Knowles fights nuke waste plan
RUSSIA: Ships would carry radioactive cargo to and from Japan.

By Don Hunter
February 23, 2001

Gov. Tony Knowles has written to his counterpart in the Russian province of Chukotka as well as to U.S. Sen. Ted Stevens and the State Department, asking for information and assistance in blocking a proposal to transport nuclear waste through the Arctic Ocean.

A Russian shipping company has offered to use icebreakers to escort freighters laden with nuclear waste bound from Europe to Japan across its northern coastline, according to national and international news accounts, concerned northern nations and environmental organizations.

In letters dated Feb. 16, Knowles asked Stevens and Secretary of State Colin Powell for help in clarifying the talks between Russian and Japanese companies. Knowles additionally asked Stevens to help "stop the marine transport of these dangerous materials."

In his letter to Powell, Knowles said: "Any accidental release of this material could have a devastating effect on the fragile Arctic environment and the health and welfare of the people who live there. In Alaska, where most of our indigenous people live a subsistence way of life, any threat to their resources would have a devastating effect on their way of life, not to mention their health."

North Slope Borough Mayor George Ahmoagak voiced similar concerns in a recent interview.

"If there is dumping or accidents, that (radiation) could get into the food chain," Ahmaogak said. "If that is the case, we'd be concerned about that. We've got enough problems with (persistent organic pollutants) and heavy metals in tissues and organs of marine mammals now."

Stevens is out of the country and could not be contacted this week. A spokesman for the State Department said Knowles' letter could not immediately be located Thursday. The third person on the governor's mailing list is Roman Abramovich, who was inaugurated as governor of Chukotka a few weeks ago.

"I know that you are as concerned as I am about the potential risks this activity could pose," Knowles wrote to Abramovich. "I hope you will join me in registering our mutual concerns with our respective federal administrations over this matter of Arctic marine transport of nuclear material."

Hard facts about the nuclear shipping proposal are difficult to come by. The environmental organization Greenpeace issued a press release in January saying it had learned of the negotiations, and news organizations in the United States, Europe and Russia have reported on the talks.

In Washington, D.C., Knowles aide Anna Kerttula investigated. Thursday, Kerttula said contacts in Moscow have confirmed there is a proposal to ship nuclear waste through the Arctic Ocean. A pilot shipment of nonnuclear freight is said to be scheduled this summer, she and others said.

"We're not sure how close they are to cutting a deal," Kerttula said. "We're trying to find out how real this is and when is the possibility (that shipments might begin). In talking with my contacts in Moscow, the impression was it's better to be ahead of the game than behind it."

Japan uses nuclear fuel to power some utilities and sends spent fuel to reactors in Britain and France, where it is reprocessed. The reprocessed fuel and nuclear waste created in that process are shipped to Japan. The exchange has been going on for about a decade, with freighters transiting traditional sea routes around South Africa and South America and through the Panama Canal. Resistance to shipping the nuclear material has been growing in countries adjacent to those routes.

Damon Moglen, a Washington, D.C.-based spokesman for Greenpeace International who works on nuclear issues, said more than 50 countries have protested the two-way shipments between Japan and Europe.

"One reason the Arctic is being looked at is that political opposition along other routes has gotten quite fierce," Moglen said. "Unless people fight shipments along the Arctic route, it runs the very real risk of being the route of least resistance."

The northern sea route hugs the Russian coastline for the most part. What grass-roots opposition might exist there is submerged beneath the enthusiasm of government and business leaders for new commercial enterprises, said Thomas Jandl of Bellona USA, an American affiliate of a Norwegian environmental organization. Bellona opposes the nuclear shipping proposal.

"Obviously, there's a concern," Jandl said. "If you look at a map, the Arctic looks big. But it's not a huge area. If you had an accident, it would give a nice distribution all over of these dangerous materials."

At this time, the Russian proposal is to transport nuclear waste left over from the British and French reprocessing effort back to Japan. The material would be encased in thick glass blocks or cylinders. Greenpeace calls it "high-level waste" with the potential to threaten the environment for thousands of years if accidentally released.

Russia and other northern nations have been investigating commercial shipping possibilities through the Arctic Ocean in recent years.

John Doyle, executive director of the Anchorage-based Northern Forum, said his group, which represents leaders in many of those nations, has promoted the development of marine freight routes through the Arctic.

However, the forum does not promote nuclear shipments, Doyle said.

Post-Soviet-era Russia has an expensive, and expensive to maintain, fleet of icebreakers capable of transiting the thickest ice, Doyle said. The possibility of shipping across the pole or via the shoreline-hugging northern sea route is attractive for a simple reason.

"It's a lot shorter," Doyle said.