GROUPS PROTEST LIQUID HEU SHIPMENT FROM CANADA TO SAVANNAH RIVER

A coalition of activist groups are opposing the Department of Energy’s proposed shipment of liquid highly enriched uranium from Canada’s Chalk River Laboratories to the Savannah River Site, planning a protest yesterday outside the National Transportation Stakeholder’s Forum in Buffalo, New York. The 23,000 liters of material would be downblended at Savannah River’s H-Canyon facility under the National Nuclear Security Administration’s Global Threat Reduction Initiative, and initial shipments could begin later this year. But Gordon Edwards of the Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility urged officials to consider alternatives. “There is no reason to ship the material in liquid form as there are options to handling it such as solidifying it and storing it on site as has been done with similar liquid waste at Chalk River since 2003, or denaturing the weapons-grade uranium on site so that it is no longer weapons-usable,” Edwards said in a statement.

At least 11 groups, including Sierra Club Canada, Friends of the Earth and the Citizens Environmental Coalition, have signed a resolution against the transport of the liquid waste released yesterday. The groups “urge the governments of Canada and the United States to halt the shipment of high-level radioactive liquid waste from Chalk River Laboratories to the Savannah River Site pending the outcome of full public consultations on the advisability and the potential adverse impacts of the proposed shipments, as well as alternative procedures to achieve the stated objectives for such shipments,” the resolution states.