GREENPEACE: RADIOACTIVE NUCLEAR WASTE WILL PASS THROUGH PANAMA CANAL WITHOUT ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT STUDY.

2 February 1998

Amsterdam / Panama

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 nofication, 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.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION PLEASE CONTACT:

- in Panama: Tom Clements, Greenpeace International, mobile +507 614 61 56 or +507 264 3333; also Carlos Bravo (Spanish) and Michael Kuehn (German), tel. +507 264 3333

- in Europe: Luisa Colasimone, Greenpeace Communications (Amsterdam),mobile +31 6 53 66 29 70