Reactors

The fourth occupation of the site of a proposed twin 1150-MW nuclear plant in Seabrook, New Hampshire, USA, is scheduled to begin on June 24.

The demonstration will be similar to last year's, with all participants belonging to affinity groups of 10-20 people, and everybody required to receive nonviolent training. Once again, occupiers will approach the site from several directions. But unlike last year, there will be different occupation target areas. The organisers hope this will allow more efficient but completely participatory decision-making.

"Interest is high and we expect to have at least as many people participating as last year", said Cathy Wolff, a spokesperson for the Clamshell Alliance, a coalition of New England anti-nuclear / safe energy groups.

"This year, we intend not only to attempt to non-violently occupy the site, but also to begin restoration - restoring the land to the people of Seabrook and to its natural state", Cathy Wolff said. Occupiers hope to plant gardens, set up safe alternative energy exhibits, and establish a presence on the 750-acre site and related construction areas.

But that does not mean the attempted occupation will be a garden party. Last April 30, 2500 people walked onto the site of the Seabrook plant. The next day 1415 were arrested and charged with criminal trespass. Many of those people spent 2 weeks in jail, refusing to pay fines, and the event sparked the organization of similar anti-nuclear direct action alliances around the United States.

Like last year, there will also be a big supporting rally the following day, June 25, in the area, for those who back the occupation but had reason not to go through the non-violent training and risk jail sentences.

The Clamshell has again laid down strict conduct guidelines all occupiers must follow: no dogs, alcohol, weapons or drugs; no property damage; no running or breaking through police lines; and no strategic movement after dark. It has also decided not to block workers' access to the site. "Our fight is not with the workers or the state, but with the nuclear industry", Cathy Wolff said. eWe respect the 2000 people working on the site as individuals; although we oppose what they are doing".

Opposition to the $ 2.5 billion plant - which is now 10% built, and is scheduled for completion, ironically, in 1984- has grown tremendously in the past year.

A few legal challenges to the plant remain in the courts. But the United States Supreme Court recently made a ruling that leaves courts only a limited role in judging decisions made by nuclear regulatory agencies. The day of that ruling a New Hampshire lawyer who has worked for years fighting the Seabrook plant through the regulatory process called the Clamshell and said: "It's up to you now".

Contact for more information or monetary gifts to keep the Clam going / The Clamshell Alliance 62 Congress St., Portsmouth, N.H. - USA 03801

Over 150000 people - probably a record for a single anti-nuke demo. - marched on March 12 against the construction of an atomic power plant at Lemoniz, in the Basque country (on the north coast of Spain). The Spanish authorities took no notice. Five days later, the plant - which is nearing completion - was severely damaged by an explosion in the reactor core. ETA, the militant Basque independence movement, claimed responsibility. The dynamite had been smuggled into the plant in small quantities by site workers. Because the authorities ignored precise advance warnings about the explosion, two workers were killed and several wounded.

Opposition to atomic power in the Basque country has been building up steadily for several years now. In this small area, heavily industrialised along the coast, and with high population density, the Spanish nuclear industry, with Madrid government backing, has planned a total of 12 atomic power stations. The opposition has thus centred on the very concrete theme of the risks from possible accidents. The population density within a 30km radius the Deba plant (two 1 000MW light water reactors) is 481 km 2, that around Lemoniz 849/km 2 - which is seven times the American safety norms. The Lemoniz site is only 12 km from Bilbao, an industrial city with over a million inhabitants. Many areas of the Basque country are within danger radius of several of the plants.

Lemoniz has become the symbol of the refusal of the nuclear programme that has built up since 1973. The authorities went ahead with the plant without getting the necessary building permits, and have pressed ahead at top speed, ignoring legal cases anda growing wave of public protest. Fifty thousand people demonstrated in 1976, and 150000 in 1977. In December 1977, in a clash been demonstrators and police guarding the Lemoniz site, a demonstrator, David Alvarez Peña, was shot.

The communiqué put out by the Commission for a Non-Nuclear Basque Coast stated:

"Again, after long years of struggle the people assembled today in Lemoniz to demonstrate its firm determination to prevent Euskadi (the Basque country) from being turned into an atomic gunpower vessel. Year after year we in formed and mobilised the population, and accepted what was done, expecting that our case would be taken seriously. But the only answer was silence, a silence which we consider to be irresponsible, an insult, anda proof of guilt...
...now the overwhelming majority of the Basque population outspokenly opposes the introduction of atomic power in Euskadi.
...When after all these years of resistance the authorities' only reaction is shameless passivity, what then is there left us to do ?...

