IT'S A BIRD, IT'S A PLANE, IT'S PLUTONIUM
Epstein, Robin
It's a Bird, It's a Plane, It's Plutonium BY ROBIN EPSTEIN Deregulation has reached new heights with the Reagan Administration, which is opening up the skies fcr the transportation of...
...Following the crash, 237,000 cubic feet of radioactive ice, tundra, and bomber debris were flown back to South Carolina for burial...
...And Alaska Governor Steve Cowper says he isn't persuaded that the Reagan Administration has seriously considered Alaskan citizens' lives and land...
...He has asked the NRC to conduct actual crash tests for the casks...
...A great deal of concern has been voiced, most notably in Alaska and Canada, that such flights might pose a potential risk to the populations and natural environments of the areas that might be transited or overflown...
...Japanese peace activists don't trust their government on this score...
...The State Department does...
...Japan itself could use the plutonium to build a bomb, though its constitution forbids the military application of nuclear material...
...Under a current agreement that expires in 2003, the United States controls Japan's use of the plutonium contained in spent nuclear fuel obtained from the United States...
...Japan has impeccable nonproliferation credentials," says the State Department spokesman, who requested anonymity...
...U.S...
...Japan would purchase low-enriched uranium from the United States, burn it in Japanese reactors, and then ship the spent fuel to France and England for reprocessing...
...control," says Paul Leventhal, president of the Nuclear Control Institute and a drafter of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Act...
...These concerns motivated the Pentagon and the NRC to oppose the agreement early on, but they were rebuffed...
...The economic justification infuriates Senator Glenn...
...On December 17, an overwhelming majority of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee sent a letter to President Reagan opposing the pact...
...Sales to Japan represent one-fourth of the Department of Energy's enrichment business, testified Bertram Wolfe, vice president and general manager for nuclear energy at General Electric...
...In 1968, a B-52 bomber crashed at the U.S...
...The nuclear field remains one of the relatively few areas in which the U.S...
...The flights would probably stop over in Alaska for refueling, though Washington State is also a possibility...
...Japan wants to ship the plutonium in powdered plutonium-oxide form...
...It's a Bird, It's a Plane, It's Plutonium BY ROBIN EPSTEIN Deregulation has reached new heights with the Reagan Administration, which is opening up the skies fcr the transportation of plutonium...
...The U.S.-Japan agreement would greatly increase the amount of plutonium available for the proliferation of nuclear weapons...
...You would have to bring in bulldozers and Geiger counters and decontaminate everyone and scrape the soil and ship it off for disposal...
...I am struck by how far this agreement would stray from past policy and set a dangerous precedent for other nations," testified Senator Glenn...
...and must await affirmative action by Congress through a joint resolution of approval...
...nuclear exports to Japan," Kennedy said, "including enrichment services with an annual average value of more than $250 million and component exports whose value is also very substantial...
...I'm afraid that much of the negotiation between the United States and Japan had taken place without being reported to us...
...dous environmental hazard and a would-be terrorist's dream," said Alan Cranston, California Democrat, a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, which held a hearing on the proposed agreement in December...
...Crashes are not the only hazards...
...The State Department, Japan, and the international nuclear industry lobbied hard for the new agreement...
...Such shipments could pose a horrenRobin Epstein is a free-lance writer in New York City...
...If the Administration declines to do so, the agreement "must be resubmitted to the Congress with an exemption of statutory requirements...
...All a terrorist has to do is divert a tiny fraction, fifteen pounds, to have enough plutonium to fashion a nuclear bomb of the type dropped on Nagasaki," says Alan Kuperman, a researcher at the Nuclear Control Institute...
...The agreement that is before this committee is perhaps the most significant nuclear-cooperation agreement in history...
...Plutonium, a key ingredient in nuclear weapons, is one of the Earth's most toxic substances, and a storm of controversy is swirling about the safety and wisdom of the new agreement...
...Thule, Greenland, illustrates the dangers...
...But basing such a shift in policy on trust has angered some Senators...
...The agreement, temporarily tied up in Congress, would allow commercial 747s laden with plutonium to fly around the world on a regular basis...
...interests...
...Since 1981, President Reagan has vowed not to inhibit America's allies from reprocessing U.S.-supplied nuclear material for civilian ends...
