BY CHRIS RAYSON
TACOMA, Washington - Five hundred people demonstrated at
a recent U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) meeting here on the
agency's proposal to ship nuclear waste through the Port of
Tacoma.
The overflow crowd packed the Tacoma Public Utilities auditorium. Another 200, locked out by city officials citing fire regulations, gathered outside.
Chants of "No Nukes" from those outside echoed into the meeting room. As one person voiced support for the plan, many others argued vociferously with him. Two locked-out protesters left briefly to get poster board and set up at street corners with signs saying "Don't Waste Tacoma" and "No to Nuclear Waste."
Inside the mood was hot. According to The News Tribune, "The crowd took every opportunity to jeer, scoff, hiss and laugh" at the plan.
"I just don't believe a word that guy is saying," said Ann Woolnough, listening to Charles Head, DOE project chief. "There isn't supposed to be a problem with oil shipments either."
Linda Cunio was exposed to radiation in the 1960s when plumes of radiation were released from the Hanford reprocessing plant in eastern Washington. As a result, she decided not to have children.
"I don't need any more technical problems," she said. "The grandchildren I will never see are enough technical problems. I vote no."
Many working people turned out, some wearing union jackets. Local 23 of the International Longshoremen's and Warehousemen's Union at the Port of Tacoma has stated that it will refuse to handle the nuclear waste.
The DOE plans to ship spent nuclear fuel from around the world through as many as 10 ports.
In addition to Tacoma, these include Portland, Oregon; Charleston, South Carolina; Galveston, Texas; Hampton Roads, Virginia; Jacksonville, Florida; Sunny Point, North Carolina; Concord, California; Savannah, Georgia; and Wilmington, North Carolina.
The spent nuclear fuel is composed of highly enriched weapons grade uranium. All of it originated in the United States. The U.S. government promoted an "Atoms for Peace" program that began in the 1950s, encouraging countries to use highly enriched uranium in their reactors. In return for promises not to use the fuel to make nuclear weapons, Washington agreed to store the waste in the United States and did so until 1988.
The U.S. government now proposes to start receiving spent fuel again. Highly enriched uranium is accumulating on site in nuclear power plants abroad from past U.S. exports and from a newer DOE policy to encourage the conversion of highly enriched to low-enriched uranium. In this way Washington hopes to maintain its nuclear advantage in the world.
The government plans to schedule more than 700 shipments over 13 years of 20 tons of nuclear waste. From the ports they would be shipped by truck and rail to reprocessing sites at the Idaho National Engineering Laboratory and the Savannah River Site in South Carolina. In a later stage, the DOE plans to upgrade reprocessing capability at the Hanford; Oak Ridge, Tennessee; and Nevada nuclear sites.
Rich Stuart, Socialist Workers candidate for Seattle Port Commission and a rail worker, joined the protest outside the Tacoma hearing.
"The DOE can't be allowed to decide this," he stated. "We are the ones who will suffer the deadly effects, whether on the job or in the community. The only solution is to shut down the nukes now. Every day they operate the likelihood of another Three Mile Island and another Chernobyl increases. In the meantime tons of nuclear waste piles up that no one knows how to get rid of."