, Ulafa’alu’s legislation never got off the ground (11).

    Diplomatic pressure from the nuclear states on individual Pacific governments has led to a co-ordinated Forum initiative. Instead of trying to ban outright the nuclear shipments through the region, the Forum has asked for negotiations on prior notification, compensation and liability schemes in cases of accident.

    Australia – Fuelling the Controversy

    Throughout all of the diplomatic efforts in relation to the shipments, the concerns of the en route nations have been undermined by the very unhelpful role played by Australia. Indeed, successive Australian governments have condoned the passage of the nuclear transports. Australia sells uranium, the basic fuel for nuclear reactors, to electricity utilities in Japan. Official reports show that thousands of tonnes of Australian uranium and its by-products are held by Japan – in the form of natural uranium, enriched uranium, and depleted uranium, as well as irradiated and separated plutonium. Australian Obligated Nuclear Material (AONM) is traded under bilateral and international agreements which means that Japan needs permission from Australia before it can take part in nuclear material transfers. However, permission has been granted for both the transfer of the materials, and the shipments themselves, via a “generic consent” which covers this and every other plutonium shipment, without subjecting that particular shipment, or the Japanese plutonium program, to any scrutiny whatsoever.

    Forum Negotiations with Shipping States

    Even though concerns were raised formally after the Akatsuki Maru’s plutonium shipment in 1992, Japan, France and Britain dragged their feet over addressing Forum concerns. Formal consultations on the issue only commenced in 1999, involving Forum Secretariat officials and ambassadors, plus government officials of the three shipping nations (Britain, France and Japan), and nuclear industry representatives (12).

    After a mandate given by the 1998 Forum meeting, the first round of discussions on nuclear shipments was held in Suva, Fiji in August, 1999. Ironically, at the time, two shiploads of MOX fuel were passing through the region (13). In spite of agreement to continue dialogue, the second round of discussions in Auckland, New Zealand, was not held until September, 2000 – one year after the first meeting. At this consultation, in Auckland, New Zealand in September 2000, the three nuclear powers claimed that existing international maritime law on “innocent passage” allows nuclear transhipment through islands EEZs. They refused to acknowledge any liability for potential accidents beyond the existing international regime.

    In February 2001, at the time of another MOX shipment, the Forum publicly expressed its concern over the slow pace of negotiations:

    “At the Forum meetings in Kiribati and Palau, island leaders noted the continuation of discussions with France, Japan and the United Kingdom on the current liability regime for compensating the region for economic losses caused to tourism, fisheries and other affected industries as a result of an accident involving a shipment of radioactive materials, even if there is no actual environmental damage caused. The Forum has noted that amendments to existing international liability regimes were currently under negotiation and that, once concluded, would take some time to enter into force. It is therefore necessary that discussions focus on intermediate innovative arrangements or assurances to address the Forum’s concerns. The Forum has reaffirmed its desire to continue these discussions with France, Japan and the United Kingdom. Pacific Islands Forum Leaders have also called for a high-level commitment from the three shipping states to carry the process forward.(14)”

    A third meeting with the shipping states and nuclear industry representatives was held on 3-5 July 2001 in Nadi, Fiji. It was the first time that substantial discussion and negotiations occurred, and Forum concerns were addressed.

    A central issue from Forum member countries is not only the potential catastrophic environmental consequences of an accident involving a shipment of radioactive materials and MOX fuel, but also economic impacts arising from any incident where there is no release of radioactivity (“…even if there is no actual environmental damage caused.” ) (15). Cook Islands Prime Minister Dr. Terepai Maoate has noted that for his and similar countries, a nuclear waste shipment accident would “create immediate and widespread perception of danger and ruin a booming tourism industry” (16).

    There are precedents for such economic losses, as shown with the resumption of French nuclear testing at Moruroa Atoll in 1995-6. International hostility to the testing and public perceptions of nuclear hazards caused a significant drop in tourism to many Pacific countries, even though they are some distance from the nuclear test sites. Tourism to French Polynesia dropped 20 per cent in the last quarter of 1995 in comparison to the previous year, but other Pacific countries were also affected: tourism for the period to the Cook Islands dropped 14.7 per cent, New Caledonia 6.9 per cent and Fiji 3.4 per cent. Japanese honeymooners and tour groups are an important source of tourism revenue, but Japanese tourism to the South Pacific dropped 36.9 per cent in the last quarter of 1995, in large part because of concern over nuclear hazards (17).

    While giving assurances on the prevention of incidents and response to an accident, the three shipping nations refuse to give commitments on compensation and liability, especially for economic losses caused by perceived dangers from a nuclear accident. Japan has maintained a rigid position that it will not provide compensation for economic loss; concerned that so-called “misreporting” of a nuclear accident may increase the economic losses. Such commitments from the shipping states will only come after sustained political pressure.

    Japan’s Trust Fund

    Japan has responded to ongoing pressure over the issue by offering to pay an initial grant of US$10 million into a “good will” trust (funded by Japanese nuclear corporations). The trust fund was announced publicly at the October 2000 Pacific Islands Forum meeting in Kiribati. Annual interest of some US$500,000 from this Pacific Islands Development Cooperation Fund could be used to finance projects for Forum Island Countries in the fields of environment, energy and tourism.