...The Alaska state senate and state assembly have unanimously passed legislation opposing the flights...
...The Canadian government has not decided whether to approve or disallow the flights over its territory...
...They remain in the lungs for a long time, bombarding the tissues with radioactivity...
...If the agreement is allowed to stand, Congress may soon be hearing requests to relinquish U.S...
...Realism, and a U.S...
...Danish workers involved in the cleanup are suing the U.S...
...control over a foreign nuclear program in history," testified Ambassador Kennedy...
...Government for exposing them to carcinogens...
...Such concerns are quite understandable but they are also, the Administration is convinced, unwarranted...
...Japanese utilities plan to transport more than ten times as much plutonium on each flight, about 500 pounds' worth, according to the Nuclear Control Institute...
...Amere speck of plutonium causes lung cancer if inhaled...
...The NRC said Japan might lose track of so many kilograms of plutonium that terrorists would be able to build hundreds of nuclear weapons...
...Maintaining control over the world's nuclear arsenal is too important to be sacrificed for the sake of commercial expediency," he testified...
...In essence, the letter shifted the burden of proof back to the Administration...
...At the moment, the agreement is on hold...
...Lando W. Zech Jr., chairman of the NRC, and then-Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger sent letters to President Reagan opposing the agreement...
...the State Department spokesman says...
...We don't...
...Plutonium particles are not soluble...
...Murkowski has been particularly concerned about the safety of the casks carrying the plutonium...
...Where are we to draw the line...
...And the Reagan Administration is eager to play along, largely for commercial reasons...
...Once the plutonium is recovered from the nuclear waste, the agreement would allow it to be air-shipped from Europe back to Japan...
...There's no likelihood that we can see that the situation would change...
...The Administration, however, hasn't backed off...
...The pact would place the United States on "a perilous course, which could seriously jeopardize our nonproliferation interests while posing a grave environmental risk," the Senators' letter stated...
...A tiny amount of plutonium can kill half a million people, which is about all we have here," says Michelle Brown, Assistant Attorney General for Alaska...
...This agreement has no benefits for Alaska, and no perceptible benefits for the United States, but represents a sweetheart deal for the international nuclear industry," Toal says...
...The Danes who participated in the cleanup have a 40 per cent higher cancer rate than the workers stationed at Thule before the crash, Danish health authorities revealed in December...
...Christopher Toal, executive director of SANE-Alaska, helped found the Alaska Coalition Against Plutonium Shipments, a coalition of twenty-one groups, ranging from the Alaska Academy of Trial Lawyers and the state AFL-CIO to the In-uit Circumpolar Conference of indigenous people...
...Nuclear reactors have redundancies and controls, but in airplanes there are very few safety systems," says Kaku...
...The Committee requested that the President renegotiate the agreement to bring it "into conformity with United States law...
...A crash by one of these planes could have devastating consequences...
...A tiny amount of plutonium can kill half a million people, which is about all we have here,' says an Alaskan official...
...The plane was carrying sixteen kilograms of plutonium, the Danish government says...
...The agreement will help ensure the continuation and growth of U.S...
...I am concerned," he said, "about the Administration's claim to clairvoyance in being able to estimate future threats of terrorism and sabotage at large plutonium facilities, some of which have not yet even been built...
...Japan, with almost no domestic energy supplies, sees recycling plutonium as a crucial step toward energy independence...
...When you look at a plane crash, there's virtually nothing left...
...The polar route, which the Japanese prefer, would require the planes to overfly at least 2,400 kilometers of Canadian territory and refuel in Alaska...
...The Administration is disappointed with the action of the committee and is taking a confrontational stance...
...The fifteen senators who signed the letter said the arrangement violates the Atomic Energy Act...
...Peace groups in Alaska have organized widespread opposition to the proposed agreement...
...If Canada objects, these flights may cross over the eleven northern tier states from Maine to Washington, possibly refueling in Washington," said Senator Frank Murkowski, Republican of Alaska, during the hearing...
...There are inadequate safeguards against radiological hazards or the diversion of commercial plutonium by terrorists, the Pentagon concluded in a report delivered to Congress in November...
...Among the signers was the Foreign Relations Committee's ranking minority member, Jesse Helms, Republican of North Carolina...
...Five hundred pounds of plutonium oxide could represent tens of millions of cancer doses, the Nuclear Control Institute warns...
