WHAT: International Conference – “Impact of the Public and Whistleblowers on Energy and Nuclear Policy”
WHEN: June 1 and 2, 2006
WHERE: St. Petersburg, Russia, Znamenka Holiday Hotel
WHO: Russian, American and European NGO’s are sending representatives
(Seattle, Washington) – A coalition of Russian and American non-governmental organizations (NGO’s) today announced the convening of an international conference in St. Petersburg, Russia, to take place on June 1 and 2, 2006. The focus of the conference is nuclear safety and the protection of whistleblowers – workers who speak out to tell the truth about safety, health, and environmental concerns.
Organizing groups include the U.S.-based Government Accountability Project, St. Petersburg Environmental Rights Center of Bellona, and Russian-based groups including Movement for Nuclear Safety, Greenworld, and the Center for Russian Environmental Policy.
Conference participants from the United States, Europe and Russia will converge on St. Petersburg to discuss strategies and a response to the growing pro-nuclear initiatives by corporations and governments, especially in the U.S. and Russia. The G8 conference scheduled for St. Petersburg on July 15-18 has been touted as a major springboard by the world’s most economically-powerful nations to propose new nuclear energy initiatives.
“Nuclear energy, nuclear weapons and safety and environmental issues are tied in with worker’s rights to speak out because the nuclear establishments are very secretive and deceptive,” said Tom Carpenter, Director of the Government Accountability Project’s Nuclear Oversight Campaign. “The public relies on workers as early warning systems for disasters and releases since our governments are slow to report and fail to publish credible information.
Alexander Nikitin, the former Russian naval officer who was repeatedly but unsuccessfully prosecuted for reporting publicly-available information about Russian naval nuclear pollution, is a key organizer for the conference. He stated, “In order to achieve a high level of security in power engineering, especially nuclear power industry, people need to have information about the real dangers they live with. Therefore, we need this information and people who are not afraid to uncover it. State authorities and industry managements feel more responsible when they know that every decision they make is controlled by the public,” of the St. Petersburg office of Bellona.
“The worldwide nuclear industry is gearing up for a major assault on the planet with plans to build hundreds of new nuclear power plants and new plants to reprocess plutonium, which will create new risks of accidents, terror targets, and a legacy of nuclear waste that has no disposition path,” said Susan Gordon, Director of the U.S.-based Alliance for Nuclear Accountability, a coalition of groups promoting nuclear safety.
Alexey Yablokov, Russia’s environmental minister under Boris Yeltsin, is also a sponsor of the conference. He stated, “The way nuclear safety should be understood now is not how they put it in G8 draft documents. Chernobyl has shown that nuclear power engineering creates more problems than it solves. We cannot agree with turning Russia into a huge oil pump either. We shall run out of rich oil in 15-20 years, and the country will remain dangerously deformed. All countries should pay a lot more attention to the development of wind and geothermal energy, as well as biogas energy and other safe energy sources. The latter will be quite enough to replace the unacceptably dangerous sources of energy. There are no technological barriers for this, but there is the lack of political will.”
The conference will be attended by a wide range of NGO and policy experts from Russia, the U.S. and Europe. Representatives from Russia include members of the NGO organizations from around Mayak, the large plutonium reprocessing facility in the Southern Ural Mountains, from Novosibirsk, Tomsk and Krasonoyarsk, also host cities to large nuclear installations. From the USA, NGO representatives from several groups will be represented, including from the Alliance for Nuclear Accountability, Project on Government Oversight, Nuclear Watch of New Mexico and more. Whistleblowers from Hanford and other sites will also be in attendance. Greenpeace is sending a representative from England, as well as experts from Norway and Finland.
Russian and American NGO’s have worked together for years to conduct joint sampling at both U.S. and Russian nuclear installations, have attended each others’ conferences, and paid regular visits to each others’ countries to share information and strategies.
Participation in the conference is by invitation only. Members of the news media are invited to attend.