Waste to Pass through Panorama Canal Without Env Impact Stateme

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

RADIOACTIVE NUCLEAR WASTE WILL PASS THROUGH PANAMA CANAL WITHOUT
ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT STUDY, says Greenpeace

Amsterdam / Panama, 2nd February 1998 --  In a press conference
today in Panama City, the environmental group Greenpeace
criticized plans to allow a shipment of high-level nuclear waste
to pass through the Panama Canal. According to information from
the Panama Canal Commission, the British-flagged Pacific Swan is
due to make a first-time transit over the canal on 6 February
with a cargo of dangerous highly radioactive nuclear waste.

"This shipment is scheduled to go through the Panama Canal in
complete absence of any type of environmental impact study,"
said Tom Clements of Greenpeace. "As the only environmental
documentation which has been prepared consists of public
relations packets, we call on passage to be denied due to a
gross lack of pertinent environmental impact information. We
also call on the Panamanian Government and environmental groups
to call for this shipment not to be allowed to transit the
country."  

The shipment is being conducted by the French plutonium
reprocessing company COGEMA, British Nuclear Fuels Limited
(BNFL), and Japan Nuclear Fuels Limited (JNFL), companies which
are desperately trying to defend the safety of the shipment and
draw attention away from the dirty plutonium business in which
they are engaged. 

This shipment of 60 containers of high-level nuclear waste is
only the third such sea shipment from France to Japan. Countries
and environmental groups throughout the Caribbean have protested
the current shipment and both the Latin American and Central
American Parliaments have issued statements of opposition.
Reports by both Greenpeace and the Nuclear Control Institute in
Washington have raised serious concerns over the release of
large quantities of radiation in case of a credible accident
involving fire or sinking.  

The shippers of this dangerous material are claiming that
reprocessing, or separation of weapon-usable plutonium, as well
as these shipments are essential for the Japanese nuclear
program. "As the plutonium program of Japan is in total disarray
and no reactor has been licensed to use plutonium, all nuclear
shipments associated with reprocessing are unjustified", said
Clements. "No one should be fooled about there being a need for
these shipments, the plutonium industry has no clue whatsoever
about what to do with nuclear waste and is reduced to shuttling
it around the globe".

The Pacific Swan is expected to pass through the Mona Passage
between Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic on 4 February,
possibly transiting the waters under both states' jurisdiction.
British, French and Japanese officials promised to reveal the
route and yet this is still a secret. They didn't even provide
minimal information to en route states, such as advance
notification, emergency plans or proof of liability in case of
accident. 

Just as the shippers have failed to prepare any environmental
documents, the Panama Canal Commission, a US government agency,
has also failed to prepare an Environmental Assessment as
required by the US National Environmental Policy Act. 

Greenpeace calls on a halt to reprocessing and all associated
shipments of spent nuclear fuel, high-level waste and weapon-
usable plutonium.

end

Greenpeace on the Internet at http://www.greenpeace.org