    A more controversial element of the fund was the announcement that “the principal of the trust fund would be available to cover the costs of the initial response to incidents during shipment of radioactive materials and MOX fuel through the region (18).” However, the UK and France are worried that the trust fund has been linked to the nuclear shipments, and Japan is seeking to revise its original advice that the fund has any connection to nuclear transport accidents, in order to avoid liability. The Japanese Government has not publicly clarified details of the Trust Fund and is still negotiating the details of the MOU and a Management Council to govern its operations.

    Even this gesture has not mollified critics of the nuclear shipments, who call for a complete cession of all transport of nuclear materials through Pacific waters. Motarilavoa Hilda Lini of the Pacific Concerns Resource Centre (PCRC) has noted: “We are concerned that our governments’ position could be compromised by accepting Japan’s offer to establish a US$10 million ‘goodwill’ trust fund to placate concerns about the plutonium shipments threat to Pacific fisheries, tourism and other vital industries. US$10 million is peanuts. It will not cover a fraction of the costs incurred by a nuclear accident at sea. (19) ”

    It is worth noting that the domestic liability agreements in Japan in relation to nuclear accidents are far more generous than what has been offered to en route states.

    Japanese Lobbying

    In an effort to prop up their troubled nuclear industry, Japanese government and industry lobbyists now argue that nuclear power is a solution to global warming and subsequent sea-level rise – key issues of concern for small atoll states in the Pacific. Nuclear corporations have hired public relations companies like Burson-Marsteller to soften public opinion, saying there are no hazards from the shipments. Delegations from COGEMA and BNFL have toured the South Pacific, and company officials have lobbied at Pacific Island Forum meetings. Australia and Britain also included nuclear experts in their delegations to the 1999 South Pacific Forum in Palau, to lobby against any restrictions on the transport of plutonium and nuclear wastes.

    A delegation of nuclear officials from Japan, France and Britain toured the Pacific between 7-19 August 1999, to lobby on the issue. The delegation, which travelled to the Solomon Islands, Fiji, Federated States of Micronesia and Palau, included representatives from BNFL, the French nuclear company Transnucleaire, the British Embassy in Tokyo, the Japanese Ministries of Foreign Affairs and Trade and Industry, and the Overseas Reprocessing Committee, which links Japanese energy corporations. The “atomic energy counsellor” from the UK Embassy in Japan was part of this delegation, assuring Pacific officials of the safety of nuclear shipments – BNFL pays 500,000 pounds a year to the British government so that one of their former employees can work as a diplomat in the British Embassy in Tokyo, to promote the British nuclear industry.

    Public opposition to the shipments was apparent when community and environmental groups joined students from the University of the South Pacific (USP) in a rally at the Embassy of Japan in Suva on August 11. The USP students from Solomon Islands, Papua New Guinea, Fiji and Vanuatu were gathered outside the meeting between Pacific island ambassadors and the French, British and Japanese nuclear officials. Churches and NGOs in Fiji also placed newspaper advertisements calling for an end to all shipments of plutonium and high level wastes through the region (20).

    Summit Diplomacy

    Japan has long had close historic and cultural ties with Micronesian countries such as Palau (21). But there have been increased diplomatic efforts with all Forum leaders since th- 1988 Japan-Pacific summit hosted by Japanese billionaire Ryoichi Sasakawa (who was jailed as a Class A war criminal between 1945-48) (22). Official Japan-South Pacific summits have been described as “an apparent fuseki attempt to obtain support from Forum members in a bid for permanent membership of the UN Security Council” (23). (A fuseki move, in the Japanese game of go, involves placing stones in an area as wide as possible at the start of the game).

    On October 13-14, 1997 leaders from the member nations of the South Pacific Forum met in Tokyo with the Japanese government, at the inaugural Japan-South Pacific Forum Summit (24). Addressing the summit, then Chair of the South Pacific Forum Sir Geoffrey Henry, spoke of the islands “enduring concern” over both “adverse climate change and sea level rise”, and “the shipment of plutonium and radioactive wastes through the region.” The final Summit Communiqué “noted continuing concerns over shipment of plutonium and high level wastes” but diplomatically acknowledged “Japan’s sincere efforts in dealing with the Forum island countries concerns”! The Summit Communiqué listed a range of issues of concern and co-operation – economic and private sector development, public sector reform, fishing, climate change, youth exchanges and more – but contained no action agenda or plans for implementation.

    The next Japan-South Pacific Summit was held as the Pacific Area Leaders Meeting (PALM) in April 2000, in Miyazaki, Japan (25). Before travelling to Miyazaki, Pacific leaders attended a lunch in Tokyo hosted by Japanese corporations, the Japanese Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Japan Employers Federation Association, the Japan Association of Corporate Executives and the Japan Foreign Trade Council.

