E-M:/ Fwd: 4/7/00 Parallex-MOX hearing in Kalamazoo

[Terry Lodge <tjlodge50@yahoo.com>]

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Enviro-Mich message from Terry Lodge <tjlodge50@yahoo.com>
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> FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:  WEDNESDAY 11:00 p.m.
> 4/5/2000
> 
> "Plutonium Opponents Claim Disarmament Treaty
> Violations: 
>  Seeking Preliminary Injunction to Halt Russian MOX
> Delivery"
> 
> KALAMAZOO, MI. (Wednesday)  ...Opponents of  the
> recent clandestine
> shipment of nuclear weapons plutonium across the
> Great Lakes Basin are back
> in federal court this Friday (beginning at 8:30
> a.m). to seek a Preliminary
> Injunction through a formal request to Judge Richard
> Enslen.  Plaintiffs
> seek to halt the planned shipment of  mixed oxide
> fuel (MOX) from Russia to
> Chalk River Ontario, Canada.  This MOX fuel was
> derived from Russian
> weapons plutonium.  Plaintiffs claim that the United
> States' role in the
> scheme to use the plutonium-uranium / MOX fuel
> violates the 1968 Nuclear
> Non-Proliferation Treaty.   
> 
> Michigan plaintiffs in U.S. District Court in
> Kalamazoo were joined by
> First Nations and Canadian plaintiffs:  Association
> of Iroquois and Allied
> Indians, Mohawk Council of Akwesasne, Northwatch,
> Canadian Coalition for
> Nuclear Responsibility, Concerned Citizens of
> Renfrew County.  Also, U.S.
> National groups, Physicians for Social
> Responsibility,  Nuclear Information
> Resource Services and Blue Ridge Environmental
> Defense League (Southeast
> U.S.). All are now parties to the suit. Michigan
> Plaintiffs include: Alice
> Hirt, Anabel Dwyer, Kathryn Cumbow, 
> Robert Anderson, Terry Miller, Doris Vernon Schaller
> and Citizens for
> Alternatives to Chemical Contamination.
> 
> The NPT Treaty is an agreement among some 180
> nations of the world which
> requires a halt to the spread of nuclear bombs and
> other weapons and
> immediate negotiations to outlaw them completely. 
> The plaintiffs contend
> that a cooperative test of MOX fuel at the Chalk
> River Reactor in Ontario,
> using MOX from both the U.S. and the Russian
> Federation in one of Canada's
> CANDU reactors, will send the wrong signal to the
> world community.  They
> believe that CANDU owner nations, in particular,
> will see the feasibility
> of using MOX as an excuse not to disarm.  The
> plaintiffs want the court to
> order a halt to the test shipment coming from Russia
> after a similar
> request to stop transport of the U.S. MOX was denied
> last December. 
> Plaintiffs seek an order requiring closer public
> examination of the
> environmental effects of the Parallex test and its
> implications on the
> international nuclear disarmament picture.
> 
> Plaintiffs now contend the 30-year-old international
> Nuclear
> Non-Proliferation Treaty will be violated by the
> United States'
> participation in a test usage of mixed oxide
> plutonium (MOX) fuel. The
> treaty, signed by all but four (4) nations in the
> world, is supposed to
> restrict trafficking in plutonium, which is the core
> ingredient of
> thermonuclear bombs. The plaintiffs will call an
> internationally-recognized
> law professor, author, and nuclear disarmament
> advocate, Francis Boyle, as
> their principal witness on treaty violations.  Dr.
> Gordon Edwards
> internationally recognized expert on the plutonium
> economy will provide
> historical perspectives  of this treachery. 
> 
> The international plaintiffs brought suit in
> December to stop the Parallex
> Project, a test irradiation of MOX fuel from the
> U.S. and Russian
> federation. Critics believe the test will signal
> other nations that the
> United States has reversed a 25-year-old policy of
> curbing plutonium
> shipments to other countries. They seek an order to
> halt the delivery from
> Russia of its MOX contribution to Parallex.
> 
> --- more ---
> Page 2. "MOX Opposition Swells and Regroups to Stop
> DOE Plan"
> 
> Fifteen pounds of plutonium in a nuclear weapon (the
> size of a softball)
> was dropped on Nagasaki, Japan in World War II. 
> Physicists believe that
> only a  tiny fraction of plutonium actually
> fissioned.  Today's weapons
> utilizing tritium to boost the plutonium are 100's &
> 1,000's of times more
> destructive.
> 
> Argentina, China, India, Pakistan, Romania, South
> Korea, all have CANDU
> reactors.  Turkey is ordering one.  India and
> Pakistan each tested nuclear
> bombs in 1998, and India has not denied that its
> bomb plutonium was
> reclaimed from spent fuel from its CANDU reactors. 
> Neither India or
> Pakistan has signed the Non-Proliferation Treaty.
> 
> "The U.S. should be signaling to the world that any
> use of plutonium is
> unacceptable, and marks a turn toward a world
> plutonium economy, further
> endangering humankind.  The U.S. and Russia should
> immobilize this
> plutonium in glass ceramic placing it forever in a
> guarded repository. 
> Instead,  the U.S. goes along with Russian
> government's insistence that
> plutonium has redeeming qualities as reactor fuel.  
> "That will let India
> and Pakistan off the hook as undeclared nuclear
> powers who are accelerating
> their arms race, outside of the Non-Proliferation
> Treaty" said Terry Lodge,
> attorney for plaintiffs in the Kalamazoo Federal
> Court case.  "The use of
> MOX in Canadian reactors will undermine disarmament
> efforts around the
> world" Lodge proclaimed.
> 
> "Russia and Canada are discussing the use of Russian
> MOX in Canadian
> reactors for 20 to 25 years.  CANDU reactors have
> design problems, and
> those reactors are aging.  That's a recipe for
> serious radioactive
> pollution, in the Great Lakes Basin" noted Kristen
> Ostling, Campaign for
> Nuclear Phaseout (Ottawa).
> 
> "We came into this lawsuit as Canadian plaintiffs to
> help demonstrate to
> the U.S. court that the international grassroots
> community disagrees with
> the narrow-minded policies being made by our
> governments," said Ole
> Hendrickson of the Concerned Citizens of Renfrew
> County, Ontario,  where
> Chalk River test facility is located.
> 
> Thursday Contact:   Kristen Ostling (613) 789-3634  
> Alice Hirt (616)
> 335-3405   Larry White (613) 575-2377
> Anabel Dwyer (517) 332-4863	Kay Cumbow (810)
> 346-4513	 Michael Keegan (734)
> 457-5979
> Original Lawsuit  and  Motion for Preliminary
> Injunction available at: 
> http://www.nirs.org
> 
> --- 30 ---


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