[Reader-list] KSMTF seeks closure of Kudankulam power plant

[T Peter]

KSMTF seeks closure of Kudankulam power plant
Special Correspondent :November 2, 2011
http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-national/tp-kerala/article2590545.ece
Expresses solidarity with agitating fishing community members

The Kerala Swathantra Matsya Thozhilali Federation (KSMTF) has urged
the State government to take steps to ensure that the Kudankulam
nuclear power plant is closed down immediately.

A pressnote quoting KSMTF leaders, who recently visited the site near
the plant where thousands of people have been staging a sit-in,
expressed solidarity with the members of the fishing community
involved in the agitation.

“The struggle is not just to protect the fish and the ocean from
radiation; it is a struggle to protect the lives of the people in
Kerala and Tamil Nadu,” T. Peter, president of the federation, said.
The pressnote said the plant posed a threat to prominent tourism sites
such as Kanyakumari, Kovalam, Varkala, Kuttanad, and coastal
Alappuzha.

“The Atomic Energy Regulation Board has admitted in its recent report
that there should be no tourism site within a radius of 20 km from the
plant. The distance between Kudankulam and Kanyakumari is only 14 km,”
Mr. Peter said.

The pressnote feared that the plant would pollute marine resources and
vegetables produced in Tamil Nadu and exported to Kerala. “We are
fighting this battle not just for the fishing community,” Mr. Peter
said. “It is for the future generations.”

The federation ridiculed nuclear scientists vouching for the safety of
the plant. “It is the same theory which was propagated at Three Mile
Island, Chernobyl, and Fukushima,” leaders of the federation said.

“An accident at Kudankulam will be unmanageable for the governments in
Tamil Nadu and Kerala because of the density of population in the
southern parts of the States,” they said. “For those politicians who
ask us for alternatives, we say there are safer alternatives,” Mr.
Peter said.

“But first, let them tell us how they will dispose of radioactive
waste in a safe manner, since no nuclear scientist anywhere so far can
really say this honestly. The people of the western world will not
tolerate one more nuclear plant in their countries, and some countries
have already started decommissioning the existing plants. If you
accept their technology, you have the responsibility to reject it when
they reject it.”

The federation activists reminded MLAs in the State that they had a
moral responsibility to protect the lives of the people who elected
them.

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•Says struggle to protect the lives of the people
•‘Plant will pollute marine resources, vegetables'