Support our nuclear-free Pacific policy

Bob Hughes

On 11th March 2011, an earthquake and tsunami hit Japan and caused major damage to the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. Thousands of tonnes of radioactive water spewed into the Pacific Ocean and now Japan feels compelled to discharge wastewater since used to cool the plant. How can we blame them when the controlled discharge of nuclear wastewater has occurred all over the world?

In 1946, the first ocean dumping operation took place at a site in the North East Pacific Ocean, about 80 kilometres off the coast of California. The last known dumping operation was in 1982, at a site about 550km off the European continental shelf in the Atlantic Ocean.

Nuclear energy research and development has advanced considerably since 1898 when Nobel Prize-winning scientists Marie and Pierre Curie discovered polonium and radium. In 1918, New Zealand’s Ernest Rutherford first split the atom.

Nuclear weapons were developed and used on Japan during WW2. Later, nuclear power stations were built in many places around the world.

Now there is this big fuss over the plan to dispose treated Fukushima nuclear waste water into the Pacific Ocean. But the truth is there is much worse to be concerned about when worldwide more than a quarter of a million tonnes of highly radioactive waste awaits disposal.

The USA alone has stockpiled over 90,000 tonnes, which is a serious risk to human health and the environment. Most of it is decades old, with nowhere to go as the hazardous materials in their decaying containers continue to age.

Throughout the Cold War era, the US collected radioactive waste in nearly 180 underground storage tanks, many of which outlived their design lives long ago. About one-third of the tanks are known to be leaking, contaminating the subsurface and threatening nearby waterways.

After spending roughly five years in a reactor constantly being bombarded with radiation, nuclear fuel fails to function efficiently. Several countries separate those components to make new fuel, and after a time generate high-level waste by-products that are vitrified (ie, converted into a glass or a glass-like substance).

I remind readers New Zealand is legally a nuclear-free zone, put in place to promote disarmament and international arms control.

Prime Minister David Lange banned nuclear-powered or nuclear-armed ships from using New Zealand ports or entering NZ waters in 1984. Under the NZ Nuclear Free Zone, Disarmament and Arms Control Act 1987, our territorial sea, land and airspace became nuclear-free zones.

The local Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament organisation formed in 1957. In 1959, responding to rising public concern following the British hydrogen bomb tests in Australia and the Pacific, New Zealand voted in the UN to condemn nuclear testing. The UK, US and France voted against it, and Australia abstained.

1. The nuclear industry still has no solution to the “waste problem”; 2. The transport of this waste poses an unacceptable risk to people and the environment; 3. Plutonium is the most dangerous material in the world; 4. Nuclear waste is hazardous for tens of thousands of years; 5. Even if put into a geological repository, the waste might emerge and threaten future generations.

“With every drop of water you drink, and every breath you take, you are connected to the sea. No matter where on Earth you live.” — Dr Sylvia Earle.

Our oceans are precious in every way possible — please support NZ’s nuclear-free Pacific policy.