March 4, 1998

Dear friends,

March 16th will be an International Day of Action against plutonium fuel.

The federal government, AECL and Ontario Hydro are promoting the importation of weapons plutonium for use in CANDU reactors. Without any public consultation or parliamentary debate, Prime Minister Jean Chretien has declared that Canada supports the plan in principle. Permission has already been granted to import 600 grams of plutonium from nuclear weapons stockpiles for the purposes of a "test burn" in a nuclear reactor located at Chalk River, Ontario.

The Campaign for Nuclear Phaseout (CNP) will be holding a news conference in Ottawa on March 16th to publicize opposition to plutonium fuel in Canada and internationally.

We are urging Canadians to contact their Members of Parliament, the Prime Minister, opposition party leaders and critics on March 16th. We are also encouraging people to write letters to the editors of newspapers. (Please see contact information below.)

The main messages should be:

• the plutonium fuel shipment for the spring test burn at Chalk River Nuclear Labs should be cancelled;
• there has been no significant public or parliamentary debate on this issue in Canada;
• communities along the proposed transportation routes have not being given any say as to whether plutonium-one of the most carcinogenic substances known-should be shipped through their towns; and
• the entire proposal should be scrapped before it is too late.

As part of the International Day of Action against the use of plutonium fuel, we are urging you to sign-on to the statement below which is being circulated to Western NGOs (a similar statement is being circulated in Russia).

We strongly urge you to participate in the International Day of Action by organizing activities showing your community's opposition to the import of plutonium fuel (ie. street theatre, news conferences or demonstrations). Please contact the Campaign for Nuclear Phaseout about your efforts and we will publicize your group's activities in our media work on March 16th.

Contact: Kristen Ostling, National Coordinator,
Campaign for Nuclear Phaseout,
412-1 Nicholas Street, Ottawa, Ontario, K1S 1H8,

tel: 613-789-3634/ fax: 613-241-2292,
e-mail cnp@web.net, website: www.cnp.ca

Note: To sign on to the "NIX MOX" statement please

• e-mail (nirsnet@igc.org),
• fax: 202-462-2183, or
• call NIRS (202-328-0002).

We will accept sign-ons for quite some time as we continue to build this international NIX MOX movement, but to ensure your group is represented on March 16, we need your sign-on by Noon (Eastern time), Friday, March 6, 1998.

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NIX MOX Statement

We, the undersigned representatives of Western nongovernmental organizations, call upon our respective governments, and the governments of all the world's nations, to end all policies and practices that would allow or encourage the use of plutonium as a fuel in nuclear power reactors.

Plutonium is perhaps the most sensitive and hazardous element known to mankind. It forms the core of most atomic weapons and poses a direct threat to all living beings for tens of thousands of years. It is extraordinarily carcinogenic, even when inhaled or ingested in minute quantities. The world's existing supply of plutonium, all man-made, must be kept permanently isolated from the environment -- not turned into a commodity. Plutonium must be treated as a waste and a liability, not as an energy resource.

Use of plutonium in nuclear reactors, commonly referred to as MOX (or mixed-oxide) fuel, presents numerous unacceptable risks and problems.

Specifically:

• Plutonium is and would increasingly be transported through residential and commercial areas, over the high seas, and by other means across the globe, unnecessarily endangering billions of citizens;
• Because new plutonium is produced in nuclear reactors, use of MOX provides a net reduction in the plutonium inventory by only one third in a normal reactor, and by only a little more in specially-designed reactors;
• Use of MOX does not prevent plutonium from entering the environment; instead it merely turns plutonium into high-level atomic waste, for which no safe storage solution has yet to be demonstrated;
• The MOX program would allow private corporations to have significant control over plutonium -- the most sensitive material in nuclear weapons -- and would contradict the nuclear non-proliferation policies of nearly every nuclear nation;
• Use of MOX would breach the barrier between civil and military nuclear activities and undermine international efforts to discourage stockpiling of separated plutonium, an immense proliferation risk. Use of MOX also would pose a grave risk of theft or diversion of plutonium for nuclear weapons purposes, by nations and/or terrorist groups;
• MOX encourages reprocessing of plutonium, which generates unacceptable levels of liquid radioactive waste, and which already is responsible for radioactive contamination of major bodies of water, particularly in the North Atlantic;
• Use of MOX fuel increases fuel leakage in reactors and therefore increases the release of radionuclides to air and water, and in the "low-level" radioactive waste stream;
• The MOX program would be expensive to taxpayers and ratepayers alike, because of increased costs and federal government subsidies;
• Widespread use of MOX would require construction of numerous new nuclear facilities across the world, including plutonium processing and fuel fabrication plants, fuel reprocessing plants, new nuclear reactors and a variety of other facilities, all of which threaten the public; and
• There are safer, more environmentally sound methods of plutonium disposition, such as immobilization.

