Brit Nuke Plant Fought in Ireland Via NY Transfer News * All the News That Doesn't Fit source - "Dawn" The irish Times - 18 November 2001 Brit Nuke Plant Fought in Ireland by Jim Dee GREENORE, Ireland - People might think 3-year-old Lauren Mullen lives in paradise with the rustic Cooley Mountains a stone's throw away and the majestic Mourne Mountains stretching above the far shore of pristine Carlingford Lough. But one thing is missing: her father, Alan. He died of cancer two years ago, and now the controversial British nuclear power plant that Alan's wife and many others believe caused his death is expanding - a move that has infuriated Ireland. ``Lauren had just turned a year old when he died. So she has no memories of him at all,'' said Anne Mullen. ``His wee children were left with just a picture on the wall.'' Alan Mullen died on his 42nd birthday after spending the last months of his life doggedly campaigning against Sellafield in the local media. ``My eldest boy is still brokenhearted,'' said Anne. ``He keeps saying, `Why my daddy?' What Patrick doesn't realize is that there are loads of other children in Louth without their daddies as well through cancer.'' Thirteen people die each month of cancer among County Louth's 90,000 inhabitants, a high rate anti-Sellafield campaigners attribute to the plant's ongoing, low-level waste emissions. ``Sellafield is like a hidden airborne killer,'' Anne said. In 1957, a year after British Nuclear Fuels Ltd. opened Sellafield under the name ``Windscale,'' the Cumbria-based plant had its first accident, spewing a radioactive cloud over a swath of northern England - and, many here believe, Ireland, too. The mid-1980s name change to ``Sellafield'' was a futile attempt to escape the stigma of the accident. Just last month, BNFL's Sellafield safety record was slammed in a European parliament report, the latest of many condemnations over the years. So, after Britain's announcement last month that Sellafield would open a new plant for reprocessing used plutonium and uranium from as far away as Japan, Ireland went ballistic, especially upon hearing more radioactive waste will be discharged into the Irish Sea. ``It is not acceptable that the Irish Sea is used as a kitchen sink by the nuclear industry,'' fumed Prime Minister Bertie Ahern. ``We demand that Sellafield is shut.'' When Britain yawned at Ahern's fury, his government took Britain to the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea in an attempt prevent the plant meeting its anticipated Dec. 20 start-up date. Arguments will be heard this month. In Drogheda, Irish Sen. Fergus O'Dowd of the Fine Gael party said he recently walked to the Sellafield complex unchallenged from a nearby beach, demonstrating how insecure the site is. ``The fear of nuclear terrorism now is so real that I think the risks are too high,'' he insisted. ``The Irish people want the place closed.'' O'Dowd cited an October article in New Scientist magazine stating that a terrorist attack on Sellafield would release radioactivity 44 times higher than 1986's Chernobyl nuclear accident. ``If an airplane goes into it - by accident or design - you'd have a very significant release of radioactive material around Sellafield, and if the wind was blowing the right way, the east coast of Ireland as well,'' he said. ``We're only 100 miles away.'' In Dundalk, County Louth Sinn Fein councilor Arthur Morgan, a friend of Alan Mullen's, said Louth's cancer rate is 13 percent above the national average. ``And everybody in County Louth attributes this to Sellafield,'' he said. Morgan said shortly after the 1957 Windscale accident, Ireland tried to build a nuclear plant in County Wexford, but the idea was nixed due to public protests. No nuke plants have ever been built in Ireland. ``That's one of the ironies: The Irish people have rejected nuclear power. And yet we are forced to endure a continuous leak into the sea and air of radioactive nuclear material from Sellafield,'' he said. ``It seems this country is still being treated as insignificant by the British government,'' he added. ``The health of our people isn't a worry for the British government. I find that very disturbing.'' ================================================================= NY Transfer News Collective * A Service of Blythe Systems Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us 339 Lafayette St., New York, NY 10012 http://www.blythe.org e-mail: nyt@blythe.org ================================================================= nytenv-12.17.01-22:39:32-27371