CONTROVERSIAL NUCLEAR WASTE SHIPMENT ARRIVES IN JAPAN; PROTESTORS CALL FOR AN END TO JAPAN'S PLUTONIUM PROGRAM MUTSU OGAWARA, Japan 18 March 1997 A controversial nuclear waste transport from France arrived in Japan today amidst growing demands for an end to Japan's failing plutonium program. Greenpeace has called the shipment symbolic of Japan's faltering plutonium industry and has appealed to the Hashimoto government to terminate the program. "This shipment has caused controversy around the planet and has become a symbol for the environmental, public health and proliferation risks of Japan's plutonium program," said Hideaki Takemura, nuclear campaigner of Greenpeace Japan. The British-flagged nuclear freighter "Pacific Teal" arrived in the Northern Japanese port of Mutsu Ogawara today at 8:30am. Hundreds of protesters from around Japan held signs saying: "STOP spent nuclear fuel", "We do no want nuclear waste!". Greenpeace protested by approaching the ship using 2 inflatable rafts. A total of 6 protesters on board raised banners emblazoned with "NO Nuclear waste"(in Japanese). Meanwhile on the quay of the port, Greenpeace used a crane to hoist a 5 meter high banner declaring "Stop Nuclear Power". The protesters were faced by hundreds of police who were on land, in boats and in helicopters circling over head. Regional concern against the Rokkasho nuclear waste repository have been fuelled by worries that the waste repository will become a final and not temporary dump and the earth-quake prone area is inappropriate for a nuclear waste store let alone the plutonium reprocessing plant which is under construction. The Teal is transporting 40 blocks, or some twenty tonnes, of highly radioactive glassified "plutonium waste". The waste is a by product of the separation of weapons useable plutonium from Japanese irradiated nuclear reactor fuel which was exported to France's La Hague reprocessing plant. The waste is so deadly that a person within one meter of an unshielded block would receive a fatal dose of radiation in less than one minute. The Teal shipment is only the second of its kind--the first shipment, containing 28 glass blocks of waste was conducted in 1995 on a route around South America. It is believed that France and Japan have secret plans to make two more waste shipments in the next twelve months. In all, some 3,000 glass blocks of waste will be shipped to Japan from the reprocessing plants operated by COGEMA (France) and British Nuclear Fuels (UK) during the next decade. Japan's plutonium program has experienced a series of serious setbacks. In December of 1995, soon after the reactor's commissioning, the Monju breeder reactor experienced a massive sodium leak. While industry officials sought to cover-up the severity of the accident, the government was forced to close the reactor and it may never be reopened. The reactor had been held up as justification for Japan's massive program to separate and stockpile weapons-usable plutonium. While controlling a stockpile of some 16,000 kgs, Japan currently produces no energy from its plutonium. More recently, on March 11, a fire and related explosion at the Tokai reprocessing plant contaminated 35 workers and released radioactivity to the environment. Once again nuclear officials were slow to provide details and seemed far from scrupulous in revealing the full nature and effects of the accident. Subsequently, Prime Minister Hashimoto criticized nuclear officials stating: "It seems that PNC did not learn any lessons from the Monju accident." The "Pacific Teal" leaves a wave of controversy in its wake. The ship steamed from France to Japan via South Africa and the Southwest Pacific. Dozens of countries protested the secret transport and many demanded that the ship remain outside of their 200 mile exclusive economic zone waters. Significant protest was also brought to bear against the Japanese plutonium shipment of 1992 and its one other "plutonium waste" shipment in 1995. Information that France and Japan has secret plans to make two more nuclear waste shipments within the next twelve months has further mobilized international opposition to Japan's plutonium program. "Japan's plutonium program is in a shambles--it lurches from disaster to disaster. It is clear that Japan has no further civil justification for its massive plutonium program and it must be stopped," said Damon Moglen of Greenpeace International. FOR MORE INFORMATION PLEASE CONTACT: ROKKASHO(Temporary office until today):
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