    The official summit issued the “Miyazaki PALM Declaration: Our Common Vision For The Future”, outlining joint co-operation in economic, trade and aid issues. Japan announced it would continue support for the Tokyo office of the Pacific Islands Centre, created in 1996 to encourage Japanese business investment and tourism in the Pacific. The Japanese government would send more than 3000 JOCV volunteers to the Pacific islands over the next five years. Japan also pledged a funding package worth US$4 million, including about $1 million for information technology training and support, $2 million for “human security” projects (AIDS, malaria and eradication of infectious diseases), and $1 million in support of a Partnership Program to fund student exchanges and training through the Forum Secretariat (Japan has since offered to pay for a staff position at the Secretariat to administer this program) (26).

    The summit issued a special statement on environmental co-operation, pledging Japan-Pacific co-operation on climate change, biodiversity and environmental education. However, a notable silence in the summit communiqué was nuclear issues (unlike the 1997 summit communiqué, which officially detailed South Pacific concerns over the transhipment of plutonium and high level wastes through the South Pacific and Japan’s commitment to act on these concerns).

    At PALM 2000, Japanese officials lobbied hard on nuclear issues, arguing that nuclear energy is a valuable tool in reducing the use of fossil fuels and the generation of greenhouse gases that cause warming of the earth and sea level rise. On April 24, 2000 Pacific leaders and officials met in Tokyo with Japan’s Federation of Electric Power Companies to discuss energy and environment issues. Challenged about Japan’s carbon dioxide emissions, Japanese officials advanced spurious arguments that nuclear power was cheaper than solar and wind power, that the MOX fuel system contributed to nuclear disarmament and that nuclear power provided a key solution to dramatically reduce the use of fossil fuels! (27)

    The next day, Pacific journalists, Forum officials and two Pacific Island leaders (Cook Islands’ Prime Minister Dr. Terepai Maoate and Niue Premier Sani Lakatani) travelled by bullet train to the Hamaoka Nuclear Power Station, about 140 miles west of Tokyo. After a tour of the nuclear power plant, Maoate stated: “I have learned a lot of things that I didn’t know about nuclear power stations. I am convinced of the safety measures that have been shown to us, of the plant itself. (28)” Opposition politicians in the Cook Islands questioned Dr Maoate’s request that the Japanese nuclear industry looks into whether small and safe nuclear power plants might be used in the Pacific (29).

    Following the PALM 2000 Summit, Japan sent three missions to the region to investigate potential economic, political and cultural exchanges. The missions visited Palau and the Marshall Islands (November 2000), Fiji, Tonga and Samoa (March 2001) and Papua New Guinea and Vanuatu (May 2001). Diplomatic exchanges are being extended – each year, the Chair of the Pacific Islands Forum is invited to Japan by the Japanese government, for high-level discussions with Japanese leaders.

    In February 2001, the President of Kiribati, Teburoro Tito, visited Japan over six days in his capacity as Forum Chair. In meetings with then Prime Minister, Yoshiro Mori, President Tito agreed on the “need to bridge their differences over Tokyo’s whaling and nuclear fuel shipments” (30). Tito also expressed support for Japan’s bid to become a permanent member of the UN Security Council. During the visit, Japan’s Foreign Minister told Tito that Japan would send a mission to Kiribati to survey whether Japanese ODA could be used to improve the country’s electricity supply. Japan and Kiribati have close ties, with Kiritimati (Christmas) island hosting a Japanese tracking station to monitor rockets launched from Tanegashima Space Centre in Kagoshima Prefecture. The two countries are extending their co-operation over Japan’s space program, with the planned construction of a rocket landing area in Kiribati.

    The visit erupted in controversy on Tito’s return to Fiji, after a newspaper quoted him as saying that the Forum should “revise” its policy towards nuclear energy, that nuclear power helps reduce the emission of greenhouse gasses and that nuclear power generation “is a matter of survival” for Japan (31). The Forum and the Kiribati government quickly issued statements that the President had been misquoted and reaffirmed the Forum and Kiribati’s opposition to nuclear power (32). However, the incident highlights public concern that Japanese ODA is being used to woo Pacific leaders to soften their opposition to the plutonium economy.

    With the issues of global warming and sea-level rise high on the agenda for Forum island countries, the island nations have resisted the integration of nuclear power into the climate change negotiating process. The official intergovernmental Pacific Islands Regional Submission to the 9th Commission on Sustainable Development (CSD) session in 2000 stressed: “Nuclear energy sources are neither appropriate nor acceptable for use in the region, or for designation as a Clean Development Mechanism under the Kyoto Protocol.(33)”

    Concluding Remarks

    Of the four cargoes of plutonium, either in the plutonium dioxide or MOX form, transported to Japan during the last ten years, not one gram of plutonium has yet been used. In total the British-flagged transport vessels have travelled a total of over 120,000 kilometers to deliver their cargoes of weapons usable plutonium to Japan. Although each of these transports have been justified by Japan, as well as the British transporters, as essential for Japan’s energy program, not one gram of plutonium fuel has been loaded into in a nuclear reactor. Not one kilowatt of electricity has been generated. Increasingly in Japan, the nuclear electrical utilities are signaling that this program makes no economic sense. So, as with the deliberate deception by BNFL of their Japanese clients, the Japanese government and utilities are deceiving en-route governments and their citizens by continually claiming these shipments are required for energy purposes.

