Sixty grassroots and national leaders from 14 states, DC, and five other nations gathered for a weekend conference and strategy session in Washington sponsored by the Nuclear Information and Resource Service (NIRS). The group vows to stop the Department Energy and the international nuclear cartel in their plan to use plutonium MOX fuel in aging US power reactors. The event culminated in the forging of an action plan for the NIX MOX Campaign.
"MOX equals plutonium, and the MOX program means that the federal government will be transporting plutonium into people's neighborhoods in order to prop up and subsidize a failing nuclear power industry," said Michael Mariotte, executive director of NIRS. "We're confident that the American people will reject the MOX program once they understand its real implications. Far from removing plutonium from circulation, the MOX program would increase its circulation. Instead, DOE should be developing plutonium immobilization technologies."
The diverse group included veteran organizers, technical experts, students and leaders of regional and national environmental organizations. Communities that host nuclear power reactors and communities that host DOE weapons complex sites were represented, as well as those affected by both. Plutonium from dismantled warheads as a fuel for commercial atomic power reactors brings together concerns that in some years have been viewed "different issues." Said Mary Olson of the Nuclear Information and Resource Service, "We chose the big X as the symbol for NIX MOX — our commitment to stop the use of plutonium fuels–and after this grassroots summit, I see that it also stands for the intersection of our communities and the bridge we are building to be united as a single community to stop this."
MOX development in the US would depend on the construction of a new fuel fabrication facility, a controversial and costly undertaking. The fabrication site likely would be placed at an existing DOE site, and would provide the necessary infrastructure for future large-scale reprocessing of nuclear fuel. Reprocessing is a long-sought goal of the nuclear power industry, but has been rejected by every Administration over the past two decades because of nuclear proliferation concerns.
"The Clinton-Gore administration can save itself a lot of embarrassment; the Department of Energy can save taxpayers a lot of money, and the nuclear industry can save itself a lot of headaches. All they have to do is stop MOX now, before they waste our money and their time," said Mariotte. "The MOX scheme isn't going to work."
The conference also pointed out that creation of the MOX-related infrastructure would lead to development of a frighteningly powerful new military-industrial-utility complex. Among the companies that have expressed interest in the MOX program are international concerns such as British Nuclear Fuels (BNFL) and Cogema, which are responsible for nightmarish radioactive pollution problems in the North Sea and the French seacoast.
"Companies such as BNFL and Cogema cannot be trusted to handle U.S. plutonium disposition," said Mariotte. "BNFL, for example, besides being responsible for the radioactively-polluted North Sea, is a key partner in Urenco, a uranium enrichment consortium. It was top-secret Urenco uranium enrichment technology that formed the basis of Iraq's clandestine efforts to attain nuclear weapons capability. This is not the kind of company that should be handling the most sensitive nuclear material in the United States."
Cogema is undergoing severe criticism and scrutiny in France, where it was revealed this Spring that the area near its La Hague reprocessing plant is highly radioactively-polluted and has caused excess childhood cancers. Continued radiation monitoring in the area has found continued high radiation levels, and local beaches were closed during the summer season.
Participants at the conference also set in motion plans to build an international NIX MOX campaign, stretching from the U.S. and Canada to France, England, Russia, Japan and beyond. Already, dozens of grassroots organizations in these and other countries are working against MOX. 171 groups from around the world signed a letter to President Clinton against MOX in January when the program first was announced.