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Fierce Opposition Greets U.S. Plutonium in France By Joe Fiorill WASHINGTON — Amid intense protests by antinuclear groups, a ship containing more than 100 kilograms of Cold War U.S. plutonium arrived early this morning in France, where the material is to be made into reactor fuel for use in the United States (see GSN, Sept. 22). Activist groups say the military plutonium poses a security risk, but backers stress that the program is intended to increase global security by taking weapon-usable nuclear material out of circulation. “Anytime we can dispose of plutonium, whether it’s surplus plutonium or whether it’s plutonium out of a nuclear weapon, it’s a good thing,” U.S. National Nuclear Security Administration spokesman Bryan Wilkes said yesterday in an interview. French opponents of the plan have mounted a series of sometimes dramatic protests in recent days but said heavy security at the plutonium’s arrival in Cherbourg prevented them from getting close to the material today. “The military nature of the arrival in France clearly demonstrates that nuclear weapons materials are a threat to global security and have no place in commerce,” Greenpeace campaigner Tom Clements said today in a statement. The plutonium is to be taken across France by truck. Greenpeace and allied groups contend that the material’s presence jeopardizes public security in the country and that industry is using the program to encourage expanded plutonium production. “International efforts to stop the development of nuclear weapons have been taken hostage by the commercial plutonium industry,” Greenpeace France antinuclear head Yannick Rousselet said yesterday in a statement. “The goal of today’s action,” Rousselet said after Greenpeace yesterday briefly blocked a road over which the plutonium was expected to be transported, “is to send a signal to the American, French and British governments that they must stop plutonium proliferation before a disaster occurs.” The U.S.-French operation stems from a 2000 agreement in which the United States and Russia each pledged to dispose of 34 metric tons of surplus weapon-grade plutonium. The two countries chose to convert the plutonium into mixed uranium-plutonium oxide and to use that material, known as MOX, as fuel in civil nuclear reactors. The United States and Russia both plan to build facilities to produce MOX. Before beginning construction at a South Carolina site, however, the United States opted to send the one-time plutonium shipment to France for conversion at an existing MOX plant. Beginning next year, the resulting assemblies are to be used in the United States as a test fuel batch for MOX-based power generation. The amount of U.S. plutonium involved has generated confusion in recent days. French nuclear firm Areva, which is conducting the conversion operation, said today in a statement that 140 kilograms arrived in Cherbourg, repeating the number that has been reported by most press outlets. Wilkes said yesterday, however, that only 125 kilograms of the material was sent to France. He said confusion arose because the agreement governing the program allowed the United States to send up to 140 kilograms. The plutonium left Charleston, S.C., two weeks ago, and activists first expected it to arrive over the weekend. They now hypothesize that the two ships involved, only one of which contained plutonium, had been waiting at sea in recent days — first for the weekend to be over so that part-time activists would leave Cherbourg and return to their jobs, then for the outcome of a suit filed by Areva requesting that Greenpeace be ordered to keep its distance from the plutonium. A Cherbourg court ruled yesterday in favor of the company, setting possible fines approaching $100,000. “They sailed in circles for a little while,” spokesman Stephane Lhomme of the activist group Sortir du Nucleaire said today in an interview. The heavily armed state of the boats, Lhomme added, shows that a terrorist threat existed that made waiting at sea a security risk in itself. After arriving in Cherbourg, the plutonium was transported by truck to an Areva site in nearby La Hague. Areva plans to keep the plutonium in La Hague for at least 48 hours, according to Lhomme. Protected by layers of stiff security measures, some of them secret, the material is then to be taken to the company’s Cadarache and Marcoule plants in the south. “It’s quite frankly irresponsible for some of these groups to do the fear-mongering that they’re doing, because we have a safe, responsible plan,” Wilkes said. “We are confident that the arrangements that have been made with our partners are sufficient and strong enough so that the material will be protected every step of the way.” “When you don’t have the arguments or the facts on your side, you just have to maybe yell a little louder or cause a little bit more commotion, and that seems to be what’s happening,” Wilkes said. When a truck carrying enriched uranium from Germany was involved in a minor traffic accident yesterday near Beaugency, France, however, the campaigners seized the opportunity to make their point. “Although the consequences appear to be limited, this event illustrates the threat that looms over the population because of shipments of nuclear materials, particularly plutonium and uranium,” Sortir du Nucleaire said in a hurriedly issued statement. Yesterday’s blockade took place on a road between Cherbourg and La Hague. It was the latest action in an intense campaign that antinuclear groups have mounted in recent days, landing some members in jail and leading to the legal action by Areva. “They do not respect the laws,” Areva spokesman Patrick Germain said this week in an interview. On Monday, the activists made public the four possible routes they say the plutonium trucks could take between La Hague and south France. The move led to the distribution by Agence France-Presse of a map showing the routes and attributing the information to Greenpeace. Today, Greenpeace published photos of a truck it said was carrying the plutonium to La Hague. The groups sent boats Sunday into Cherbourg’s off-limits military port, a step that led to the arrest of activist Eugene Riguidel of France, a former international sailing champion. Riguidel and two Greenpeace activists were freed Monday after spending a night in jail and are to appear Nov. 30 at a Cherbourg court, where they could each receive up to a year in prison. “These boats are death boats, and the citizens of the whole world must react,” Associated Press quoted Riguidel as telling reporters as he left the jail. “We were not born on this Earth to blow ourselves to bits with plutonium.” The groups have called on mayors of communities along the potential truck routes — successfully, in the case of Green Party leader and Begles Mayor Noel Mamere, whose city lies on one of the four routes — to issue decrees forbidding the transport of the material through their jurisdictions. Activist group Tchernoblaye has also appealed to the Council of State, France’s highest court of administrative law, to prevent the processing of nuclear material at the Cadarache plant. The court has not yet ruled on the case, which is based on a 2002 government order that “commercial production” at the site be stopped as of last year because of seismic risks. Participants in the current operation have said the decree does not apply since the arrangement is noncommercial. Wilkes said the protests would have little impact. “This may have some effect on some of these groups getting publicity, or even on their fund-raising plans, but it won’t have any effect on our effort with our international partners to continue with this program to dispose of material that could make thousands of nuclear weapons,” he said. Center for Nonproliferation Studies Deputy Director Leonard Spector said in an interview yesterday that activists’ opposition to the project is “surprising” given their traditional support for eliminating dangerous materials. Responding to the charge of a plutonium-industry agenda behind the operation, the former senior U.S. arms-control official said, “It just seems inconceivable that somehow this is going to become an inexpensive activity that’s going to displace uranium as fuel.” “It’s OK to be watching that and making sure it doesn’t happen, but this reaction is a bit overblown,” Spector said. Spector concurred with Wilkes that the current flurry of French protests would not sidetrack the “MOX for Peace” program. “There are big challenges. What we’re seeing in France is a smaller challenge,” Spector said. Of greater concern for the program’s future, he said, are questions of liability for damages incurred during construction of the plants. Those questions are still to be worked out between Washington and Moscow, as well as the status of Russia’s own MOX-plant plans. Wilkes acknowledged the liability questions have yet to be resolved but expressed confidence that U.S.-Russian negotiations would yield a solution. “It’s being worked on at the highest levels, and we’re confident that an agreement can be worked out,” he said.
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