    The international nuclear industry is in trouble. The number of nuclear power plants under construction is dropping and nuclear power generation is being phased out in many industrialised countries, such as Germany. The nuclear industry has not found a solution for the long-term storage of plutonium and high level radioactive waste, which lasts for thousands of years (though many nuclear corporations are still pushing to use the vast “empty” spaces of the Pacific as a dumping ground for nuclear wastes). Few people today believe the myth that nuclear power is a cheap, safe energy source. Pacific islands are already living with the radioactive legacies of fifty years of nuclear testing by France, Britain and the United States, and are calling for compensation and clean-up. Meanwhile the nuclear industry is desperately trying to avoid any liability for the hazardous business of shipping nuclear wastes back and forward across Pacific fishing grounds.
    (1) Sandra Tarte: Japan’s aid diplomacy and the Pacific Islands (NCDS, Canberra, 1998).
    (2) In November 2000, a senior LDP policy maker, Shizuka Kamei, called for a 30 per cent reduction in ODA, and in December a study group of LDP, New Komeito and New Conservative party politicians has recommended “a qualitative cut in the overall size of the ODA budget” in the 2001 fiscal year; and “Study group considers reduction in Japanese development assistance”, Japan Times, December 9, 2000; “Japanese government opts for selective aid policy” IPS/PINA Nius, December 16, 2000.
    (3) “Japan funds for Secretariat”, Forum Secretariat Press release 3001, April 3, 2001.
    (4) Japanese Fisheries Minister Masayuki Komatsu, head of Japan’s whaling delegation at the International Whaling Commission, explaining Japan’s use of ODA as leverage in negotiations over the South Pacific Whale Sanctuary, quoted on ABC radio, July 18, 2001.
    (5) “Japan’s plan to ship plutonium has big and little lands roaring”, New York Times, October 5, 1992.
    (6) Frank von Hippel and Suzanne Jones: “The slow death of the breeder reactor”, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Vol.53, No.5, September/October 1997.
    (7) Dr. Jinzaburo Takagi: Criticality Accident at Tokaimura (CNIC, Tokyo, 2000). See also: “Tokaimura accident, Japan – third party liability and compensation aspects”, Nuclear Law Bulletin No.66, December 2000 (OECD Nuclear Energy Agency).
    (8) “Outlook for MOX use now completely unclear”, Asahi Shimbun February 26, 2001; “MOX use this year now hopeless for Kashiwazaki Kariwa”, Denki website (electricity utility daily newspaper), February 26, 2001.
    (9) In a statement by Foreign Minister Phil Goff opposing a shipment of MOX fuel to Japan, it was noted that ‘the shipment is unlikely to go through New Zealand’s EEZ as assurances that this would not occur have been sought and given in the past’. See “New Zealand condemns nuclear shipment to leave France”, Pacnews, Thursday, January 18, 2001.
    (10) Jon Van Dyke: “The legitimacy of unilateral actions to protest the ocean shipment of ultrahazardous radioactive materials”, mimeo, December 1996.
    (11) “Solomon Islands may charge for Pacific nuclear waste shipments”, Radio Australia, September 19, 1997;
    “Japan may suspend support for Honiara airport terminal”, SIBC and Radio Australia, November 10, 1997;
    “Japan denies reports its is reconsidering grant to Solomon Islands”, Pacnews, November 11, 1997.
    (12) The Forum has established a “Forum Working Group on Liability and Compensation for the Shipment of Radioactive Materials through the Region”, to represent Forum member countries at negotiations.
    (13) “Pacific protests plutonium MOX shipments”, Pacific News Bulletin, August 1999, p 1.
    (14) Forum Secretariat Press release, February 23, 2001.
    (15) Forum Communiqué, 30th Pacific Islands Forum, Koror, Palau, 1999 (emphasis added).
    (16) “PM insists Japan’s US$10 million trust fund separate from liability regime”, Pacnews, December 1, 2000.
    (17) Robert Keith Reid: “After the Bomb” in “Selling the Islands – What’s Hot for Tourism?”, Islands Business, June 1996, p29.
    (18) “Trust Fund for the purposes of cooperation between Japan and Pacific Island Countries”, Section 32-33, Forum Communiqué, 31st Pacific Islands Forum, Tarawa, Kiribati, October 2000.
    (19) “Stop plutonium shipments – strengthen the conventions” PCRC Media release, January 20, 2001.
    (20) Fiji Times, August 11, 1999.
    (21) For an overview, see His Excellency Kuniwo Nakamura (former President of Palau), “How best to cultivate solidarity between Japan and Pacific Island countries”, speech to Pacific Islands seminar, Tokyo, February 9, 2001. See also “Japan, Palau ties praised in Tokyo meeting”, PINA Nius Online, August 9, 2001.
    (22) “Sasakawa’s interest adds up to dollars”, Islands Business, February 1990. Today, the Sasakawa Pacific Islands Nations Fund (SPINF) contributes to development programs, especially in Hawai’i and Micronesia.
    (23) Yomiuri Shimbun, March 3, 1997.
    (24) Nic Maclellan: “Japan’s aid diplomacy” Pacific News Bulletin, November 1997.
    (25) Nic Maclellan “PALM 2000: Japan-South Pacific summit” Pacific News Bulletin, May 2000.
    (26) “Japan funds for Secretariat”, Forum Secretariat Press release 3001, April 3, 2001.
    (27) “Island leaders impressed with nuclear power”, Islands Business, June 2000, p43.
    (28) Ibid.
    (29) “Cook Islands investigates nuclear power as energy source”, Radio Australia, June 22, 2000. By January 2001, Dr Maoate was calling for more action to establish a liability and compensation regime in case of accident in Pacific waters: “PM calls for a nuclear spillage compensation regime”, Pacnews, January 24, 2001.
    (30) BBC Monitoring Asia-Pacific, February 20, 2001.
    (31) “Tito calls on Pacific to revise nuclear stand”, Fiji Daily Post, February 26, 2001.
    (32) A Forum Secretariat letter to the media and environmental NGOs on February 28, 2001 states: “President Tito did note that the Forum had taken no stand on the question of nuclear energy, apart from the Forum’s continuing concern with the shipment of nuclear materials through the region. He also made it clear that the region opposed nuclear materials that would be harmful to our people”. See also “Kiribati position on nuclear energy”, Pacific News Bulletin, May 2001, p12.
    (33) CROP: Pacific Islands Regional Submission to the 9th Commission on Sustainable Development (CSD), 2000.

