A4 - Wednésday, January 18, 1984 : North Shore News Dangerous load IT IS LIKELY that nobody on earth, including the moles and minions at the CIA and KGB, knows for sure just how much nuclear fuel is in motion at any given moment from uranium mines to refineries to enrichment fac- tories to conversion facilities to fabrication plants to reac- tors to reprocessing plants to weapons manufacturing facilities. But at least 30,000 tons of such fuels and their wastes will travel by ship, train, truck and plane this year, passing through more trans- mutations than an Old World alchemist could possibly have fantasized. Although Canadians seem oddly indifferent to this fact — or at least the Canadian media as a whole — nearly 1,000 tons of this highly Strategic material will enter the U.S.S.R. from Canada this year in the form of UF6 — the incomplete raw material from which nuclear fuel ts made — and will come back out (or at least an equi- valent amount will) as enrich- ed uranium hexafloride. This stuff, in turn, will Strictly personal by Bob Hunter pass through two more manufacturing stages in the United States before reaching its destination in a nuclear reactor in West Germany. After a year and a half, when the fuel elements are ‘*spent,’’ the radioactive wastes will find their way to France, where the plutonium will be extracted and most certainly made into war- heads, even though this will be strenuously denied by the various governments and companies involved. Somewhere in the Atlantic Ocean, these massive quanti- ties of isotopes will cross paths with uranium illegally mined in Namibia (South West Africa) under licence from the South African government, bound for Canada, to be refined for re- export for Japan. Heavy metal, all of it toxic, is on the move on a scale that defies ali efforts at control and increasingly ignores geo- political barriers. It is pro- bably the most insane and deadly traffic in history. Sometime this year, ‘Canada will become the world’s largest exporter of uranium. Before your chest puffs up with nationalistic pride, consider the implica- tions. For one thing, the re- cent massive spill of radio- active water on the frozen muskeg at the world’s largest uranium mine at Key Lake in northern Saskatchewan will undoubtably be repeated. And regardless of the noise being made by Environment Canada about reducing pol- lution from nuclear reactors, the fact remains that Canada is plugged into a_ global nuclear fuel cycle involving five countries in the produc- tion of a single fuel element. Ottawa is too deeply commit- ted to this enterprise to allow the environment department, traditionally the wallflower at the on-going dance of industrial boondoggles, to seriously interfere. What disturbs me the most about the multi-million dollar international! plutonium Daisy Chain is the extremely high probability that at least some of the material contained in Soviet nuclear missiles aimed at thee and me was mined and manu- Lay-off notices sent out to 63 CONTINUED The lay-offs, and a series of program cuts also approv- ed by trustees at the in- camera meeting, will cut $2.8 million from cducation spen- ding this year. That’s part of an $8 milhon cut the trustees have been ordered to make between now and 1986. As well as the lay-offs, an- nounced and planned, the district is cutting four com munity school co-ordinators back to part time, reducing summer school operation by SO per cent, reducing athietic and ficld trip transportation by SO per cent, taking $300,000 from the building Maintenance program, cancelling the swim program, and cancelling music uniform award programs North Vancouver school board chairman Kev Roy Dungcy says the forced cuts have “Ccrppled’’ the educa program the $2 4% mitbhsern Cut as first toward “dragging a cducation system quicksand’ It the government msists the district po ahead with the full SM covebbacors gar curs Jed the and student athletic and tron and the Step good tate he ad (how al cabue ation) system will be devastated Diane head of the Prastieday Pinployces COUPE) agrees “We ve tad a meetup of Joly. C amacdtan Clean cf our imcmbership and they ve imsthucted the cxcculise to peoccdc wath a phan of action fo focus pubblb attention on (he disaster baappeniig cin cae schools Dooly sanmul CURE forse ts bearadest frat try tye tod of Lay oft, wath notices of termination going to 68 non-teaching staff, who are represented by the union. Another 12 vacant posi- tions under CUPE jurisdic- tion will not be filled. Bet- ween the lay-offs and hiring freeze, CUPE will lose more than 25 per cent of its membership. ‘We'll be meeting with the North Van Teachers Associa tion to discuss the impact the lay-offs will have on educa tion and the maintenance of our schools," Joly said CUPE also plans to meet other Lower Mainland locals to co-ordinate possible action to protest the lay offs “We're concerned not only about the quality of educa tron, but the whole education cnvironment tt wil all be af fected ,"" Joly sand ‘'We want to make the publao aware of what is happening "' The CUPE cuts, tect by Match, wall atfeet 4$ (caching aides and clerical workers and 345 carctakers The loss of the carctakers will lead fo a problem with maimntamming schools while the to take cl loss of aides wall put more pressure of teachers says Hall Priesen, president oof the North Vancouver Teachers Association The Assoctaton as xchedual cd to lose TO of tts teachers at the cnd of thas school year but the ctfect on the nunber of peneasre at full tree teachers as capected to be miventeteal Pricsen sand about 40 of the teachers will be det geoirg move the pupal teacher patie closer ta what the gown tree eh Warts while aveeothye rs bal will go because of a predicted decline in enrollment. Teachers working on tem- porary contracts that will not be renewed, those retiring and those taking leaves of absence should take care of the reduction of 70 positions, Frnesen said. “The effects won't be great this year, but you have to remember that this ts an ticipated to be only about one-third of the cuts taking place over the next two years,’”’ satd Friesen “Without a doubt there will be an impact on education services on North Vancouver .”’ Friesen said the immediate impact of the cuts approved by the school board will be an obvious increase in class sizes next ycar with cesulting heavy pressure on counselling, lear ning assistance library SCEVICES Let’s take care of one another United Way and factured right here in Canada! You find that = scarcely believable? So did 1 until I started to investigate, with the assistance of several peo- ple in the environmental movement, notably Pat Moore of Greenpeace. The zig-zag path of Cana- dian uranium is mostly hid- den behind innocent-looking . bills of lading and secret con- tracts that are shuffled back and forth between miulti- national corporations and various consortiums and governments. Yet for all its high-tech wizardry, the nuclear fuel cycle is basically not much more than a bucket brigade, albeit one that re- quires a travel agent to plot its course. It is possible — although just barely — to trace a ship- ment of uranium ore from the Cuff Lake site in nor- thern Saskatchewan, where the NDP shed its anti-nuclear credibility during the last decade by eagerly flogging the deadly junk. Stay tuned. In the next col- umn, we'll follow the curious journey of Canadian uranium through the Iron Curtain into the reactor at an unknown location in Russia, where it helps to prop up the nuclear industry of the U.S.S.R. — a damned idiot move if I ever heard of one! 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