Thousands of international protesters gather in Germany to block nuclear waste delivery from France
Bellona/Ecodefence
Protesters ranged from local residents, environmentalist form nongovernmental organisations, as well as members of the European Parliament, and representatives of green and left leaning political parties.
It is the 11th such trainload of waste to be taken from the retreatment plant at La Hague in Normandy to Germany.
The choice of Gorblen as a storage site for the French waste is due to its proximity to salt mines that the German government says will be turned into deep geologic repositories for the waste.
Though no final decision has been taken on this by German authorities, a majority of environmentalists and experts say that the government will insist, no matter what happens, that the mines be used as final storage for nuclear waste.
The local community and authorities are attempting to derail the notion that Gorblen become a waste repository. Each new transport of waste it met with massive protests, and Gorblen has since Sunday been without doubt the most vocal point of anti-nuclear protest in the world. More photos of the protests can be viewed here.
For its part, Germany sends tons depleted uranium hexafluoride, or uranium tails, to Russia on a regular basis from the uranium enrichment giant Urenco’s Gronau facility for storage in Russia. Urenco’s contract provides for 100,000 tons of the waste to be shipped to Russia for storage and reprocessing in Siberia. The contract is due to expire next year. Some 700,000 tons of uranium tails are already being stored in Russia.
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German police put the number of protesters at the Gorleben site at 14,000 with the organisers claiming 16,000 environmentalists had turned out, twice the number at a similar protest at the site two years ago. Bellona’s Rashid Alimov, editor of Bellona Web’s Russian pages, in on hand for the mass protest. He is joined by Vladimir Slivyak, co-chair of Russia’s Ecodefence environmental organisation.
The high turnout at Gorblen signalled the "rebirth of the anti-nuclear movement in Germany," said Jochen Stay, spokesman for the organisers of the demonstration told Agency France Presse.
The higher turnout figure of 16,000 was also supported by Kerstin Rudek, co-chair of the region’s most powerful anti-nuclear group, Bürgerinitiative Umweltschutz Lüchow- Dannenberg.
“Authorities always reduced the number of participants in demonstrations,” she told Bellona Web. “According to our data, more than 16,000 people are participating in this march – this is a record for the entire existence of our movement. “
About 10,000 German police officers were mobilised to protect the train. The waste will be taken by road for the final 20 kilometres from Dannenberg to Gorleben, about 200 kilometres northwest of Hannover.
On Monday, according Slivyak, who has been posting a blog in Russian on Bellona Web’s Russian pages on the events at the protest, 5,000 protesters had fanned out along the final 20 kilometers of road between Dannenberg and Gorbeln.
Slivyak put the number of protester that had been taking part in the protests at 15,000. These protesters had focused on the rail shipment, dogging the tracks at all points to prevent the waste train from getting through.
On Monday, the nuclear waste train reached Dannenberg, where the waste was transferred to trucks. Farmers near Dannenberg took up positions on the road with their tractors to block the shipment. Other protesters bound themselves to the tractors.
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Blockading this part of the route took most of the day. Authorited had planned to complete the shipment to the Gorblen facility by 7:00am. But successful protest actions and blockades had by Monday evening still left the load stranded in Dannenberg, blocking the shipment for a total of 16 hours.
The Associated Press and the BBC reported that the load was nonetheless expected to reach the Gorblen facility.
Cement blocks near the village of Grippel had been erected on the road, which by Monday has still not been cleared away by authorities, though police had begun to haul in protesters.
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Some 500 to 1,000 protesters had gathered in Grippel. Another thousand were arrayed on Monday around the entrance to the entrance to the Gorblen facility. Other groups of protesters were arrayed along the route. It was impossible to discern an exact number as many of the groups had gathered in the wood along the road the waste was to be transported on.
Environmentalists managed to measures the radiation levels being put out by the 123 tonnes of waste, and found that it exceeded norms by 5000 times. Later on Monday, a group of deputies from the European Parliament and the Lower Saxony region of Germany were Gorblen is located, as well as lawyers, launched an official attempt to halt the load on the basis of the high radiation readings, though it is doubtfully their effort swill succeed before the transport is completed.
Charles Digges wrote and reported from Oslo and Vladimir Slivyak reported from Gorblen, Germany.
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