  • How do you design a “Keep Out!” sign to last 10,000 years?

    This article was first published at Salon.com

    Imagine you’re part of an archaeological expedition 6,000 years from today, stomping around the desert in an area known long ago as Yucca Mountain, Nev. You are looking for the remnants of a once flourishing civilization, a nation state that apparently called itself the USA back in 2002. You’re 10 days into your quest, not finding much of anything, when one of your team runs up, all sweaty-faced and panting, insisting that you come see what he’s discovered.

    You follow your flushed, jabbering colleague around a rocky outcropping, and there, vividly etched on a granite monolith, is a towering reproduction of Macauley Culkin in “Home Alone,” hands to face, mouth agape; or maybe it’s one of Francis Bacon’s shrieking pope paintings or Edvard Munch’s “The Scream.”

    You don’t recognize any of these startling cultural icons from the distant past; you don’t know who made them, or what they symbolize. Hell, you don’t even know that they’re cultural icons, but the whole scene briefly scares the bejesus out of you. Then, like Howard Carter stumbling on the tomb of Tutankhamen, you experience a serious rush of exhilaration, aggravated by a serious case of the heebie-jeebies, as you realize that you’ve just chanced on a history-making breakthrough, a discovery of earthshaking significance.

    So, which do you do? 1) Immediately pack up the entire expedition and evacuate the area never to return? 2) Waste no time in commencing a major archaeological dig and cementing your place in history?

    Amazingly enough, the folks over at the U.S. Department of Energy are banking on curious humans (or whomever) from future millennia to go for Door No. 1.

    As it becomes increasingly likely that, despite Nevada’s protests, President Bush will get his wish for Yucca Mountain to become the nation’s central nuclear waste repository (the House has approved it by a 3-1 margin; the Senate may vote on it as early as next week), the doings of the DOE, which will be charged with building the facility, warrant greater attention.

    For the last two decades, it has been the daunting, if not nutty, business of the department to study and design warning monuments for radioactive waste sites, such as Yucca Mountain or the already functioning Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in Carlsbad, N.M. When I heard about this eerie undertaking, I called the DOE’s Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management’s Yucca Mountain Project (YMP) to see what I could learn about the harebrained — I mean, farsighted — scheme.

    The YMP has a toll-free line staffed by real people, specifically established to field questions from yo-yos like you and me. When I called, a very nice, patient, soft-spoken woman named Jenny McNeil picked up the phone.

    “You know,” McNeil told me, “there has been a lot of research, since the ’80s, in an effort to come up with plans for monuments that would transcend specific cultures and languages.”

    Ms. McNeil was a kind soul, and her voice had a definite calming effect, but she wasn’t a fount of information, so I called Sandia National Laboratories where, in 1991, the monument plan was first described in a study produced by the lab for the DOE. I talked to an official there (who asked not to be quoted by name). “Is this something that’s actually going to happen,” I asked him, “or is it a dead subject?”

    “Oh, no, no, no,” the Sandia official told me. “It definitely will happen.”

    The monuments are intended to last for thousands of years — the waste may stay toxic for as long as 100,000 years. If everything goes as the DOE hopes, an archaeological expedition tens of centuries hence will take one look at these structures and hightail it in the other direction — just like we do now whenever we come across mysterious ancient monuments covered with strange inscriptions and odd images.

    What are they thinking?

    And they are big thinkers over at the DOE. They’re not talking about slapping up a few signs with a red circle and diagonal line over a mushroom cloud or a glowing mutant, or even something slightly more ambitious like that unnerving black obelisk in “2001: A Space Odyssey.” No, what the DOE has in mind is more on the order of Stonehenge, but with a better class of stone — granite — and magnets.

    Magnets? Of course. You need magnets to “give the structure a distinctive magnetic signature.” (I knew that.) But also because they nicely complement the “metal trihedrals” (three-sided pyramids) that will provide that all important “radar-reflective signature.” Very Captain Kirk, and more and more fascinating as you get further into its psychotic science fiction novel aspects.

