 |
|
|
 Editorials | June 2005 
Latest Border Proposal: Nuclear Enrichment or Impoverishment?
 Talli Nauman - The Herald Mexico
It's incredible, but true: The U.S. government is trying to site yet another nuclear facility not far from the border with Mexico, after similar attempts over the years have failed due largely to organized cross-border opposition wielding the weapons of international law and diplomacy.
The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission wants to let a private consortium build a National Enrichment Facility to make fuel for atomic power plants about 50 miles from the Pecos River tributary to the boundary waters of the Rio Grande and some 200 miles from the U.S.-Mexico border. The location is near the tiny town of Eunice, in Lea County, which borders on Texas in the southeastern corner of New Mexico.
Given the thrust of U.S. policy these days, you might ask at first, "What is this? Some kind of a trap to attract terrorists to cross the nearby border into the United States to get their enriched uranium for the international nuclear proliferation that Washington so prioritizes?"
But no, it appears to be a bona fide federal initiative to encourage corporate profits, which dates back at least as far as 2003. It would benefit Louisiana Energy Services (LES), a partnership of major nuclear energy companies. Partners include Urenco, Westinghouse, Duke Power, Entergy and Exelon.
Even though the New Mexico state government sent a proposed agreement to the feds in the first week of June for reducing storage of the radioactive byproduct of the process by two-thirds, at least nine New Mexico organizations have opposed the entire scheme.
The byproduct is none other than depleted uranium, and it would be stored at the site in none other than cylinders, a.k.a. barrels, for a maximum of 15 years per container, then converted or disposed outside New Mexico. But the catch there is that no disposal or reprocessing facilities exist for this waste outside New Mexico or anywhere on the continent.
For that same reason, some 140,000 tons of the waste is sitting around at another enrichment facility in Paducah, Kentucky. Activities there have affected groundwater quality for more than 30 years. Cleanup is estimated to cost more than US2 billion. The private operators of the plant in the 1980s and 1990s are currently subject to a massive class-action lawsuit filed by former employees who claim they are suffering from their exposure to toxic chemicals and radiation on the job.
But the waste is not the only reason by far that opposition has arisen. In comments submitted about the draft environmental impact statement early this year, opponents noted that the document was compiled by consultants who have a conflict of interest because they stand to benefit by the licensing.
The skeptics commented that LES's proposal was rejected already in the states of Louisiana and Tennessee over environmental justice issues of racist discrimination in site selection and over Urenco's questionable environmental practices.
Urenco member company British Nuclear's European enrichment facilities have been closed and have had licenses revoked for environmental and safety violations, including radioactive emissions 28 times the authorized level.
On economic grounds, opponents argue, a large quantity of enriched uranium already is being distributed to nuclear power plants from the dismantling of U.S. and Russian weapons. That means the demand for enriching new uranium is low, so profits may be, too. As a result LES may be unable to repay the stratospheric US1.8 million bond that desperate Lea County has offered for construction.
Meanwhile, with concerns about the dangers of proliferation of nuclear plants and weapons expanding beyond the ranks of environmental and peace activists to those of the official policy establishment, a Urenco employee was recently accused of selling sensitive uranium enrichment technology to North Korea, Iran, Iraq, Pakistan and Libya.
But activists seem less concerned with the national defense issues LES raises than with preventing the prospects of more radioactivity in the air and water of the already polluted New Mexico and Mexican border area.
Mexican organizations don't seem to have gotten involved yet with this proposal, which is so close to approval. But they sure should. Mexican citizen and government outcry was what tipped the balance in preventing the installation of two proposed toxic waste burial sites in Mexico. |
| |
|
Vallarta Weddings
Tell a Friend
Site Map
Print this Page
Email Us