(December 3, 1993) With the THORP decision hanging in the balance (see NC 400/1.3900), British activists are finding the UK fuel cycle in a state of major change and turmoil. Strangely enough, British Nuclear Fuels Ltd. (BNFL) is also about to become the recipient of 158.7 tonnes of depleted uranium (DU) from the US enrichment program.
(403.3925) WISE Amsterdam - Ninety-five percent of the shipment, as specified in the export license, will go to BNFL's Springfield Works in Lancashire for manufacture into penetrator munitions similar to those used with devastating effect in the 1991 Gulf War.
Like other nuclear-powered nations, Britain now has its own program for development, testing, and deployment of DU weaponry. Test-firing takes place at two gun ranges, one conveniently near Sellafield and the other in Scotland. The US license provides further that the weapons produced from this shipment may be transferred to members of NATO, as well as to Japan, Australia, and New Zealand.
The hard hitting antitank penetrators travel at 5000 meters per second (3000 mph), or about four times the velocity of ordinary bullets, and only uranium-armored tanks like the US M1A1 can resist them. Medical researchers are still investigating the health and environmental impact of the weapons in Iraq and Kuwait after their first full-scale use in military history, and interest in the subject is intense in many parts of the world.
In the US, investigations are under way at the highest levels of govern-ment into health effects among Desert Storm veterans. A complex set of symptoms known as Gulf War Synd-rome derives from a variety of sources including Leishmaniasis (a disease transmitted by sand fleas), injections of nerve gas antidotes (sometimes under threat of court martial), and of course an atmosphere filled with fumes from burning oil wells. Over 2,000 Desert Storm veterans have died since the war, and another 80,000 are being monitored by the Veterans Administration. The impact of more than 50,000 pounds of DU weapons fired in the Gulf War is still being assessed against this complex medical background.
Citizen advocates are concerned about widespread civilian uses of DU as well as military proliferation. For example, 300-1000 kilograms of DU is some-times designed into the lower fuselage of civilian aircraft like the Boeing 747 as a counterweight to provide stability. When these planes crash, the resulting gasoline fire distributes DU particles, which are slightly radioactive and have a chemical toxicity similar to lead, into the surrounding area.
One such crash involving a Boeing 747 occurred in the Bijlmer suburb of Amsterdam a year ago, and citizen groups have been inquiring into the question of uranium contamination downwind of the accident ever since. As we go to press, a representative of the Bijlmer residents is about to fly to New York to discuss medical isues with epidemiologists who specialize in uranium contamination.
In another aircraft-related incident, an abandoned supply of 2,000 kilograms of DU has been discovered near the Palma airport on Mallorca in the Canary Islands. The uranium was to have been used by the Spantax company to make counterweights for Coronado aircraft, but Spantax has disappeared from the scene. Biologists have studied the situation and in September Greenpeace issued a warning that the unsupervised DU remnants, if dispersed by fire, theft, or a plane crash, could endanger the drinking water of thousands of people.
Source and contact: Florida Coalition for Peace & Justice, P. O. Box 2486, Orlando FL 32802 USA
tel. +1 407 422-3479
LAKA Foundation, Ketelhuisplein 43, 1054 RD Amsterdam, Netherlands
tel. +31 20 616 8294