Nuclear waste trucked in Germany for USA
Diet Simon - 18.07.2004 00:58
Sixty spent nuclear fuel elements have been trucked along West German roads for shipment to the USA, the Dortmund newspaper, Ruhr Nachrichten, reported Saturday. The paper said the waste went from a research centre at Jülich, near Cologne, to an undisclosed seaport for shipment to an interim storage and processing facility in Aiken, South Carolina. It ran through the industrial Ruhr region and past the city of Münster.
The Federal Office for Radiation Protection (BfS) confirmed that this Castor casket transport was permitted on 15 June, the paper said.
Nuclear waste transportation, especially road haulage, is highly controversial in Germany.
The state government of North-Rhine Westphalia, through which the Jülich consignment travelled, is trying to prevent the trucking of more than 900 spent fuel rods from a switched off research reactor near Dresden to an interim storage at Ahaus near Münster and the Dutch border, a run of more than 600 kilometres.
The newspaper said the consignment consisted of 7.3 kilograms of uranium and plutonium, with radioactivity equivalent to ten Castor caskets from Rossendorf near Dresden.
The Ruhr Nachrichten quoted a government spokesman as saying the transports couldn’t be compared.
Transports within Germany could only be carried out with a huge police presence, whereas transports from research reactors to other countries were possible without police protection because they did not trigger noteworthy protests.
The spokesman said North-Rhine Westphalia was still demanding that the caskets from Rossendorf should be taken to Ahaus in a single rail consignment to minimise policing.
The state of Saxony wants to truck the waste. North-Rhine Westphalia has filed litigation to try to stop this.
Nuclear opponents don’t want the waste to be transported at all.
See also “Atomtransport aus Forschungsreaktoren”  http://de.indymedia.org/2004/07/87525.shtml
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