Nuclear ship could enter NZ economic zone

By VERNON SMALL and BERNARD ORSMAN

A shipment of nuclear fuel due in the Tasman Sea in a month could pass through New Zealand's 200-mile economic zone, despite the Government's claim it has "assurances" that this will not happen.

The shippers of the fuel say they do not intend to pass through the exclusive economic zone (EEZ), but reserve their right to enter it in certain circumstances.

Foreign Minister Phil Goff said yesterday that he had received assurances from the Japanese Government that the shipment would avoid the zone.

"There is one exception to that, if the ship is at risk or for humanitarian reasons."

A spokesman for the companies managing the shipment, Mark Scott, said: "The position of the three industries and the three Governments involved is that it is not our intention to enter the New Zealand EEZ, but that we reserve the right guaranteed to us under the United Nations convention on the law of the sea for free navigation within 200-mile zones to enter an EEZ at the [ship's] master's decision."

Mr Goff said that was consistent with his position.

Mr Scott said "weather, navigation, currents, all sorts of things" could cause the ship's captain to divert through the EEZ.

He would not say "for security reasons" when the shipment, which left France on Friday, would enter the Tasman Sea.

Mr Goff said he deplored the news that the shipment of uranium and plutonium oxide bound for Japan would come into the Tasman.

Under international law it could not be banned from the EEZ, but New Zealand had used diplomatic pressure to keep it out.

The Government would lodge formal protests with Tokyo, Paris and London, and would consider Air Force surveillance if the two British ships, Pacific Teal and Pacific Pintail, came close to the EEZ.

The shipment, aboard one ship with the other acting as an escort, is being undertaken by the British Government-owned British Nuclear Fuel, France's state-owned Cogema and the Overseas Reprocessing Committee, a consortium of 10 Japanese electricity companies.

Mr Goff said that despite safeguards put in place by the shippers, they were not fail-safe and there was always the risk of an accident at sea.

He said the companies acknowledged there was an element of risk by only accepting partial liability. They would not pay any compensation if New Zealand's clean, green image was damaged by a nuclear accident in the region.

Mr Scott agreed there was a risk of an accident, but the ships were the safest on the high seas.

The material was stable and was transported in 80 to 100-tonne steel casks in specifically designed ships that had travelled 4.5 million miles without a single incident involving the release of radioactivity, a safety record which contrasted with those of oil and chemical shippers.

Both ships were armed to protect them from pirates and terrorist attacks and Henry-Jacques Neau from Cogema said the isotope in the fuel could not be used to make nuclear bombs.

Opposition is growing to the ships, with an Auckland doctor, Tony Atkinson, organising a flotilla of boats from New Zealand to protest as the shipment passes through the Tasman Sea.

Mr Atkinson said two yachts from Opua in the Bay of Islands, the Nanu and Sione, and one yacht from Auckland, the Secret Affair, had joined the Tasman Sea nuclear-free flotilla and more were likely to join before the February 15 departure date.

The yachts would join at least two boats from Australia, including the Greenpeace vessel Tiama, to form a symbolic chain across 75 miles of international waters between Lord Howe Island and Norfolk Island - both protectorates of Australia.

The ships need to pass through this strait of water to avoid the 200-mile exclusive economic zone of Australia around the islands.

Two cargoes of nuclear waste have passed through the Tasman Sea, in 1997 and 1999, both of which stayed outside the 200-mile mark of New Zealand's EEZ. The 1999 shipment went inside Australia's economic zone to help with the helicopter rescue of an International Energy Agency observer who had required medical help.

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