Troubles of Nuke Waste Shipment Indicates Reprocessing, Shipment

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

TROUBLES OF NUCLEAR WASTE SHIPMENT UNDERSCORE NEED  TO HALT
REPROCESSING, NUCLEAR SHIPMENTS - BRITISH NUCLEAR FUELS NOT
REVEALING VOLUME OF WASTE FOR RETURN  TO JAPAN

Tokyo, March 13, 1998 (GP) The troubles which have faced the
nuclear waste ship Pacific Swan in Japan clearly point out the
need to halt both reprocessing and nuclear waste shipments,
according to the international environmental organization
Greenpeace. 

"The dilemma arising over the arrival of the Pacific Swan
represents the growing international concern with Japan's
program to ship nuclear waste and reprocess spent nuclear fuel,"
said Tom Clements of Greenpeace International in Washington. 
"Just as Aomori Prefecture should not become a nuclear waste
dump, France and Britain should also not have to face the
environmental risks of Japan's deadly nuclear waste and weapon-
usable plutonium."

Japan believes that only the high-level waste is slated to be
returned but it now appears that due to failure of the Nirex
nuclear waste facility in the United Kingdom that all
intermediate-level waste (ILW) will also have to be returned to
Japan.  According to UK Government policy, ILW from foreign
reprocessing must be returned to the country of origin, yet
British Nuclear Fuels (BNFL) has been quiet about this policy.
As the UK currently cannot "substitute" a smaller volume of HLW
for a larger volume equal in radioactivity of ILW, the ILW must
also be returned.  The volume of ILW created during reprocessing
is many times larger than the volume of HLW.  

 Greenpeace calculates that return of the ILW will result in a 
massive increase of shipments to Japan and believes  that
Governor Kimura and other officials should be asking hard
questions of JNFL and the federal government about the fate of
this material. Greenpeace Japan has written to the governor to
inform him of the "hidden" waste which BNFL does not want to
talk about.  Additionally, new reprocessing contracts, now being
urged by BNFL and COGEMA, would also result in dozens more waste
shipments, creating a recipe for even greater environmental
problems in  Rokkasho.

 The British-flagged Pacific Swan, with 30 tons of high-level 
nuclear waste from France, today docked in the port of 
Mutsu-Ogasawara in northern Japan's Aomori Prefecture, 
325 miles north east of Tokyo. The unloading was delayed after
Aomori  governor Morio  Kimura refused to grant permission
because the  national government's long-term storage places for
the nuclear  waste were unclear.

On the Swan's passage through the Panama Canal on February 6,
three Greenpeace activists boarded the vessel and hung a banner
which said STOP PLUTONIUM.  Boarding of the unguarded vessel
revealed a weakness in the ship's security and Greenpeace
believes that no security risk assessment has been prepared for
this shipment.  A planned shipment of plutonium fuel (mixed
oxide or MOX) must, under US regulations, have an armed escort
vessel and will not be allowed to transit the Panama Canal due
to the security threat it presents.  According to the
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), MOX contains material
suitable for "direct use" in nuclear weapons

Realizing the danger they present, dozens of countries around
the world have protested against this very shipment and the two
earlier shipments of high-level waste.  This year, the strongest
statements against the transport have come from governments
along the shipping routes: The Bahamas, Jamaica, Antigua and
Barbuda, the US Virgin Islands, the Latin American Parliament
and the Central American Parliament.

In spite of these protests, British Nuclear Fuels, COGEMA and
Japan Nuclear Fuels have pushed ahead with the reprocessing and
waste shipment program and have adamantly refused to prepare a
comprehensive environmental impact statement.

During reprocessing, weapon-usable plutonium is separated and
the volume of nuclear waste is increased more than 50 times.  A
huge volume of high-level, intermediate-level and low-level
nuclear waste of Japanese origin now sits in France and Britain
and it is unsure what will happen with this material.  


Information on the shipment is available on the Greenpeace web
site at http://www.greenpeace.org