...But even the Pentagon and the U.S...
...rights over plutonium produced from U.S.-origin material in other countries with advanced nuclear programs...
...self-interest, argue for providing reasonable flexibility to the Japanese...
...In addition, the agreement would be of great benefit to the U.S...
...Granting Japan programmatic approval to reprocess plutonium is "not absolutely tied to uranium sales," says a State Department spokesman, but it "will further ensure this type of cooperation will continue...
...And Japan would be flying a lot of specks: as much as eighty-five tons of plutonium by the year 2000, according to a report by the Nuclear Control Institute of Washington, D.C., a research organization that monitors the renegotiation of nuclear-cooperation agreements...
...The NRC has yet to certify for air transport a container capable of carrying the sizable quantities of plutonium envisioned by the Japanese," he said...
...We are convinced that the agreement would provide the most sweeping enhancements of U.S...
...air base at Thule...
...If Congress had taken no action, the agreement would have gone into effect in March...
...Because of the weight of the casks needed to contain large quantities of plutonium (one prototype weighed 5,000 pounds), the planes would have to make a refueling stop...
...The agreement states the flights must travel a polar route or a route that avoids "areas of natural disaster or civil disorder...
...But the new agreement, which would supersede the old one, would grant Japan thirty years of "programmatic" approval to reprocess and air-ship plutonium without case-by-case clearance from the United States...
...The Administration submitted a new U.S.-Japan nuclear-cooperation agreement to Congress in November that appears to violate the 1978 Nuclear Non-proliferation Act...
...An even more disturbing possibility is that the plutonium would end up in the hands of terrorists...
...Planes carrying plutonium would make two to three trips each month, the Institute estimates...
...It's such an overwhelming threat that it's not appropriate to bargain away our health, safety, and environment in Alaska...
...law was written to inhibit the spread of plutonium under U.S...
...The United States supplies 80 per cent of Japan's nuclear fuel in the form of low-enriched uranium, and Japan needs to get approval from the United States before reprocessing the burned fuel into plutonium...
...This agreement is illegal and dangerous...
...Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) are against the agreement...
...The Reagan Administration has been dedicated to establishing the United States as a "reliable nuclear trading partner," Richard Kennedy, U.S...
...Commercial plutonium flights could make nuclear-power reactors look safe by comparison...
...The committee thinks something is lacking...
...This risk also was on Senator Glenn's mind...
...The risks of such air traffic are, indeed, enormous...
...It takes decades to kill," says Kaku...
...The Administration remains unperturbed...
...It's frightening somethingthis big can be authorized without public scrutiny...
...economically...
...The agreement "absolutely does meet the requirements of U.S...
...Transporting plutonium by air is dubious because of the large possibility that a plane will crash," says Michio Kaku, a professor of theoretical physics at the City University of New York, who has researched NASA's plans to put plutonium on the space shuttle...
...By negotiating an agreement with Japan that accelerates this spread, the Reagan Administration has violated the law and jeopardized vital U.S...
...ambassador at large and special adviser to Secretary of State George Shultz on nonproliferation policy and nuclear-energy affairs, testified before the Foreign Relations Committee in December...
...Because of the frequency and predictability of the commercial plutonium flights, nuclear terrorists could have a simple job of hijacking...
...Traffic in plutonium creates opportunities for "acts of nuclear terrorism involving mass destruction," the Pentagon warned...
...The agreement will not have a significant impact on the human environment," Kennedy testified...
...Given the precedent of the Thule incident, you could be talking about quarantining several square miles," Kaku says...
...We crashed the party, Senator, on a number of occasions,* then-Assistant Secretary of Defense Richard Perle told Senator Glenn in early 1987...
...has a highly favorable trade balance with Japan," said Wolfe, who was appearing on behalf of the American Nuclear Energy Council, which strongly supports the agreement...
...Depending on particle size and weather conditions, "much of it could remain airborne for many days and could travel hundreds or even thousands of miles," says George Rathjens, a nuclear physicist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology...
...The Administration shows an unbounded willingness to alter our laws and policies to conform to the needs of foreign nuclear programs," testified Senator John Glenn, Ohio Democrat, the author of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Act of 1978...
Vol. 52 • February 1988 • No. 2
