EUROPEAN LOCAL AUTHORITIES DEMAND A MORATORIUM ON RADIOACTIVE
WASTE DUMPING
AT SEA

20th June 2003:

Local authorities in the UK, Ireland and Norway, together with a pan
European local authorities environment network, have joined together to
demand an immediate moratorium on radioactive waste discharges to sea.
Their joint call comes in advance of a meeting next week in Bremen,
Germany, between Environment Ministers from 15 European States and the
European Environment Commissioner. The ministers will review progress on
an agreement five years ago under the OSPAR Convention (1) to achieve

"...progressive and substantial reductions of discharges, emissions and
losses of radioactive substances" to the marine environment.

The UK Nuclear Free Local Authorities, the South and West
Norway Assembly
of County Councils, the General Council of County Councils in
Ireland, and
Kommunenes Internasjonale Miløorganisasjon with coastal local authority
members across 10 European States, are jointly pressing the UK
Government
to intervene and stop the Sellafield nuclear plant effectly dumping,
through discharges, radioactive wastes to sea that then pollute
marine life
and coastlines around Britain, Ireland and Scandinavia.

Concern is focused on stores of a persistent radioactive chemical
Technetium-99 (Tc-99), held at Sellafield, that the financially
insolvent
plant operator, British Nuclear Fuels Ltd (BNFL), says it wants to dump
into the Irish Sea until 2007 to save money.

The four local authority organisations have agreed a joint
resolution (2)
opposing this and setting out the action required to comply with OSPAR:

* an immediate UK moratorium on discharges of (Tc99) from Sellafield;

* full evaluation of all technologies to abate discharges of Tc99 and

* the necessary investment to secure these steps.

The resolution has been faxed to all OSPAR Ministers today
under cover of a
letter urging them to support the proposed actions at their
meeting next week.

Notes:

1. The Oslo - Paris (OSPAR) Convention for the Protection of the Marine
Environment of the North-East Atlantic ("OSPAR Convention"). See
http://www.ospar.org

2. The text of the joint local authorities resolution is below.
_________________________________________

RESOLUTION of The South and West Norway Assembly of County Councils
(SAVOS), the General Council of County Councils of Ireland (GCCC),
Kommunenes Internasjonale Miløorganisasjon
(KIMO), and the Nuclear Free Local Authorities Committee of the UK

WHEREAS the two Sellafield Nuclear Reprocessing Plants in the
UK are owned
by a UK Government-controlled company, BNFL;

Whereas the plants' radioactive discharges continue to pollute
the marine
environment of Northern European countries including Ireland, the United
Kingdom and Norway;

Whereas the UK Government, the Irish Government and the Norwegian
Government all accept the requirements of:

- the United Nations Law of the Sea

- the Convention for the Protection of the Marine Environment
of the North
East Atlantic ("OSPAR") Convention

- the precautionary principle

- the polluter pays principle

- the principle that no state has the right to interfere with
the use and
enjoyment of another state's territory;

Whereas the continued pollution from Sellafield breaks these
international
laws and principles and jeopardises the health of humans, the health and
marketability of sea produce, the cleanliness of maritime areas and the
human economies that depend on these;

Whereas it is encumbent on local and regional authorities and
municipalities, whose areas and/or inhabitants are, or may be,
affected by
the impacts of this ongoing pollution, to do what they can to end this
pollution;

Whereas the South and West Norway Assembly of County Councils
(SAVOS), the
General Council of County Councils of Ireland (GCCC), Kommunenes
Internasjonale Miløorganisasjon (KIMO) and the Nuclear Free Local
Authorities Committee of the UK (NFLA), wish to work together and with
like-minded local or regional governments, and their
associations to secure
this objective;

RESOLVE TO:

- cooperate in efforts to secure this objective;

- establish working relations and mechanisms to advance this objective;

- in the first instance to call on Ministers due to attend the
Ministerial
Meeting of signatory states to the of the OSPAR Convention meeting in
Bremen between 23rd and 27th June 2003 to press for:

(i) an immediate UK moratorium on discharges of Tc99 from
Sellafield; and

(ii) full evaluation of

(a) all technologies to abate discharges of Tc99, including the use of
Tetraphenylphosphonium bromide (TPP) and to retain these wastes
on land, if
necessary in new land-based
storage facilities;

(b) the UK regulator's view that impacts of Tc-99 in the international
marine environment are less important than its impacts in
conditioned form
in a UK land-based environment;

(c) all interests, economic and non-economic, owned and unowned, actual
or perceived, real or reputational - including particularly those of the
Norwegian fishing and seaweed
harvesting industry - and all actual or potential damage to the same
that the continued discharge of radioactive waste, including
Tc-99, affects
or jeopardises or creates; and

(iii) the necessary investment to secure these steps.

16 June 2003:

Nuclear Free Local Authorities
Manchester City Council
Town Hall
Manchester
M60 3NY

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