    Anyway, according to a report in the May/June issue of Archaeology magazine, in a reverse archaeology exercise, the DOE brought together “engineers, archaeologists, anthropologists, and linguists to design effective warning structures capable of lasting 10,000 years … Using archeological sites as ‘historical analogues.’” A summary analysis of the DOE report on the Environmental Protection Agency Web site explains that “The conceptual design for the PIC (‘Passive Institutional Controls’) markers” includes a berm surrounding the area, 48 granite monoliths, “thousands of small buried markers, randomly spaced and distributed,” an information center located aboveground, and “two buried storage rooms.”

    You’ll note there’s no provision for a gift shop or children’s play area, but I suspect those design oversights can be easily corrected at the same time they put in the handicapped ramps.

    So, you might ask, “What’s this thing going to run us?” Calm down, taxpayers, it’ll be a pittance. The materials will be cheap, says the EPA, pointing out that “materials of high economic value are less desirable because they may encourage removal and/or destruction of markers.” Good point — that’s where the Egyptians slipped up. No gold facings for us.

    Figure the whole job’s going to cost a mere $150 to $200 million. Chickenfeed for those of us who don’t fancy our future relatives looking like phosphorescent iguanas.

    To get a closer view of one of these proposed hot zone follies, come, let’s take a walk through, and for god’s sake, don’t touch anything.

    According to the EPA document, the “inner core” of the 33-foot-tall berm “will consist of salt.” OK, sure. Salt. Most people turn and run at the sight of salt. This berm surrounding the “repository footprint” (I love wonk-speak) is the first line of defense. The thought, I guess, is that if our year 8002 archaeologists first begin to dig into the berm, they’ll strike the mound of salt. “Salt!” someone will bellow. “Let’s get the hell out of here!” And the expedition leader will try to control the ensuing frenzy. “Better clear out,” he’ll say. “I don’t like the looks of this. Fill the shakers then let’s beat it!”

    But if curiousity gets the better of our explorers, and they just walk right over the berm and head for the monuments, they’ll first come across 16 structures that will “consist of two granite monoliths joined by a [5 foot] long tendon, with a buried truncated base, [22 feet] high, including the tendon, and a [25 foot] high right prism that will be [4 feet] square. The upper stone will weigh approximately [40 tons], and the base stone will weigh approximately [65 tons].” And that’s just the first bunch.

    Farther in, at the “perimeter of the controlled area,” are 32 more granite monoliths. Altogether, these 48 100-ton puppies alone will cost about $30 million according to the EPA estimate. But given how government contracts go, we can safely triple that and still be under the actual cost. Shipping extra. Seems like a lot until you consider that the price includes engraving.

    No, there’ll be no monograms, no floral patterns, but each monument will be inscribed with “messages in seven languages: the six official United Nations languages (English, French, Spanish, Chinese, Russian, and Arabic) and Navajo.” Navajo? Great. The Hopis are going to be so pissed. With all due respect to the Navajo, a fine people we’ve done everything in our power to drive into extinction (there are about 250,000 now living in the U.S.), please raise your hand if you think our relatives 6,000 years down the pike are likely to be reading Navajo. Heck, why not Sanskrit or Eskimo?

    And what are these inscriptions going to say? Will they be your basic banal warnings, the type of thing we paid so much attention to as kids, or maybe something more effective, like the first chapter of “The Bridges of Madison County”?

    The DOE plans to separate the messages “into different levels of complexity,” assuming, I suppose, that even 6,000 or 8,000 years from now there will be slow readers who don’t much cotton to subtlety. Always thinking ahead, the DOE plans to road-test the inscriptions to check “the comprehensibility of messages among a cultural cross section of the U.S. population.” Sounds reasonable, but let’s take it a step further. When a Lakota Sioux gentleman doesn’t comprehend a “No Trespassing” sign written in Navajo or Arabic, what’s our next move?

    Images, of course! One surface of the polished, four-sided monuments will feature “diagrams.” That’s fine. Pictures are good, and a welcome respite from all the reading, but at the risk of second-guessing the experts, may I suggest a simpler, more surefire alternate plan? A 15-foot-tall reproduction of Lucien Freud’s ghastly-but-true portrait of Queen Elizabeth, or perhaps a collection of stills from “Glitter” starring Mariah Carey, or anything from the brushes of Thomas Kinkade Painter of Light, accompanied by 500 words from Lynn Cheney’s novel, “The Body Politic,” translated into Urdu.

    Trust me, there is no conceivable circumstance, now or at any time in the future, under which a sentient being confronted with such a display would not be deeply alarmed and motivated to gallop in the opposite direction. Just a suggestion, free of charge.

    Now we get to the good part: the buried storage rooms and information center. To cook up these, the DOE once again turned to the ancients for inspiration. They considered Newgrange, a passage grave in Ireland thought to be more than 5,000 years old; the Great Pyramids at Giza, Egypt, 4,500 years old; rock art done by Australian Aborigines 25,000 to 35,000 years ago; and the Acropolis in Greece, which has been standing for 2,400 years.

    Not to bring up an unpleasant subject or be tiresomely pedantic, but given that the stuff we intend to plant at Yucca Mountain may remain seriously nasty for, like, 100,000 years, how does the longevity of any of the above apply to this project? Well, remember that the EPA only requires that the warning monuments last 10,000 years. After that anyone who wants to go nosing around the boondocks is on their own.

