A2 - Sunday, January 22, 1984 - North Shore News

Tell me t

LET US CONTINUE with the curious tale of
Canadian uranium that is shipped to the U.S.S.R.,
where there is every likelihood that some of it is
turned.into nuclear weapons aimed at the West.

is Journey is sane

where Canadian officials ad-
mit they have absolutely no
“end use,””
meaning that is is probably
‘converted by the French into

If you don’t find it peculiar
that we may someday be nuk-
ed by bombs containing fuel
originally mined in Saskat-
chewan, I most certainly do.

From Cuff Lake Saskat-
chewan, uranium is shipped
by train in the form of
“‘yellowcake’’, or UF6, to
Port Hope, Ontario, where it
is converted into a gas, UF6,
and from there lugged in
pressurized cannisters on

flatbed trucks to either St.

John, Halifax or Montreal.

Anywhere after Port
Hope, there could be an acci-
dent, by the way. If one of
the pressurized cannisters
was to be ruptured, the leak-
ing UF6 gas could form a
toxic white cloud as lethal as
chlorine which could spread,
under certain circumstances,
over an area of a square mile
or more.

From one of the three
possible Eastern Canadian
ports, the UF6 is loaded on to
a freighter and taken to Le
Havre, France. At Le Havre,
the uranium is transferred to

another ship which takes it to
the Baltic port of Riga,
Latvia.

At Riga, the cannisters are
loaded on to a Soviet train,
according to a contract work-
ed out with Techsnabexport,
the state-owned ‘Soviet
monopoly which has been
quietly expanding into the

- commercial fuel enrichment
_field for several years.
“ From Riga, our Canadian

uranium. rattles along the
Volga River to an aging en-
richment plant somewhere in
the Ural mountains, east of
Moscow.

Why the Urals? Why, for
that matter, are the Russians
involved in the Western
nuclear fuel processing cycle
at all?

According to Greenpeace’s
Pat Moore, Soviet enrichment
plants reached a stage of
overcapacity in 1976. “By
then,’’ he says, ‘“They didn’t
need the amount of capacity
they had for weapons. pro-
duction and reactor electrici-
ty production, so they decid-

WILL PLANNING

Royal Trust since 1899
Phone 668-5000

ed to enter the world market
in enrichment and to bid for
contracts on Western ura-
nium.”’

Moore finds it odd — so
do 1 — that Canada, a
member of NATO and
NORAD does not even know
the actual location of the
Soviet facility where Cana-
dian uranium is enriched.

The Canadian Atomic
Energy Commission admits
that, in 1980, 840 tons of
refined uranium went to the
Soviet Union for enrichment.
Although none of the Cana-
dian uranium is sold directly
to the Soviets, who have
plenty of their own, the
nuclear industry in the
U.S.S.R. definitely benefits
from these contracts.

strictly personal ==

by Bob Hunter

At the economic level, the
West is giving the Soviets
business. They have excessive
capacity which. would other- -
wise be wasted. We are finan-
cially propping up their
nuclear industry, the very in-
dustry which creates all those
Day After weapons that are
ainred at us!

The export permits which
allow our uranium to find its"
way into Russia only
stipulate that an equivalent
amount of enriched uranium
come back out. But while it is
in the Soviet reactor, it is
mixed up with Russian
uranium that is also being
processed in the plant.

In the U.S.S.R. there is no
distinction between the
weapons program and the

Is now open

a dav,

Atoms for Peace program —
which is mainly propaganda
anyway. Soiit is certain that
Canadian uranium ends up in

- the nuclear weapons of the

Soviet Union.

According to Moore, the
reason the Soviets are able to
land such enrichment con-
tracts is because ‘‘they are
able to do it cheap, and their
environmental safeguards
may not be too terrific.’’

The journey isn’t over at
that point. In its énriched
form, the uranium is shipped
to the U.S., of all places
(Afghanistan and. Reagan
notwithstanding), changed
into another chemical, passed
along to West Germany, us-
ed, then shipped in the form
of plutonium to_ France

nuclear weapons of their own
while Canada looks the other
way.

Quickly now. Assure me
that this is all somehow sane.

For the
record
A REPORT on West Van
council (‘‘Pubs stripped from
Dundarave’’) in the Jan. 18
News mistakenly stated that
council decided to alter the
Community Plan. This
should have read instead “‘its.
policy plan’’. ;

Two other errors inadver-
tantly .crept into the story.
One survey of Dundarave

‘ sesidents -was appreciably

above “‘the 60 per cent level
required for a neighborhood
pub’. And no “Sager pub
application’’ is presently
before council. The Sagers’
current application is for a
teahouse-restaurant.

Sizes from one to four pound
lobsters . These
are LIVE Nova Scotia lobsters,
with hot drawn butter and
fresh vegetables.

Also, til Feb. 29th, receive a
LOBSTER EXPRESS CARD. Entities you
to lobster specials throughout 19841

hw Pe,
ENGLISH BAY CAFE
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