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Deadly ships:
who does anything? They don't travel far, but far too close to you and me --- to us --- when they pass through the canal and the great Gatun Lake. This has been happening constantly for many years. It's luck that so far that there has been no mishap, given the danger that looms over the isthmus when they transit. They are ships that carry nuclear garbage and substances dangerous to human health. The danger is not fictitious, as it is clear that the transportation of nuclear wastes and of plutonium involves significant risks for the people and environment of our country. According to what the Panamanian Human Rights Committee (CPDH) says, another shipment of highly radioactive wastes has passed through Panama. We're dealing with the Pacific Sandpiper, which left France on February 1, bound for Japan by way of the Panama Canal carrying 164 radioactive material containers storing approximately 9,000 kilograms of waste. It transited Panama between the 17th and 18th of February, having passed the breakwater into Colon's Limon Bay at about 4:26 pm on the former day and headed for the Gatun Locks and then to the Pacific Ocean. The CPDH says that the Presidencia hasn't answered the multiple pleas they have sent. The National Assembly is frozen or remains indifferent to the legislation proposed by civil society to prohibit the passage of these ships. The Supreme Court has never resolved nor pronounced about the different constitutional challenges that have arisen from this problem. SINAPROC ignores or doesn't know about the danger of nuclear transits and of the mechanisms to handle public emergencies in cases of imminent danger. The Ministry of Health has not implemented the Radiological Emergencies Law as it is legally required to do. The Panama Canal Authority refuses to give information about possible insurance policies, because they assume the questions to be insignificant. There are no environmental impact studies. Various organizations have sued the government of Panama before the Latin American Water Tribunal, whose hearing will be held in this middle of March, 2006. Already in 2004 the Central American Water Tribunal has issued a resolution against the government of Panama for permitting the transit of highly radioactive materials through Panama and subjecting the population to the potential dangers. As an example of what could happen if an accident, terrorist attack or natural disaster affected the transit of one of these ships, spilling or releasing its deadly contents, the international environmentalist group Greenpeace has said that: It's very difficult to evaluate the effects of a grave nuclear transport accident. Given the tremendous number of variables involved, including the nature of the accident, the weather conditions, and proximity to dry land, many different scenarios are possible, each of them involving many different types and levels of damage. However, it can be said that a serious accident that involves a plutonium or nuclear waste transporter which had as its consequence a fire of long duration and high intensity and the eventual sinking of the affected cargo ship could have as a consequence significant long-lasting radioactive pollution of the environment. For example, if a collision results in impact and fire damage to the shipping containers and their contents, the radioactive material could be released into the environment. While weather conditions would affect the direction and diffusion of radioactivity, the heat and air currents cause by the fire would raise the radionuclides into the air, creating a jet stream of radioactivity. The human beings and animals downwind from the accident would fall victim to the precipitation and to the inhalation of radioactive particles.
The precipitation would also occasion the radioactive contamination of food and water supplies. The communities affected by such an accident would have to undertake efforts for mass evacuations and/or a mass decontamination. At the same time, local and regional industries such as fishing, agriculture and tourism would be adversely affected, if not destroyed, by public fears of radioactive contamination. As has been demonstrated by the Chernobyl reactor explosion, the effects of nuclear disasters are widespread and must be estimated in terms of future generations as well as the present. Given that the nuclear materials involved in these shipments would continue to be deadly environmental pollutants for decades or centuries, the impact of a transport accident are to enormous to be imagined. (Do you want to know more about this subject? Contact Raúl Escoffery by phone at 226-0626 or by email at raul_escoffery@yahoo.com.) What are we waiting for, then? We must make ourselves aware, complain, educate and apply pressure to the legislators, the executive, the political parties, the communications media and the population, about the importance of this issue to the life and health of all inhabitants (themselves included) and of the necessity to comply with and exact compliance with the constitution, which impedes the transit of highly radioactive materials through Panama.
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