    Where were we? Oh yes, the buried rooms and info center, cozy granite spaces with no restroom facilities and no seating. The roofless information center will have its walls inscribed with details about “the disposal system and the dangers of the radioactive and toxic waste buried therein.” There is no provision for videos, pets are allowed — granite’s very forgiving when it comes to messes. The center will sit up high to facilitate good drainage — always a plus for rooms without roofs where incontinent pugs may forget themselves.

    The two buried storage rooms are another matter. If you liked those old movies about the building of the pyramids as much as I did — humongous blocks sliding hither and thither, hysterical slaves getting sealed into secret chambers — you’re going to love these. The rooms will be constructed of huge granite slabs “joined by fitting the pieces into slots … to eliminate the need for mortar, grouts, or metal fasteners.” This is a good call. The three-year-old grout on my tub is already doing disgusting things, and don’t get me started on zippers.

    My favorite part is the entrance to these rooms. It will be a plugged hole, two feet in diameter. Once our archaeologists of the future pull the plug and wriggle into the room, they’ll find “tables, figures, diagrams and maps” engraved on the walls. However, if we look at the current, up-swinging weight statistics for U.S. adults and children and figure that the trend will continue over the next several thousand years, we must assume that we’ll then be looking at a population that resembles overinflated pregnant manatees, and their likelihood of getting through a 2-foot aperture is slim to none. Of course, they did manage to get Winnie the Pooh out of that hole. Maybe we could inscribe that chapter next to the plug.

    Then, buried all around the site, will be the “thousands” of small inscribed warning markers, made of “granite, clay and aluminum oxide.” The DOE experts based this idea on the Code of Hammurabi, an inscribed stone slab found in Iraq (don’t tell Dubya it was found in Saddam’s country or we’ll have a replay of the pretzel horror) and Mesopotamian clay tablets. I figure our markers will feature Jewel’s poetry on one side and select excerpts from Nancy Reagan’s “My Turn” on the other.

    That’s about it. Your tax dollars at work.

    Now, I’m not a scientist, so maybe this whole project makes a lot of sense to someone. A scientist, for example. And don’t get me wrong, I don’t want to be a wet blanket or soft on terrorism. Building these monument thingies sounds like a patriotic hoot. I think they’ll look very cool and be inexpensive to maintain.

    I guess we just have to accept that, as with so much our government does, the whole plan’s a little kooky, but in a sweet way. Apparently none of the experts who were consulted suggested that putting up our own Stonehenge might accomplish the same thing that the original Stonehenge (or Newgrange, or the Pyramids) has — endless poking about, drilling and excavating by experts, nonexperts, tourists (and their pets) and freelance goofballs.

    In fact, I’m guessing that Yucca Mountain or the Carlsbad site might be selected, a few thousand years down the road, as a perfect spot for some futuristic version of our own Harmonic Convergence celebrations of a few years back. In which case, we might want to tack on a few million for stadium seating and some bathrooms.
    *Douglas Cruickshank is a senior writer for Salon. For more articles by Cruickshank, visit his archive.

  • Yucca Mountain nuclear storage is bad for Nevada and the nation

    Originally Published by St. Paul Pioneer Press

    Shipping radioactive waste across 43 states to Yucca Mountain is not just bad for Nevada; it’s bad for America. The Yucca Mountain site, located just outside of Las Vegas, is a flawed solution to America’s nuclear waste problem. It is flawed because it won’t get nuclear waste out of America’s back yards, but will increase the risks of radiation exposure to millions of Americans. It ignores new technologies that store waste to be treated without the risk transporting to a single site. And the administration has failed to incorporate the dramatic change in the world since the decision was made to store high-level waste in a single site.

    Three key things have changed since the government began planning to ship nuclear waste to Nevada. First, Las Vegas, the fastest growing metropolitan area in the country, is today much closer to the Yucca Mountain site than it was 20 years ago. Second, technology to store and secure nuclear waste has improved significantly — which means we don’t have to face the serious risks of moving and protecting 77,000 tons of radioactive waste in 53,000 truck shipments or 10,000 rail shipments through 734 counties housing half of America’s population. Third, since Sept. 11 we face a new reality of terror, and we cannot afford to create tens of thousands of new targets for terrorists.

    Instead of reconsidering the original decision, the government is pressing ahead like an aircraft carrier that cannot change its course. After their own scientists determined that Yucca Mountain is geologically unfit, the government insisted on using man-made “engineering” solutions to isolate this high-level nuclear waste. Instead of using similar engineering solutions to contain waste where it already is without creating new problems by transporting it on our roads, railways and waterways, the government presses ahead with an outdated 20-year-old plan.

    Most striking is the Department of Energy’s decision not to publicize a viable, less risky, alternative developed by a subsidiary of the nation’s largest nuclear utility company, Exelon Corp. In an agreement signed nearly two years ago, DOE agreed to take title to the spent fuel waste and own and operate a dry storage facility on-site. It appears this safer and cheaper alternative to Yucca Mountain is now being ignored.