Five days later, the bomb went off. The delay to the plant is estimated at one year. The Basque country is in the process of getting back a certain autonomy, but the Iberduero company is determined to press on with the plant. Lemoniz is a test-case for the movement world-wide.

Contacts Commission for a Non-Nuclear Basque Coast J.-M. Escubi, Lequeitio, Biscaya 3444-159204
Jose Allende, P. Mendebil 7, Las Arenas, Biscaya 3444-636489
J.T.Elciondio, Careaga Goikoa 19, Basauri, Blscaya 3444-423415

With a mass rally and a march on the site, on May 6-7, the campaign against the Torness (Scotland) reactor project will move into top gear. It is organised by the Scottish Campaign to Resist the Nuclear Menace - SCRAM ("scram" means "get out"). The march will cap a "no nukes week" all over Britain starting with the anti-Windscale (re-processing) demo. in London and including Sun Day celebrations. A Greenpeace boat will sail to the site, with a windmill on board, and the new Alternative Technology Study Centre will present another windmill. After the march a declaration of resistance to nuclear power will be adopted.

This will be the first massive citizen action against an atomic power plant in the country which was the first to build them, and which has no less than 28 of them in operation. It was as though British public opinion had accepted reactors as a fact of life. But a broader debate started when plans to introduce fast breeder technology became known, and attention was further focussed on the issue by the re cent hearings on the extension of the Windscale re-processing plant.

The Torness project is for a 1320 MW Advanced Gas-Cooled reactor, to be build on the North Sea coast 30 miles east of Edinburgh. SCRAM has not only put forward the full range of anti-nuclear arguments. It has shown that:

• other nuclear power projects in Scotland have led to local unemployment once construction was over, with no new jobs created and migrant construction workers staying on;
• the Scottish Electricity Generating Boarding already has over-capacity compared with demand (total installed capacity 7i 66 MW, another 1320 MW under construction, and demand in 1976-77 only 4300 MW);
• of 6 similar reactors ordered since 1965, three are from two to seven years late, add two are not working properly; one was shut down last year when i 000 gallons of seawaterleaked into the reactor pressure vessel.

There has also been opposition in Scotland to other nuclear activities:

• test drilling to find sites in granits formation for high level waste disposal were opposed by local inhabitants;
• plans to drill to find whether uranium ore was worth mining were blocked by local authorities.

Soon the population will be faced with the building of a first commercial fast breeder at Dounreay (where a small prototype already operates).

An Austrian citizen, Ernst Zörnlaib, has won an important legal action against the construction of a power reactor at Zwentendorf (Austria). The country's highest administrative court has said the plant is being built illegally, because he and others were not admitted to hearings about the building permit, on the grounds that their land did not adjoin the site. They argued that they were affected by the decision. At the very least, the building permit hearings will be held over again. Meanwhile, Zörnlaib is preparing to challenge Austria's legislation on radiation protection as unconstitutional.

Text of the ruling available (in German) from Wieland Soyka, StedingerStr. 39,2800 Bremen 1 FRG - send DM2.50 for postage.

Ireland is about to go nuclear. The government has decided in favour of a first atomic reactor, to be built at Camsore Point, in County Wexford. The decision is the result of heavy pressures from the industry, and discreetly from the European Economic Community. The nuclear propaganda machine has already swung into action, with a report from the Irish Agricultural Institute intended to calm fears of local farmers (it says the risk of nuclear accident compares favourably with the risk of death from lightning...).

An opposition front is already forming. The biggest Irish trade union is opposed (see unions). The Labour party has called for an enquiry. The Irish Sovereignty Movement also: it argues there is "no immediate necessity" for the plant, and "the necessity may in fact never arise". A spokesman called the plan "nuclear madness". Opposition to the scheme will be a major concern of the Irish Friends of the Earth, which has come to life again.

Contact IGTWU, Liberty Hall, Dublin 2, Ireland. FOE, 17 Arbutus Place, South Circular Road Dublin 8

Swiss fasting...

...and planting trees

Tihange: "minor incidents"