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Green Action and Mihama-no-Kai Petition Government and Kansai Electric to Investigate Return Shipment MOX Transport Cask for Possible Corrosion

For immediate release: 14 June 2002
For more information contact: Aileen Mioko Smith or Stephen Ready
Mobile: 090-3620-9251

Takahama, Fukui Prefecture, Japan—-

Two Japanese citizen organizations, Green Action and Mihama-no-Kai, who were instrumental in December 1999 in successfully identifying the falsification of safety data for fuel fabricated at BNFL for Japan’s plutonium (MOX) program, joined local citizen groups in Takahama today to protest the arrival of the British-flagged vessel the Pacific Pintail into the port of Takahama. The ship arrived to drop off the transport cask that is scheduled to carry the tainted MOX back to Britain. The ship is scheduled to leave the Takahama nuclear power plant bound for Britain in early July.

In 1999, eight MOX (mixed plutonium uranium oxide) fuel assemblies manufactured by BNFL for Kansai Electric’s Takahama nuclear power plant in Fukui Prefecture were found to have safety data which had been falsified. In 2000, the British company agreed to take back the fuel.

“BNFL willfully endangered the lives of the citizens of Fukui and surrounding areas. It has never apologized to the people for this. Now it intends to wash its hands clean by undertaking this shipment. We can never accept BNFL again,” stated Aileen Mioko Smith, director of Green Action. “It is shocking that this company and the British government does not consider fuel with falsified quality control data to be unsafe. Even sabotage of the fuel did not warrant a thorough investigation. Such a company will never be acceptable to the Japanese public” Smith stated. Smith was referring to Britain’s position that safety had not been undermined by the deliberate falsification. The sabotage concerned unnamed worker or workers inserting debris (screw) into the fuel rods.

The local Anti Nuclear Power Plant Obama Citizens Group issued an urgent resolution yesterday against the shipment stating, “This shipment affirms the existence of BNFL’s THORP reprocessing plant which releases vast quantities of radiation, contaminating the surrounding regions and the shores of neighboring countries. BNFL continues to lie to the people of Ireland, Norway, and Denmark and can even be described as “criminal.'” The group stated, “This shipment is being undertaken with no party claiming ownership of the MOX fuel assemblies. If an accident were to occur with ownership remaining unsettled, who will be responsible for damages?”

Kansai Electric’s Osaka headquarters are on record stating this June that they will not begin undertaking any contract negotiations with BNFL for new MOX fuel without the approval of the citizens of Fukui Prefecture and surrounding areas.

” One thing is certain. We Fukui citizens will never allow BNFL to set foot in our prefecture again” stated Miwako Ogiso, executive director of the Fukui Prefectural Citizens’ Organization Against Nuclear Power Plants.

Green Action campaigner Stephen Ready stated, “This shipment is being undertaken without the consent of the countries on the route of the shipment, there is no environmental assessment, no adequate liability regime or contingency plans in case of emergency. Over 50 countries are on record protesting Japanese nuclear shipments. We in Japan staunchly oppose this shipment on these grounds.”

Green Action and Mihama-no-Kai submitted questions and demands to Kansai Electric earlier this month and again today to the Japanese government’s Ministry of Land, Transport, and Infrastructure urging them to investigate possible corrosion of the transport cask delivered today into Takahama. Recently, similar transport casks used by both Tokyo Electric and Kansai Electric were found to have corrosion problems after a more thorough investigation revealed previously unidentified corrosion. Kansai Electric claims there is “no problem” because the casks “have different designs” but is yet to explain what these differences are.

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