Nuclear Cargo Now Designated for Port Was Refused in L. A.

A Jan. 16 federal decision to ship highly radioactive nuclear waste from Taiwan through the Port of Long Beach came eight months after the Port of Los Angeles told the federal Department of Energy it was not interested in handling the toxic cargo.

“We made it clear to them that we saw a lot of problems with them bringing it through the port,” said Jack Wells, chief deputy executive director at the Port of Los Angeles.

“We just told them that we felt there were other avenues for moving the cargo back to South Carolina, and they ought to explore more thoroughly the possibility of moving it directly by water” to the East Coast, Wells said.

Los Angeles port officials were most concerned “about the possible community reactions and possible reaction by the longshoremen,” he said.

Those concerns have proved to be justified. There has been strong public and governmental opposition to the plan in Washington state and Oregon since September, when it became known that federal officials were considering unloading the nuclear rods at the Port of Tacoma. Longshoremen in Seattle, reacting to reports that their port was also being considered, voted unanimously not to handle the cargo.

Surprise Announcement

And since the Energy Department’s surprise announcement nine days ago that it would begin unloading fuel rods in Long Beach in late March, the plan has been criticized by numerous civic and anti-nuclear groups and by Local 13 of the International Longshoreman’s & Warehousemen’s Union.

Port of Long Beach officials, still scrambling to gather more information about the federal shipment plan, said they were stunned again Thursday to learn that Los Angeles had given the same proposal a cold shoulder last May.

“This is the first I’ve heard of it,” said James McJunkin, port executive director in Long Beach. “And I share (Wells’) concerns completely. We don’t want to appear cold and callous. Public interest is of great concern to us.”

McJunkin said he did not know if Los Angeles’ decision would be a factor when Long Beach officials decide soon whether to grant a permit to allow the rods to be unloaded here.

Louise DuVall, Harbor Commission president, said she did not like the way the proposal was suddenly sprung on the port, but “I’m not making any prejudgments on anything.”

‘Lack of Sensitivity’

Harbor Commissioner James Gray, however, said he was angry.

“I’m amazed at the total lack of sensitivity of the Department of Energy,” said Gray, one of five harbor commissioners.

Gray said federal officials should have taken the time to provide the port with the national security reasons for shipping the rods through Long Beach and explain the safety of the proposal.

“But now, in some four or five days and without any prior notice, we appear to be having thrust upon us what no one else wants to deal with. I have to be pretty negative.

“If anyone thinks for one minute that I’m going to support this, knowing that nobody else wants to handle it, they’ve go another think coming,” Gray said.

Gray’s position may be irrelevant. Top port officials said they do not know if Long Beach can stop the federal shipments. That question is being researched, McJunkin said.

‘A Routine Matter’

L. L. Turner, chief of the transportation branch of the Department of Energy’s reprocessing plant in South Carolina, said he was not certain, but he believed a local port could not refuse the shipments.

His department must apply for port permits to unload a few days before each shipment arrives, Turner said. “But it’s a routine matter.”

McJunkin disagreed. “Permits to unload are routinely requested for dangerous articles,” he said. “But we get requests for unloading high explosives, and we routinely deny them.”

Federal officials say that the nuclear rods--transported in steel-and-lead casks--are highly radioactive, but not explosive. No cask has ever released radioactivity during shipment, they said.

The rods are being returned to this country to limit access to nuclear material from which weapons can be made, officials said. The reclaimed plutonium from the fuel rods will not be used to make weapons, they said.

The Department of Energy’s shipment of rods has never been legally challenged, Turner said.

Oakland, Portland Shipments

“For some years, several hundred have come through the East Coast (ports) without any problem,” Turner said. Many such shipments have also been unloaded for years at ports in Oakland and Portland without protest, he said.

“Many people are suddenly concerned about these shipments,” he said.

Turner offered a new explanation for why Long Beach was chosen as the port to unload the fuel rods.

Federal officials had said previously that they chose Long Beach for the shipments because good year-round weather along a southern route means a safer trip. The distance from here to South Carolina is also shorter than from the Northwest, they said. Shipment overland, rather than through the Panama Canal, also makes sense because it cuts travel time in half, they said.

Another factor was that all shipping companies that serve the East Coast from the Orient also dock in Japan. Japan does not allow ships with nuclear cargo in its ports.

Line Serves Long Beach

But Turner said that the most important reason that Long Beach--rather than Los Angeles or Tacoma--is the Energy Department’s final choice is that a shipping line serving Long Beach has agreed to carry the nuclear cargo.

Los Angeles was the department’s first choice because a shipping line that docks there had offered to transport the nuclear rods, he said. When that shipping line withdrew its offer, a different line, which serves the Port of Tacoma, offered to handle the cargo.

But that line also withdrew its offer, and Hyundai Merchant Marine America Inc., which docks in Long Beach, expressed an interest in early January. A contract was signed about 10 days ago, Turner said, and federal officials almost immediately announced that the shipments would go through Long Beach. Hyundai also ships cargo to Tacoma, he said, but safety and cost considerations led to the selection of Long Beach.

That announcement was made without preliminary discussions with state or Long Beach port officials partly because of the controversy surrounding the shipments, Turner said. Federal officials had to “consider the atmosphere we were working in,” he said.

When the controversy surfaced in Long Beach last week, Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley promptly fired off a letter to his city’s harbor officials commending them for rebuffing the nuclear shipments. The mayor praised port managers “for their foresight and courage in telling the Department of Energy it would be far wiser to ship the cargo by sea through the Panama Canal,” said Deputy Mayor Tom Houston.

The city thought federal officials would stop pushing the plan once Los Angeles rejected it, Houston said. “We just assumed the Department of Energy would wise up and back off,” he said.