German nuke waste train rumbles across France

["Sandy Perle" <sandyfl@EARTHLINK.NET>]

German nuke waste train rumbles across France



PARIS, March 26 (Reuters) - A high-security freight train shipping 

nuclear waste back to Germany rumbled across northern France almost 

unnoticed on Monday, in contrast to the protests expected once it 

crosses the border before midnight. 



The train, made up of six flatcars carrying massive Castor containers 

with the nuclear waste and passenger cars fore and aft packed with 

police, left a Normandy train terminal before dawn under the watchful 

eyes of only a dozen demonstrators. 



Police reported no incidents by midday as it passed near Amiens and 

said the 1,500 police guarding the train along the way should have no 

problem if any protests arose. 



"We have deployed a significant surveillance force to make sure the 

cards are stacked in our favour," a spokesman said. 



There were no signs of anti-nuclear demonstrators near the railway 

border crossing at Lauterbourg, where the nuclear transport was due 

to enter Germany at 2200 GMT on Monday night. 



Along the route to the Gorleben waste storage site in northern 

Germany, police said fewer protesters were camping out waiting for 

the train than organisers had hoped. 



"I am very relaxed because the protest potential...is clearly below 

their own expectations," said Hans Reime, leading the police 

operation based in Lueneburg. 



French anti-nuclear activists said they planned protests later in the 

day as the train passed through Bar-le-Duc and Nancy in eastern 

France. 



SIGNAL FLARE BEFORE DAWN 



Protesters fired a red signal flare into the pre-dawn sky as the 

train, the first sent to Germany since March 1998, left Valognes near 

the La Hague reprocessing centre along the Channel at 6:46 a.m. (0446 

GMT). "La Hague - the garbage can is overflowing," read a banner they 

held up. 



"We're not here to block the convoy because we think it's normal that 

the waste should go back to where it came from," said Frederic 

Marillier of the environmental group Greenpeace. 



"But we want to denounce this return because it opens the door to 

trains coming from the other direction." 



"This will lead to more German waste coming to France," said 

Greenpeace France official Jean-Luc Thierry. "We want each country to 

manage its own waste. This traffic (in waste) in Europe shows they 

don't know what to do with it." 



The last shipments to the controversial storage facility at Gorleben, 

south of Hamburg, in 1997 sparked pitched battles between police and 

anti-nuclear militants. 



Fears of radioactive leaks aboard the transport trains prompted 

Germany to halt shipments in 1998. The French reprocessing agency 

Cogema says all the containers now meet international safety 

standards. 



Green Environment Minister Juergen Trittin, who himself used to 

protest in Gorleben before taking office in 1998, says Germany is 

obliged to take back the waste but a long-term plan to end nuclear 

power has been agreed. 



More than 10,000 demonstrators massed in Lueneburg, near Gorleben, on 

Saturday to protest against the transport. About 400 farmers in their 

tractors did the same on Sunday. 



Some 15,000 policemen have been drafted in. 



BORDER CROSSING BEFORE MIDNIGHT 



The closely watched train will lumber across northern France during 

the day and leave the border station at Lauterbourg, north of 

Strasbourg, at 11 p.m. (2100 GMT) to enter Germany at Woerth south of 

Karlsruhe. 



It will then advance under heavy police protection to northern 

Germany, reaching Dannenberg by Tuesday evening where the so-called 

Castor containers will be transferred to trucks to take them to 

Gorleben on Wednesday. 



Castor is the English acronym for Cask for Storage and Transport of 

Radioactive Material. The six containers are carrying 168 canisters 

with waste packed in borosilicate glass to contain its radioactivity, 

according to Cogema. 



Trittin, who negotiated last year's deal for the gradual withdrawal 

from nuclear energy, appealed to anti-nuclear activists to avoid the 

violence of earlier protests. 



"My message to them is to do what they have promised, namely to 

demonstrate peacefully," he said in a radio interview. 



Defending his absence, he said; "I don't think that it would help 

calm anything if the person whose job it was to authorise these 

transports were to be there -- on the contrary." 





- ------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sandy Perle                                     Tel:(714) 545-0100 / (800) 548-5100                                     

Director, Technical                             Extension 2306                                  

ICN Worldwide Dosimetry Service         Fax:(714) 668-3149                                          

ICN Pharmaceuticals, Inc.                       E-Mail: sandyfl@earthlink.net                                                      

ICN Plaza, 3300 Hyland Avenue           E-Mail: sperle@icnpharm.com                       

Costa Mesa, CA 92626



Personal Website: http://sandyfl.nukeworker.net

ICN Worldwide Dosimetry Website: http://www.dosimetry.com



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