" High radioactivity, low IQ "

["Franta, Jaroslav" <frantaj@aecl.ca>]

http://www.montrealgazette.com/editorial/pages/000801/4511195.html
> High radioactivity, low IQ 
> The Gazette (Montreal) Tue 01 Aug 2000 
> Editorial / Op-ed B2 
> 
> Ottawa pulled a pusillanimous about-face last week, saying that instead of
> transporting plutonium from Russia to Canada by ship it would use an
> airplane. 
> The flip-flop reflects far more concern for public relations than for
> public security. 
> 
> Until now, the federal government had insisted that the safest way to
> import the dangerous radioactive material from decommissioned Russian
> nuclear warheads was to bring it by ship to Cornwall, Ont., and from there
> truck it to the nuclear facility at Chalk River, Ont., where the plutonium
> would be tested to see if CANDU reactors can use it to produce
> electricity. Under the new plan, the government will fly the shipment to
> the Canadian Forces Base at either Bagotville or at Trenton, Ont., and
> then put it aboard a helicopter for the final leg. 
> 
> Why settle for the less safe scheme? Because - get this - Ottawa did not
> want to anger those numerous critics in Quebec and Ontario who claimed the
> original plan was so hazardous that it should not traverse their
> territory. 
> 
> In other words, to appease the pro-safety forces, Ottawa has opted for the
> least safe course. It did the same thing last January when Sault Ste.
> Marie and other Ontario towns squawked about a planned road shipment of
> plutonium from the United States to Chalk River. 
> 
> The ostensible winners of this latest saga are local politicians of the
> Montreal Urban Community and more than 100 Quebec and Ontario
> municipalities whose councils passed resolutions against the
> surface-transport shipments, the scheme's opponents in the Bloc Quebecois
> and New Democratic Party and the Mohawk leaders at the Kahnawake and
> Akwesasne reserves who vowed to stop at nothing to block a shipment
> passing by their territory. 
> 
> They may have spared themselves the minimal peril of a slow-moving,
> heavily guarded vessel or truck, but they've greatly elevated the risk.
> The material's elaborate container has a far better chance of rupturing in
> an air crash, and fire could spread toxic vapours over a vast area. 
> 
> Many of the critics argue that Canada should take no plutonium in the
> first place. That purist line ignores the fact that this country is better
> able than Russia to diminish this radioactive legacy of the Cold War. The
> import plan's alternative is for the stuff to stay in that notoriously
> unstable nation where it is vulnerable to leaks into the environment or to
> theft by terrorists. 
> 
> Ottawa should at last make a serious effort to counter the scaremongers'
> blarney and stick to its original transport plan.
<><><><><><><><><><><>

Comment :

The following letter on the same subject (responding to an antinuke letter
printed in two newspapers) was printed in last Sunday's Montreal Gazette
(slightly edited) and in Monday's Hamilton Spectator :

In his July 19 letter in the Montreal Gazette, reproduced from the July 15
Hamilton Spectator, Gordon Edwards cites the current US prohibition against
air transport of plutonium.

Apart from the fact that US regulations do not apply in Canada (where the
air shipment of a tiny sample of MOX fuel to Chalk River took place), the
position of the USA is anomalous and does not reflect international
consensus.

This anomaly is finally being addressed however, by the US Nuclear
Regulatory Commission's "Major Revision to 10 CFR 71 : Compatibility with
ST-1 -- The IAEA Transportation Safety Standards," published just this month
in the US Federal Register, Vol. 65, No. 137.

According to international regulations, so-called Type B containers can -
and have many times been - used to safely transport plutonium in the form of
a "low dispersible material" - or "LDM" - such as the solid ceramic
non-combustible fuel pellets that make up MOX fuel. By implying that these
half-inch pellets can be inhaled, Mr. Edwards is taking the public for a
bunch of idiots - a tactic that may backfire !

It is also worth remembering that the only significant difference between
transporting MOX fuel and transporting medical radioisotopes to thousands of
hospitals around the world, is that the latter are much more radioactive and
are typically not LDM. But we know from past aircraft crashes that similar
packages - the so-called "black boxes" or Flight Data Recorders - generally
survive intact, if somewhat banged-up.

Ironically, the anomalous US regulations originated in a 1975 NRC
appropriations bill amendment by Congressman Scheuer, who cited crashes of
US bombers carrying nuclear weapons at Thule in Greenland and at Palomares
in Spain. These "packages" were not at all designed for radioactive material
transport and contained powerful chemical explosives and plutonium in the
combustible metallic form (MOX contains non-combustible plutonium oxide).

Of course the Public Law which resulted from the Scheuer amendment exempts
military weapons from any of its provisions ( surprise ! ). No doubt Mr.
Edwards' concerns about the use of Type B casks for MOX transport would all
vanish were Canada to use explosives-packed bomb shells instead -- after all
he does like to quote the brilliant US legal system so much...

I agree with Mr. Edwards that "Canadians are being told fairy tales," but it
is activists like Mr. Edwards that are telling them.

Its been a while since there's been "a decent set of public hearings" and
Mr. Edwards and company would dearly love to get more government funding as
official antagonists - and get lots of media play to boot.

Regards,

Jaro
frantaj@aecl.ca
>  
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