Claude's van is equipped with a cellular phone. Our mission tonight is not to blockade but to provide an alert to the people of North and South Carolina. From Sunny Point, the highly radioactive fuel rods will be transferred from the ship to railroad cars for overland transit to the Savannah River Site. Our peaceful rebellion would end the international traffic in nuclear materials by revealing it to the people most at risk, residents of the towns and countryside along the transport route. The importation of 24,000 irradiated fuel rods containing over 19 metric tonnes of enriched uranium from reactors around the globe during the next 15 years is an unhealthy, unwise, and unnecessary program of the US Departments of Energy and State and the international nuclear industry.
American companies stand to gain from the refueling contracts.
General Electric's nearby Castle Hayne plant manufactures nuclear fuel rods. In exchange for the returned HEU, the US government promotes conversion to LEU for the refueling of foreign reactors in 41 countries including Pakistan, Slovenia, and Iran. The Foreign Research Reactor Spent Nuclear Fuel program provided the Blue Ridge Environmental Defense League and our allies with an opportunity to expose the myth of nuclear non-proliferation. A 20-foot long mock nuclear waste transport cask, mounted on a trailer and towed behind a pickup truck was the center of attention at public meetings and press conferences. The Governor of North Carolina responded with scores of Highway Patrolmen, the State Bureau of Investigation, and a helicopter to accompany the nuclear waste trains.