Nuclear Waste Threat

Waste dumping threatens Guam.

By Deborah Woodside

ONE HIGHLY sensitive element of nuclear waste disposal in oceans is due to gain more attention later this year when an international moratorium on the practice expires. And when the moratorium, imposed by members of an international treaty called the London Dumping Convention (LDC), ends this September, the Pacific Ocean may become a dump site.

The proposal to dump nuclear waste at a site about 1000 kilometres north of Maug Island in the Northern Marianas came from Japan in the late 19705. Shortly after his country’s proposal was made Takehiko Ishihara, director of Japan’s Radioactive Waste Management Centre, explained, “Japan has very small land space and its structure is geologically unstable, making ground disposal very difficult. It is quite natural, for Japan to have opted for sea disposal, as have the UK and the Netherlands where, in some respects, conditions are similar.”

The London Dumping Convention

called forthe moratorium in 1983 and since then scientists from the LDCs member nations have been compiling scientific data on the effect of low-level radioactive waste, Depending on the findings, the morato rium may be lifted by the LDC.

When the moratorium’s end draws near, other aspects of the issue will also surface. Some groups and agencies dis pute the meaning of “ocean dumping”, ar guing that sub-seabed emplacement and/ or ocean incineration should be allowed.

In the meantime, opponents of the pro posal are attempting to counter it through the LDC. A strategy paper co-ordinated through the Hawaii-based Pacific Con cerns Resource Centre and the Pacific Life Community in California, states that “modification of the LDC is a politically viable strategy”.

Through groups such as these, plus Greenpeace and several other groups, anti nuclear lobbyist are hoping for “solidarity among Pacific Islanders to continue their opposition. □