[Sustain] Fwd: When a Wave of Protest Swamped a Nuclear Fuel Project In China

[Don Eichelberger]

This is an interesting story about the growing democracy in China. It 
tells of a governmental effort to site a uranium processing facility. 
After the site was selected and cleared by the local bureaucracy for 
construction, the government undertook a mandatory "social stability 
assessment", to check on social acceptance for the project. During the 
assessment, the local community discovered it was to be a nuclear 
processing facility, information withheld to this point in the siting 
process.  When they found it out, the local version of Twitter took over 
and mobilized local protests, which resulted in the government 
cancelling the project.

If only it were that easy in this bastion of freedom! I like the idea of 
a "social  stability assessment"; should be part of every EIR!

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: 	When a Wave of Protest Swamped a Nuclear Fuel Project In China
Date: 	Fri, 2 Aug 2013 11:36:55 -0700
From: 	Steve Zeltzer <lvpsf at igc.org>
To: 	NFC NFC <Nirs at sanonofre.com>



When a Wave of Protest Swamped a Nuclear Fuel Project In China
http://english.caixin.com/2013-07-31/100563607.html
07.31.2013 19:59
When a Wave of Protest Swamped a Nuclear Fuel Project
Local officials followed orders by checking how a proposed uranium 
processing facility would affect social stability, but they still 
ran into public opposition
By staff reporters He Xin and Tian Lin

A
Jiangmen's deputy mayor, Wu Guojie, tells protesters the project has 
been canceled

(Jiangmen) – In mid-July, officials in Jiangmen, a city in the southern 
province of Guangdong, found it impossible to stop a protest against a 
massive nuclear fuel project planned for the western part of the 
Pearl River Delta.
Officials had carefully planned their every step to avoid angering the 
public, including a using new mechanism to evaluate the risk to social 
stability that a project poses, but the facility still ran into a storm 
of public protest.
"No one would listen," an official in Jiangmen complained.
This was the second time this year that a civilian nuclear project in 
China was canceled due to public disagreement. In February a project in 
Guangxi Province was halted for similar reasons.
The planned 37 billion yuan uranium processing facility in Jiangmen was 
being built by the China National Nuclear Corp. (CNNC), a state-owned 
company. In the past, when CNNC was an arm of the government, it 
developed the country's atomic bomb, hydrogen bomb and nuclear submarines.
Local officials say the uranium-processing facility was based on mature 
technology and vouched for by foreign and domestic experts, meaning it 
would have been safe to operate.
By end of February, CNNC had completed a range of evaluations on issues 
including engineering, risks regarding earthquakes and flooding, and 
impact on nearby mines. Based on these reports, CNNC received approvals 
from the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) and the 
economic planner's Guangdong branch.
CNNC already operates inland fuel-processing plants in Baotou, Inner 
Mongolia, and Yibin, Sichuan Province. The Jiangmen project would be the 
third plant on the coast to take uranium from mines overseas that CNNC 
had acquired. CNNC says the fuel-making process does not involve nuclear 
fission or fissile materials, and the yellow cake uranium fuel was so 
safe it could be held by hand.
Clearing the Way
Nuclear plants are not new to Guangdong. Heshan, a county-level city 
administered by Jiangmen, where the facility would have been located, is 
close to the four nuclear power plants operating around the Pearl River 
Delta. They are all owned by the Guangdong branch of state-owned China 
General Nuclear Power Corp. (CGN).
CNNC chose the location in Guangdong due to heavy lobbying by officials 
from the coastal province who wanted to boost their economy. Before CNNC 
picked Heshan over Tianjin and the Jiangsu cities of Wuxi and Kunshan, 
the Heshan government had already secured the provincial government's 
approval.
After CNNC obtained the risk assessment results, it was the Jiangmen and 
Heshan governments' turn to do their job: get land from local residents 
and evaluate the possible hazards to social stability.
Since last year, a regulation issued by the State Council, China's 
cabinet, requires large infrastructure projects to undergo not 
only environmental impact and safety evaluations but also be assessed 
for potential to cause social disturbances.
In February, the NDRC published rules requiring all domestic 
infrastructure projects to be assessed for the risk they pose to 
social stability. This is to be done after the projects receive NDRC 
approval but before construction starts.
Land clearing for the Longwan Industrial Park, where the nuclear fuel 
project was to be built, went smoothly. The government sent notices to 
residents in four villages to relocate at the end of April. They 
received their compensation within two to three weeks. Critically, 
villagers were told that the land would be used to build an industrial park.
The next step was the social stability assessment. The Heshan government 
had some difficulty finding a consulting firm to do it because the rules 
were new and unfamiliar. The government settled on Jiangmen Nuocheng 
Engineering Consulting Co., the only NDRC-certified engineering 
consultancy in Heshan, which subcontracted a study from a firm in 
Guangzhou. Then Nuocheng assembled experts to comment on the study. It 
surveyed and interviewed residents.
This sounds good, but there is a built-in problem with the arrangement. 
An employee at Nuocheng told Caixin that if the risk is assessed as 
high, regulators will halt the project. The project operator usually 
pays for the assessment, and few consultants want to kill their client's 
project, the employee said.
The Nuocheng report identified six major risk areas and corresponding 
remedies, and posted the report along with findings and recommendations 
on the Jiangmen government's website on July 4. The public was given 10 
days to comment. Nuocheng said this period was based on prior projects.
Heshan officials, however, did not anticipate the outpouring of public 
resistance that ensued.
The Tide Rolls In
News of the project spread quickly on Sina Weibo, the country's version 
of Twitter. Residents expressed concern, then alarm. Villagers were 
surprised that the "industrial park" they had been told about was going 
to process radioactive fuel. Area residents complained that the 
government had signed a deal with CNNC before even seeking their input.
Five days later, color fliers appeared under villagers' doors. The 
fliers included a news article that expressed doubts about the 
project and pictures of victims of the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear accident. 
Villagers were asked who would want to work in Heshan or buy 
local products after the plant was built.
On July 12, more than 1,000 protesters descended on the offices of the 
Heshan city government, including many people from nearby cities, to 
oppose building the project. Heshan and Jiangmen officials hastily 
called a press conference and promised to run more TV programs to 
educate the public. They also arranged for journalists from mainland 
media and from Macau and Hong Kong to tour CNNC's facilities in Yibin. 
The Heshan government also announced a 10-day extension to the public 
comment period.
Deng Weidong, director of Heshan's development and reform commission, 
said at the time that the city fully complied with the NDRC rules 
concerning the social stability risk assessment.
A day after the demonstration, however, a notice that the project had 
been canceled was posted on the Jiangmen government's website. It said 
the decision was made out of respect for the wishes of the people.
Privately, Heshan and Jiangmen officials lament the loss of a project 
that would have been a major generator of tax revenue. They had a litany 
of reasons for what went wrong. Some blamed old bureaucratic habits for 
alienating the public. Another pointed to the fact officials and party 
committees lacked Sina Weibo accounts that could have been used to get 
their side of the story across. Some were at loss to explain what the 
scope of the social stability assessment should be.
Meanwhile, nuclear industry insiders said the cancellation raised fresh 
concerns about issues related to educating the public and the different 
interest groups involved.
Another insider says the solutions to these difficulties might be found 
in Taiwan, where parties are directly compensated, and France, where the 
nuclear power industry provides direct benefits to the local community. 
In China, however, citizens must wait for the local government to 
convert tax revenues from the nuclear power into tangible benefits, the 
source said.
Officials in Heshan tried to explain the benefits to come, but, as one 
Heshan official said: "The more we explained, the more people believed 
we were deceiving them."

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