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Barrels with radioactive liquid in the Asse mine, a former salt mine in Lower Saxony (archive picture)
Photo: POOL / REUTERS
With a large number of emergency services, the police prepared on Saturday for the arrival of a Castor transport in Germany.
As the federal police announced, officers were on duty at sea, on land and in the air to monitor the transport.
The ship with castors from the British reprocessing plant Sellafield is expected in Lower Saxony at the weekend - the police did not provide any information about the current whereabouts of the ship for tactical reasons.
The rail line on which the castors are to be transported in Germany is also secured, said a police spokesman.
So far there have been no impairments, it said on Saturday afternoon.
"We are definitely well prepared and also very well positioned in terms of strength."
The special ship with six castors started on Tuesday.
It is supposed to head for a German seaport.
Opponents of nuclear power assumed that this will be the port of Nordenham in Lower Saxony over the course of the weekend.
According to the alliance Castor-Stopp, the transport train for the nuclear waste is already there, which is to travel by rail to the interim storage facility in Biblis in southern Hesse.
A lot of police officers were present in Nordenham on Saturday.
Nuclear opponents and environmentalists wanted to gather for protest actions.
Almost 40 activists came to a demonstration in the afternoon.
Due to international obligations, Germany has to take back its nuclear waste that has been reprocessed abroad.
Even today, the reprocessing plants in La Hague in France and Sellafield in the UK are still storing Castoren with radioactive waste from German nuclear power plants.
According to the Castor-stop alliance, everything is prepared for the arrival of the nuclear waste in the port of Nordenham.
A large mobile crane has been set up, empty castor wagons and diesel locomotives are ready, according to the website of the nuclear opponents.
Massive criticism
There has been criticism of the transport from many sides.
Environmentalists see deficiencies in the Biblis interim storage facility and safety deficits in the nuclear waste containers.
"There is the problem of insufficient protection from terrorist attacks," said Greenpeace nuclear expert Heinz Smital of the German press agency.
In addition, the repair concept in the interim storage facility in Biblis in southern Hesse is inadequate.
To simply say that something can be welded over it if there is a leak is a botch.
"That is all insufficient."
The chairman of the Federation for the Environment and Nature Conservation, Olaf Bandt, said: "Despite the worsening corona situation, having the dangerous, highly radioactive nuclear waste transported to the unsafe interim storage facility in Biblis is a negligent and irresponsible risk to human life."
The police union (GdP) called for the transport to be stopped.
The use of thousands of police officers in the face of the pandemic is unnecessary, risky and disproportionate.
The Society for Interim Storage (BGZ), which is responsible for the storage of the highly radioactive nuclear waste, rejected concerns about safety and repair options.
"We are prepared for all conceivable repair scenarios," said spokesman Burghard Rosen.
The dangers of a plane crash had also been examined.
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ala / dpa