    Transporting nuclear waste across our country is an undertaking that every American concerned about our nation’s security should take very seriously. Sharing our highways with tens of thousands of radioactive shipments is a disaster waiting to happen. An accident involving a truck with radioactive waste is a statistical certainty. Just as certain is the increased exposure to terrorism.

    DOE and outside experts both agree accidents will happen; though no one can predict their likely impact. More troubling is the potential for radiation exposure. The government-approved casks, which have never undergone rigorous full-scale testing, leak radiation and could become portable X-ray machines that cannot be turned off. This concern is not trivial either from a health or a liability standpoint.

    Most serious of all is that these shipments will become irresistible targets for terrorists. After Sept. 11 and the increasing incidents of suicide bombings, our elected leaders should not approve this plan unless they can guarantee the safety of these shipments. They cannot simply trust the DOE or the Nuclear Regulatory Commission who are still analyzing risks based on terrorist incidents from the 1970s and 1980s. Without proper security measures, these shipments could easily be used as a “dirty bomb.” It is imperative that an up-to-date plan is in place to prevent them from becoming low-grade nuclear weapons and that the cost of this plan be measured against the potential benefits of a single site.

    The American people and their representatives in Congress must keep this in mind: There is no pressing reason to move ahead with the Yucca Mountain site without completing a comprehensive evaluation. Even the administration agrees that the current storage system can safely remain for many years. Congress must now decide. Will it opt for the administration’s unsound policy that jeopardizes our health and safety or will it choose to act responsibly? At a time when we need to be doing everything in our power to secure our nation’s safety, a policy that puts us on the road to another national tragedy is a step in the wrong direction.
    *Kerrey, a former U.S. senator from Nebraska, is president of New School University in New York.

    Distributed by Knight Ridder News Service.

  • What’s Wrong with Yucca Mountain?

    1. It is on Western Shoshone treaty land, and the US cannot show title.
    The Treaty of Ruby Valley, ratified by Congress in 1863, is the supreme law of the land. The US has never shown legal title to this land, even when requested by federal and international courts.

    2. The Repository would contaminate groundwater.
    Yucca Mountain scientists will readily tell you that the question is not if the repository will release its contents, but when. Groundwater moves rapidly down through the site. Tracers from atmospheric nuclear weapons tests have been found at the underground level at which waste would be placed. This means that precipitation on the surface can reach the waste in less than 50 years, then carry the radioactive material using the groundwater in as little as possibly a few hundred years.

    3. The Repository would endanger millions of people nearby.
    Downstream from the site, groundwater is used for drinking, irrigation, and the largest dairy in the Nevada, supplying thousands of children with milk. Seventeen miles away, California hosts 1.4 million tourists a year going to Death Valley. Seven tributaries flow down Yucca Mountain to the underground Amargosa River, said by some to be the longest and biggest in the world. The Amargosa empties into Death Valley, after flowing right through a number of towns. Flash floods are frequent, and can close roads for days.

    4. Transportation would endanger millions of people across the country.
    Nuclear waste is safer sitting still than going 60-90 MPH. Distinctive casks are an obvious and vulnerable target. No study has been done on specific risks of transporting the waste to Yucca Mountain over a 30 year period, through 43 states, more than 100 cities with population over 100,000 and within one?half mile of over 50 million people.

    5. It is not geologic disposal, and violates the Nuclear Waste Policy Act.
    The Nuclear Waste Policy Act requires that geology be the primary barrier to radioactive contamination. This is not possible at Yucca Mountain, so the DOE’s design depends on an engineered barrier, of unproven durability. The State of Nevada has filed suit against DOE claiming this is a violation of the Nuclear Waste Policy Act requirement for geologic isolation.

    6. Insufficient data exists to evaluate waste containers.
    The Department of Energy is proposing to place the waste in “corrosion resistant” metal containers, which it claims will contain the wastes for more than 10,000 years, the duration of the regulatory period set by the EPA and Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The wastes remain hazardous for hundreds of thousands of years. The claim of corrosion resistance is based on about 2 years of lab experiments under conditions less severe than would be expected in the repository, and then these corrosion results have been extrapolated for the thousands of years of containment necessary.

    7. Yucca Mountain is an active earthquake zone, with 33 faults on site.
    Yucca Mountain is the third most seismically active area in the continental US (after Alaska and coastal California). In the past 20 years, there have been over 600 earthquakes within 50 miles, with the largest, in 1992, causing $1.4 million in damage to DOE’s Yucca Mountain field office.

    8. DOE’s rush to please the nuclear industry is premature and illegal.
    The Yucca Mountain studies and site recommendation have been called inadequate and/or incomplete by the General Accounting Office, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the U.S. Nuclear Waste Technical Review Broad and several international peer review panels. The DOE still has at least 293 studies of site and design factors that it has agreed to complete before it submits a license application to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The Nuclear Waste Policy Act requires that site characterization be complete at the time of a site recommendation (Feb. 14th, 2002) and that the license application must be submitted within 90 days of site designation. However, the DOE’s Yucca Mountain Management and Operating contractor has estimated that it will take 4 years to complete these studies.

    For more information, e-mail: heal@h-o-m-e.org or visit: http://www.h-o-m-e.org/