FACTS History of secrecy in the nuclear industry

Passages below in inverted commas are quoted from Making the Connections Reaching Critical Will - fact sheet, WOMEN'S INTERNATIONAL LEAGUE FOR PEACE AND FREEDOM

1942. The Manhattan Project began nuclear weapons research and development laboratory at Los Alamos in New Mexico. There was no reference on a map, no post office, no publicity. Here International scientists developed the bombs that destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki..

1943 Two 'secret cities'were built for uranium isolation at Oak Ridge in Tennessee and for plutonium production at Hanford in Washington State. Worker were under strict rule not to mention the work going on in the plants. Local rural communities were moved out of the area.

1953. President Eisenhower announced plans for the "peaceful atom" - so began the development of various industries intended to use atomic power for non-military purposes.

"Secrecy was continued through the practice of 'compartmentalization', whereby the knowledge of different aspects of nuclear weapons production was divided and separated. This system continues today under the Department of Energy. Huge numbers of classified documents are kept in US government vaults."

"In the UK, the government is able to legally guard information relating to nuclear weapons and power production under its Official Secrets Act."

"Restricted access to information has powerful public and ecological impacts. Because of governmental and corporate secrecy, as well as a management culture which discourages proper documentation, information about the health and environmental effects of nuclear weapons and nuclear power production is not easily obtainable.

In China, for instance, no specific official information is available about the health and environmental effects of nuclear technology. In Russia, data are often incomplete, reports rarely detail research methodologies, and many analyses are questionable."

"Compartmentalization and secrecy are also implicated in a general lack of knowledge about the hazards of nuclear processes. Recent events would suggest that knowledge of 'the whole system' is lacking both on the level of the labor force and even in the elite fraternity of nuclear scientists. Still today in nuclear weapons labs, the military production network, and in nuclear power stations across the globe, many workers either are not given the entire picture of nuclear processes, or due to security clearances, are not privy to the overall mission of a particular project that they might be actively engaged in."

"Meanwhile in the UK, workers have been accused by the UK Nuclear Installations Inspectorate of routinely falsifying safety checks for plutonium/MOX fuel that has been sent to Germany, Switzerland and most recently Japan."

"Although in the US, UK and elsewhere, grade school and high school students are often given industry-sponsored tours of their local nuclear weapons and power facilities, there is no part of a national curriculum, on either a secondary or university level, that prepares young people for the hazards and consequences of growing up in the nuclear age."

"Secrets and lies, half-truths about present day practices, ambiguous definitions of new nuclear processes: all these contribute to keeping the public ill-informed and, therefore, ill-equipped to challenge the nuclear status quo."

PM's Nuclear Waste Push Biffs Democracy Out Window Scoop Independent News 3 September 2007 - "PM Howard is being called upon stop trying to impose a nuclear waste dump on an indigenous community in the NT and scrap the flawed and undemocratic process the Federal Government have using to push their nuclear waste dump proposal.

'John Howard is trying to mislead people into thinking that the nuclear waste dump is being created largely for storage of radioactive waste from medical uses in order to cover up the fact that he has thrown scientific and democratic process out the window' said Friends of the Earth Nuclear Free Ways spokesperson Michaela Stubbs...................

.............he is trying to convince an aboriginal community to accept a nuclear waste dump in return for "compensation" after starving them from access to basic infrastructure and access to health, education and employment services over many years.

This is an issue that affects not only the NT but the whole of Australia. Nuclear waste would need to be transported halfway across the country if the Federal Government were to push ahead with their "out of sight - out of mind" proposal for dumping nuclear waste.

'This is an appalling example of a development that should be subject to the most stringent environmental laws and fair process in consultation with the whole of the Australian community, yet is being forced upon the Australian community using undemocratic legislation and a misleading PR campaign from the Federal Government'said Ms.Stubbs.

No one in the NT or any other state has agreed to having their laws and rights overridden by a gung-ho Federal Government. They have not agreed to this environmentally and socially unsound process."

.

Country of Nuclear Strategic Concern - Australia - Webdiary April 9 2007 by Craig Rowley "Stockholm International Peace Research (SIPRI) and First Watch International FWI) have undertaken a project to produce profiles of countries that have the potential to be a 'Nuclear Strategic Concern' Last Wednesday they produced and published a new profile: Australia Here's an extract: Australia's uranium enrichment capability is facilitated due to further developments in the Australian-based 'Separation of Isotopes by Laser Excitation (Silex)'technology. Silex is the sole third-generation laser enrichment process under development for commercial use. It has significant potential to change the international uranium enrichment market………………….. Dr. Michael Goldsworthy, CEO of Silex Systems Ltd. and Silex Systems Ltd are keen to sell us a future that will see us staying on SPIRI's list.

Why has the story of Silex System's submission and Australia's subsequent listing as a country of 'Nuclear Strategic Concern not been covered by our mainstream media companies?...................................... Australia has opened up the possibility for external cooperation in nuclear-related activities, particularly in uranium exports.

.......................................Could it be that SPIRI and FWI see the possibility (or is already a certain probability) of Prime Minister John Howard's nuclear push not really being about opening the path to putting nuclear power plants in a couple of dozen coastal suburbs of Australian cities? Could it be that they see the real push is to get us into the enriched uranium supply industry? "