For these reasons and more, the use of MOX fuel, or any form of plutonium as reactor fuel, is unacceptable on environmental, safety, non-proliferation and economic grounds.

We therefore join with our colleagues in Russia and the East, in Asia, and across the globe to declare International NIX MOX Action Day, March 16, 1998, and we pledge to expand a united international movement that will challenge every and any government and/or private corporation seeking to use plutonium as fuel, and that will work ceaselessly to ensure plutonium's eternal isolation from the environment.

Signed,

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Contact information:

Politicians:

If you have World Wide Web access you can fax federal MPs via the internet at: http://www.net-efx.com/faxfeds/.

To get the telephone number of your Member of Parliament call 1-800-667-3355.

Jean Chrétien, Prime Minister of Canada
309-S Centre Block, House of Commons
Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, K1A 1A6
tel: (613) 992-4211, fax: (613) 941-6900
e-mail: pm@pm.gc.ca

Preston Manning, Leader of the Official Opposition
409-S Centre Block, House of Commons
Ottawa, Ontario, Canada K1A 0A6
tel: (613) 996-6740, fax: (613) 947-0310
e-mail: leader@reform.ca

Alexa McDonough, Leader of the New Democratic Party
442-N Centre Block, House of Commons
Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, K1A 0A6
tel: (613) 995-7224, fax: (613)992-8569
email: mcdona@parl.gc.ca

Jean Charest, Leader of the Progressive Conservative Party
436-N,Centre Block, House of Commons
Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, K1A 0A6
tel: (613) 943-1106, fax: (613) 995-0364
email: charej9@parl.gc.ca

Gilles Duceppe, Leader of the Bloc Québecois
533-S Centre Block, House of Commons
Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, K1A 0A6
tel: (613) 992-6799, fax: (613) 954-2121
email: ducepg@parl.gc.ca

Lloyd Axworthy,
Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Trade
418-N Centre Block, House of Commons
Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, K1A 0A6
tel: (613) 995-1972, fax: (613) 947-4442
e-mail: AxworL@parl.gc.ca

Bob Mills,
International Affairs Critic, Reform Party
655-D Centre Block, House of Commons
Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, K1A 0A6
tel: (613) 995-0590, fax: (613) 995-6831
e-mail: mills@reform.ca

Svend Robinson,
International Affairs Critic, New Democratic Party
366 West Block, House of Commons
Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, K1A 0A6
tel: (613) 996-5597, fax: (613) 992-5501
e-mail: robins@parl.gc.ca

Daniel Turp,
International Affairs Critic, Bloc Québecois
491 West Block, House of Commons
Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, K1A 0A6
tel: (613) 992-5036, fax: (613) 995-7821
e-mail: turpd@parl.gc.ca

Scott Brison,
International Affairs Critic, Progressive Conservative Party
267 West Block, House of Commons
Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, K1A 0A6
tel: (613) 995-8231, fax: (613) 996-9349

Letters to the Editor:

Globe and Mail, fax: (416) 585-5085

Ottawa Citizen, fax: (613) 726-1198

Windsor Star, fax: (519) 255-5515

Toronto Star, fax: (416) 869-4328

Kingston Whig-Standard, fax: (613) 530-4118

Kitchener-Waterloo Record, fax: (519) 894-3829

Winnipeg Free Press, fax: (202) 697-7412

Vancouver Sun, fax: (604)732-2323

Montreal Gazette, fax: (514) 987-2433

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[ The Dangers of Encouraging Plutonium Use ]
[ Bomb Makers Speak Out Against Plutonium ]

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