PLUTONIUM SHIPS ON THE WAY TO SOUTH PACIFIC

Two ships carrying plutonium MOX fuel will soon travel through the South Pacific on their way from Europe to Japan. The Pacific Pintail and Pacific Teal will pass between Australia and New Zealand, and then through the Exclusive Economic Zones of South Pacific island nations.

Today, a high-powered (radioactive) delegation from Japan, France and the United Kingdom is visiting Suva, to try convince Pacific Island governments that those shipments are harmless. We, the undersigned, say RUBBISH!

As non-government, church and community organisations in Fiji, we are opposed to the shipment of plutonium and other radioactive wastes through our region. We are concerned about potential hazards to our environment, economy and health.

We join the members of the South Pacific Forum (Fiji, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Tuvalu, Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, Tonga, Samoa, Palau, Cook Islands, Australia, New Zealand, Nauru, Vanuatu and Niue), to call on Japan, France and the United Kingdom to halt all nuclear shipments through our waters.

We ask our South Pacific governments to work together to end all nuclear shipments through our region, by strengthening the Rarotonga Treaty for a South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone, and the 1995 Waigani Convention on radioactive and hazardous wastes.

We want to be nuclear free!

Endorsed by:

• Pacific Concerns Resource Centre (PCRC)
• Greenpeace Pacific
  
• Fiji Council of Churches (FCC)
  
• Pacific Conference of Churches (PCC)
  
• South Pacific Association of Theological Schools (SPATS)
  
• Fiji National Council of Women
  
• Fiji Women's Crisis Centre
  
• Fiji Women's Rights Movement
  
• Young Women's Christian Association of Fiji (YWCA)
  
• Young Men's Christian Association of Fiji (YMCA)
  
• Women's Action for Change (WAC)
  
• SPACHEE
  
• Citizen's Constitutional Forum (CCF)
  
• Fiji Young Lawyers' Association
  
• Fiji Media Watch
  

Published Wednesday, August 4, 1999, in The State

MOX program issues still murky after hearing

By ETHAN BROWN
Special to The State

The Department of Energy this summer participated in a public hearing called by Sen. Phil Leventis to resolve questions surrounding its plutonium disposition program. Throughout the hearing, DOE officials patiently fielded questions from the senator, panelists and the audience. For this fine display of public service, the department is to be commended.

While the hearing did resolve some questions, several key concerns remain outstanding about the "dual track" effort that is scheduled to bring nearly 50 metric tons of weapons-grade plutonium to the Savannah River Site.

In one track, two-thirds of the plutonium will be fabricated into mixed-oxide, or MOX, fuel for use in commercial nuclear reactors. In the other track, plutonium will be "immobilized" in ceramic pucks, stacked into cans and ensconced in stainless steel canisters filled with vitrified high-level waste. The final products are intended to frustrate any attempts to reuse the plutonium isotope in weapons. The program is to be implemented by the private consortium of Duke Power, Virginia Power, Cogema and Stone and Webster.

First, DOE's treatment of Cogema's health and safety record has been inadequate. Cogema is the French nuclear firm that will build and operate the fuel fabrication facility along the Savannah River. Despite this important role, DOE has acknowledged that it "did not ask for, nor receive, information on the safety record of Cogema's mixed oxide fuel fabrication or reactor facilities in Europe." Nor did it do an independent evaluation of studies that suggest Cogema's La Hague plutonium reprocessing facility in the Normandy area of France has contributed to leukemia clusters in adjacent communities.

When asked during the June 24 hearing to shed light on a long-standing controversy concerning Cogema's ability to comply with discharge regulations, the department simply deferred questions to a company spokesman. Predictably, any charge of wrongdoing was categorically denied. The department can -- and should -- do better.

Second, DOE's Draft Surplus Plutonium Disposition Environmental Impact Statement explains that the MOX facility is "based on an existing MOX facility in France" and consortium representatives said during the hearing that "we know they (Cogema) can do it, because its been done before." Such statements obfuscate the fact that the U.S. effort is without technical precedent. Nowhere in the world has MOX fuel been fabricated with weapons-grade plutonium. DOE should fully acknowledge and address this issue.

Third, DOE's draft impact statement and supporting documents suggest that the cost of the MOX program will be between $470 million and $540 million. But DOE technical personnel confirmed that the MOX program may cost as much as -- and possibly more than --- $1.5 billion. DOE needs to explicitly acknowledge the high cost of MOX.

Finally, the DOE must clarify inconsistencies with respect to the bilateral U.S.-Russian plutonium disposition framework. DOE officials from Washington maintained during several visits to the Southeast that the Russians have tied our hands. Unless the U.S. produces and irradiates plutonium fuel in the form of MOX, they have said, the Russians will not carry through on their commitments to immobilize 50 metric tons of stockpiled plutonium.

But these statements directly conflict with public documents produced by a U.S.-Russian Plutonium Disposition Study Steering Committee. The 1996 Joint U.S.-Russian Plutonium Disposition Study, which outlines the parameters of the effort, says: "The United States and Russia need not use the same plutonium disposition technology. Indeed, it is likely that the best approaches will be different in the two countries."

These continuing ambiguities make the department's final environmental impact statement and its accompanying Record of Decision even more important. These documents, due out early this fall, will close the door on the public participation process as required by the National Environmental Policy Act. Under NEPA, federal agencies must "consider all relevant factors in an interdisciplinary fashion and do so openly so that any reviewing body, whether legislatures, other agencies, the courts, or the public, could know fully the basis of choice."

It is my hope that DOE will rise to NEPA's worthy intent in this closing phase of the public process so that South Carolinians may finally consider the MOX program with full and accurate information.

Mr. Brown is director of the Energy and Environment Project of the Carolina Peace Resource Center.