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Argentina: INVAP reactor contract found to be ilegal in Argentina.

The contract signed by INVAP and ANSTO had a provision which infringes Argentina´s Constitution and several provincial regulations. "The contract provision for the possible processing of Lucas Height´s spent fuel in Argentina infringes the Constitutional Article 41, which prohibit the entrance of radioactive waste into Argentina", said Dr. Raul Montenegro, Profesor of Evolutionary Biology At The National University of Córdoba and Presidente de FUNAM.

"By Constitution but also as citizens, we said "no" to the import of australian radioactive waste into Argentina". Administrative presentations have been made yesterday. Judicial claims are under preparation.

According FUNAM, "Nick Minchin´s team and Ansto never researched in-depth both INVAP and CNEA records, negotiations and mistakes. Their information "is poor" and "sometimes false". The Zimbabwean case.

Cordoba and Buenos Aires (Argentina) & Sidney and Melbourne (Australia), October 10^th. FUNAM, the Environment Defense Foundation from Argentina, discovered an illegal provision in the contract signed by INVAP and ANSTO. “Analyzing Senator Minchin’s answer to Senator Bolkus’ Question 2534 we discovered that the contract contains a provision for the possible processing of spent fuel from the reactor”, Montenegro said. In the answer to the Senate Mr. Minchin wrote: “the contract with INVAP contains provision for the possible return of spent fuel to Argentina for processing”. According Montenegro this provision “infringes the Constitution of Argentina, whose Article 41prohibit the ‘entrance of radioactive waste to Argentina’. Spent fuel is radioactive waste. In terms of Argentina’s law the provision, and maybe the Contract, seems illegal and certainly not valid”.

“We cannot understand how the vendor, INVAP, included an illegal provision, and how ANSTO and Mr. Minchin’s administration never detected this mistake”, said Raul Montenegro. “In 1994 the Constitution of Argentina was amended. His Article 41 contains new rights and guarantees vis-a-vis the environment. Paragraph 4 of this Article state: “...the entrance of radioactive waste into the national boundary is prohibited”. Besides Argentina’s Constitution, the import of radioactive waste is also prohibited by Buenos Aires city Constitution (Article 26) and Rio Negro province regulation 2,472 (Article 1)”, Montenegro said.

“Such provision in the contract is non sense. Any future production of spent fuel at Lucas Heights can be considered radioactive waste whose entrance is strictly forbidden in Argentina. If they use silicide low-enriched uranium fuel, their spent rods cannot be reprocessed in existing commercial reprocessing plants. Why the vendor, INVAP, offered unavailable services?. To win the auction?”. “It seems to me that ANSTO research on INVAP and CNEA, the Atomic Energy Agency of Argentina, was surprisingly incomplete. We have much more accurate information than Senator Minchin’s team. INVAP is showed as a company of the province of Rio Negro. This is true. But CNEA has 4 of his 7 directors, thus INVAP is CNEA, and CNEA is its main manager”. Montenegro added that CNEA “has a long record of environmental mistakes. Inside Cordoba’s city CNEA dumped more than 40,000 tons of uranium mining waste without any kind of isolation. Even to day this enormous low-level radioactive waste deposit remains in the ground”.

Yesterday (Monday 9^th) FUNAM has sent legal letters to governmental officials, Ombudsmen, national and provincial Parliaments, CNEA, INVAP and other public agencies denouncing the “non constitutional” content of the Contract signed by INVAP and ANSTO. Montenegro stated that “Argentina’s Constitution is clear. Article 41 prohibit the import of radioactive waste, and any amount of spent fuel from Lucas Heights 2 nuclear reactor is radioactive waste. Our Constitution but also our citizens said ‘no’ to the import of Australian radioactive waste”. According Montenegro “those INVAP and CNEA officials who signed the contract, and offered the possibility of receiving Australian radioactive waste for processing in Argentina, infringed the Constitution and several provincial regulations. But they also infringed Article 248 of Argentina’s Penal Code. According our Penal Code those governmental officials that don’t accomplish the law can be prosecuted for ‘no fulfilment of public duties”. FUNAM is also preparing claims “to be presented at the Court of Justice if needed”.

Montenegro, who presented his submission to the Australian Senate Inquiry last 29^thSeptember, explained that both ANSTO and Nick Minchin statements on INVAP “contains poor information” and shows “lack of in-depth research”. “When we noticed the public on INVAP’s negotiations for providing a nuclear reactor to Zimbabwe Mr. Minchin told the media: “INVAP has advised me they supplied some initial information about a research reactor to Zimbabwe following a request, but there had no further interactions and no negotiations had been entered into. This was certainly no formal proposal to Zimbabwe”. “Nevertheless, Montenegro said, this is not the truth. The information provided by INVAP is false, and demonstrate that ANSTO and Mr. Minchin’s team never considered the news published by Zimbabwean newspapers. The Financial Gazette of Harare, in Zimbabwe, published the 3^rd February: “ARGENTINES MAKES NUCLEAR POWER OFFER. INVAP, an Argentine corporation involved in nuclear technology, has offered to assist Zimbabwe establish nuclear power reactors that would ease this country’s chronic power shortage, it was learnt yesterday (...) ‘Following discussion with President Mugabe, INVAP has given me a number of documents that I have handed to acting President (Joseph) Msika’ Argentina’s Ambassador to Zimbabwe Enrique Pareja told the Financial Gazette yesterday (...) ‘I’m now going to meet with several other ministries that would be involved and these include Transport and Energy, Industry and Commerce, Agriculture and Health. As soon as the government of Zimbabwe has considered the recommendations, then the proposal is for INVAP to send a mission to Zimbabwe to have in-depth discussions”.

Montenegro, who denounced the risk of such kind of reactors among Zimbabwean media in February, confirmed that ANSTO and Senator Minchin’s team “cannot assert that INVAP was requested by Zimbabwean government to provide a nuclear reactor. It’s a mistake. INVAP was the purveyor, and Ambassador Enrique Pareja his spokeperson. The truth is that ANSTO never researched in-depth both INVAP and CNEA history, negotiations and mistakes. Mr. Minchin’s comment is always the same: INVAP ‘advised me’. This is not the right way to protect Australian citizens. The right way must have been, prior to the contract, a true research on INVAP excluding them as purveyors of information. There is a lot of independent serious sources both in Universities and non governmental organizations. Nevertheless and besides the result of the Inquiry, the best for Australia is not to have a replacement nuclear reactor”.

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