Nuclear Waste dump in the Pacific Still being Pursued

["greenbase" <greenbas@gb.greenpeace.org>]

NUCLEAR WASTE DUMP IN THE PACIFIC STILL BEING PURSUED
 
SUVA, February 14 - Greenpeace today warned that plans by US
businessman Alex Copson, to use Wake Island in the North
Pacific as a storage site for US and Russian nuclear waste
were bound to fail and would only serve to re-ignite the
strong anti-nuclear feelings in the region. 
 
Draft legislation  citing Wake Island and Palmyra atoll as
potential sites, has already been prepared for presentation to
the US Senate. The draft , dated January 28, 1997, would allow
Nuclear Disarmament Services Inc.,  a joint American-Russian
Consortium, of which Copson is the Director,  to finance,
develop and operate a centralised facility  for nuclear waste
on an uninhabited North Pacific island territory of the United
States.   The Bill claims to have the support of the Russian
government's Ministry for Atomic Energy, MinAtom.
 
 "This is not the answer to the world's growing problem of
what to do with its nuclear waste", said McDiarmid of
Greenpeace. "Dumping it in the Pacific backyard does not solve
the problem it just shifts it." she said. "What happens when
Palmyra and Wake are full?"   A similar plan by Copson last
year to circumvent US nuclear regulations  to enable Palmyra
Atoll  to be used, ran aground after widespread opposition
from  Pacific countries and from representatives of  the US
Pacific territories.  At the time President Clinton's office
responded by "strongly opposing" the proposed waivers of  US
environmental law,  but left the door open on  the idea of an
international approach to dealing with nuclear waste.   

"The US needs to make its position clear about where it stands
on such proposals", said McDiarmid. "The Pacific has already 
been used as a testing ground by the nuclear powers, turned
into  a nuclear highway by Japanese high level waste shipments
and has made it clear for many years that it will resist being
used as a dumping ground", she said.  
 
 
For more information contact: Bunny McDiarmid 679 312861