Citizens' suit against Rokkasho uranium plant dismissed

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

Index:



Citizens' suit against Rokkasho uranium plant dismissed

Norway to halt oil leaks, urges UK nuke closure

NRC releases plant status report on Web site

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Citizens' suit against Rokkasho uranium plant dismissed

  

AOMORI, Japan, March 15 (Kyodo) - The Aomori District Court on Friday 

dismissed a suit filed almost 13 years ago by citizens seeking a revocation of 

government approval for a uranium enrichment plant in the village of Rokkasho, 

Aomori Prefecture, ruling the government's safety check was appropriate. 



Presiding Judge Tsutomu Yamazaki dismissed the plaintiffs' claim that the uranium 

plant should not have been approved because the facility could be vulnerable to 

massive earthquakes, plane crashes and major nuclear accidents. 



Yamazaki said the government's safety examination had been ''legitimate'' and 

''flawless.'' 



The central government gave the green light for Japan Nuclear Fuel Ltd. to launch 

the plant's operations in 1988, and more than 170 plaintiffs filed the suit the next 

year. 



The plant, the first in Japan to commercially produce enriched uranium as fuel for 

nuclear power generation, started operations in 1992. 



The court also found Friday that 157 of the 171 plaintiffs do not qualify for plaintiff 

status because they do not live close enough to the facility. Only 14 residents of 

Rokkasho village and the neighboring town of Yokohama were accepted as 

plaintiffs. 



The plaintiffs claimed the state did not use the latest quake data when it performed 

a safety review on the facility in advance. They also said the plant's earthquake-

resistant design is inadequate because it is the same as that of ordinary buildings. 



They argued that there is a high possibility of an airplane crash since the facility is 

located near Misawa air base used by the U.S. Air Force and Japan's Air Self-

Defense Force. 



The citizens also said the government did not consider that a criticality accident 

involving a self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction, similar to the one that took place 

in Tokaimura, Ibaraki Prefecture, in September 1999, could occur at the facility 

during its safety examination held before issuing the approval. 



The Tokaimura nuclear accident, the worst in Japan, occurred at a uranium 

processing plant operated by JCO Co. Two workers died after receiving massive 

doses of radiation. 



The central government countered the plaintiffs' argument, saying it used the latest 

quake data and that the quake-proof design of the facility did not need to be the 

same as that of nuclear power plants because the potential danger for the facility, 

which is not equipped with a nuclear reactor, is smaller. 



The state also said a plane crash is unlikely to occur because military drills take 

place far away from the facility and planes are generally banned from flying over 

the plant. 



It ruled out the possibility that an accident similar to the one in Tokaimura would 

occur in the Rokkasho facility, saying its purpose and operations are different from 

the JCO plant. 



The citizens have also filed similar suits that seek to revoke the state approval for 

the operations of three other nuclear facilities in the village. The court has yet to 

hand down rulings in those suits. 

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



Norway to halt oil leaks, urges UK nuke closure

  

OSLO, March 14 (Reuters) - Norway said on Thursday it wanted to stop leaks from 

its oil and gas platforms by 2005 and urged Britain to shut a nuclear plant that Oslo 

says dumps radioactive pollution into the sea. 



In a drive to safeguard fisheries by cleaning up the seas, the centre-right 

government said it also wanted a moratorium on new oil and gas projects in the 

Arctic Barents Sea and would consider extending Norway's territorial waters. 



"We want a policy that will ensure that future generations can also harvest the 

wealth of the seas," Prime Minister Kjell Magne Bondevik said a week before 

Norway hosts a meeting of environmental ministers from states around the North 

Sea. 



But environmental group Greenpeace handed Bondevik a dead cod just before he 

held a news conference aboard a ship in Oslo harbour, saying the proposals failed 

to address over-fishing by Norwegian trawlers. 



Norway, which is not a member of the European Union, denies that it hands 

fishermen over-generous quotas that are undermining stocks. 



The government plan calls for oil and gas platforms to cut pollution into the sea to 

zero from 2005. Currently some spill oil and chemicals or traces of heavy metals 

like mercury, along with water from drilling. 



The government said a main measure could be to re-inject the polluted water into 

subsea reservoirs. It did not outline any possible penalties for non-compliance in 

the documents, which will go to parliament for debate and approval in coming 

months. 



"Our main goal is that one multi-billion industry should not kill off another," 

Environment Minister Boerge Brende said, referring to the threat to fisheries from 

oil and gas. 



STATOIL SAY IMPOSSIBLE GOAL 



State-controlled oil firm Statoil said the goal was unreachable. 



"If we are not allowed any emissions into sea or air -- that would be impossible," 

said Henrik Carlsen, head of Statoil's exploration and production in Norway. He 

said Statoil might have to shut ageing oilfields like Statfjord and Gullfaks earlier 

than planned. 



Norway earned 30 billion crowns ($3.40 billion) from seafood exports in 2001, its 

second largest earner behind oil and gas which brought in 300 billion crowns. 



Norway pumps 3.0 million barrels of oil per day and is the third largest exporter 

behind Saudi Arabia and Russia. 



The government said it would put "considerable pressure" on London to halt 

emissions of radioactive technetium from its Sellafield nuclear power plant, saying 

Sellafield was the main source of new atomic pollution off Norway. 



Brende said Britain opposed storing technetium on land, due to safety fears, while 

assuring other states it was safe to dump it in the sea. "The British reasoning is full 

of holes," he said. 



He added that levels of technetium off Norway were low and "no direct danger for 

health or the environment" but that the long-term impact was unknown. 



The proposal also urged creation of an independent panel to assess the 

environmental impact of oil and gas drilling in the Arctic Barents Sea, one of the 

world's richest fishing grounds, before giving the go-ahead to any new projects. 



The moratorium, however, would not apply to the 46 billion crowns development of 

the Snoehvit or Snow White field in the Barents Sea, which got a green light from 

parliament last week despite howls of protest from environmentalists. 



The government said it would consider extending its territorial waters to 12 nautical 

miles (22.22 kilometres) from four, matching limits in place in other European 

coastal states except Greece. 



It would also crack down on ships flushing ballast water into the sea. Norway 

blamed ballast water for spreading algae that suffocated thousands of salmon at 

fish farms last year. 

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



NRC releases plant status report on Web site

 

NEW YORK,  (Reuters) - The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has 

republished its reactor status report after suspending it in October amid fears 

power plants could be the next terror targets following the Sept. 11 attacks on 

American soil. 



The report, which lists the operating status of the nation's 103 nuclear power 

plants, was pulled from the NRC's Web site about a month after the attacks on 

New York and the Pentagon to limit public access to information on the plants. 



The report was scheduled to be released on March 31, but the NRC began 

updating the information this week. 



Electricity traders had been anxiously awaiting the report's return because it 

provides key information about generation supplies. 



An official with the NRC said he did not immediately know why the report was 

released two weeks ahead of schedule. 



Early this morning, traders noted the report was dated March 13, but since then the 

NRC has posted a March 15 update. 



The report can be found on the NRC's Web site at www.nrc.gov under the "What's 

New" section. 



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

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://sandy-travels.com

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





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