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<div class="moz-forward-container">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.<br>
<br>
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!<br>
<br>
-------- Original Message --------
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<th align="RIGHT" nowrap="nowrap" valign="BASELINE">Subject:
</th>
<td>When a Wave of Protest Swamped a Nuclear Fuel Project In
China</td>
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<th align="RIGHT" nowrap="nowrap" valign="BASELINE">Date: </th>
<td>Fri, 2 Aug 2013 11:36:55 -0700</td>
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<th align="RIGHT" nowrap="nowrap" valign="BASELINE">From: </th>
<td>Steve Zeltzer <a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="mailto:lvpsf@igc.org"><lvpsf@igc.org></a></td>
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<th align="RIGHT" nowrap="nowrap" valign="BASELINE">To: </th>
<td>NFC NFC <a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="mailto:Nirs@sanonofre.com"><Nirs@sanonofre.com></a></td>
</tr>
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<br>
<div>When a Wave of Protest Swamped a Nuclear Fuel Project In
China</div>
<div><a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://english.caixin.com/2013-07-31/100563607.html">http://english.caixin.com/2013-07-31/100563607.html</a></div>
07.31.2013 19:59<br>
<div>When a Wave of Protest Swamped a Nuclear Fuel Project</div>
Local officials followed orders by checking how a proposed uranium
processing facility would affect social stability, but they still
ran into public opposition<br>
By staff reporters He Xin and Tian Lin<br>
<br>
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Jiangmen's deputy mayor, Wu Guojie, tells protesters the project
has been canceled<br>
<br>
(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.<br>
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.<br>
"No one would listen," an official in Jiangmen complained.<br>
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.<br>
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.<br>
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.<br>
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.<br>
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.<br>
Clearing the Way<br>
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).<br>
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.<br>
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.<br>
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.<br>
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.<br>
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.<br>
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.<br>
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.<br>
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.<br>
Heshan officials, however, did not anticipate the outpouring of
public resistance that ensued.<br>
The Tide Rolls In<br>
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.<br>
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.<br>
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.<br>
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.<br>
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.<br>
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.<br>
Meanwhile, nuclear industry insiders said the cancellation raised
fresh concerns about issues related to educating the public and
the different interest groups involved.<br>
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.<br>
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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