hankyoreh

Residents of Busan’s Gijang County, the site of the Gori Nuclear Power Plant, have launched a collective effort demanding the closure of the plant’s No. 1 reactor. Its development committee, which includes local leaders including the heads of the town’s resident committee and Saemaul leaders’ association, reportedly voted a few days ago to demand that the government shut the reactor down. To see the leaders of government-affiliated groups, not anti-nuclear civic groups, making such demands, while arguing that there is no need to compensate residents, one gets a sense of how uneasy area residents are.
Residents are also reportedly planning to send an official request to five Haeundae/Gijang-B candidates for the Apr. 11 general election urging the neighboring areas to include the reactor‘s shutdown in their pledges. Any candidate that doesn’t move to shut the reactor down could therefore lose support.
The Gori plant is a source of serious concern for local residents. Already, the Busan Metropolitan Council and Ulju County Council have recommended the immediate closure of the Gori No. 1 reactor.
Right now, there are five reactors operating at Gori, with another three under construction and plans to build an additional four on top of that. If all of them were built, it would create the densest concentration of nuclear power plants anywhere in the world. It is a risk, with the lives of the 3.2 million people living within a 30 km radius of the plants at stake. Not only that, but with the plant over five years beyond its design life and a major accident already having been hidden, confidence in the reactors is sure to plummet. It makes abundant sense that not only Gijang but also places like Gyeongju, Uljin, Yeongdeok, and Samcheok where plants are either operating already or scheduled to be built would be in turmoil ahead of the general elections.
This problem is not confined to the residents around the plants. It isn‘t really right to continue using the electricity produced there while remaining insensitive to residents’ plight. More importantly, however, a major accident would leave the entire country suffering the effects of radiation. Now that it is apparent that the issues of nuclear power safety and waste disposal are not things that can be resolved, we need to change course and reduce our reliance on nuclear power.
If the government does not take responsibility for the safety of its citizens, then it will have to be held accountable through votes. Already, a billion-euro plant in Austria was abandoned without going into operation based on the results of a referendum held after a tense public debate. The Democratic United Party is in favor of reconsidering plans for additional plant construction and opposed to extending plants that have finished their design life. Other opposition parties are also calling for the closure of plants that have completed their life. Yet the New Frontier Party is maintaining that there is no alternative to nuclear power. According to them, we need to build additional plants while taking measures to ensure their safety. The party also tapped Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute research fellow Min Byung-ju, who took part in the review for the Gori No. 1 reactor’s service extension, as its first-ranked proportional representation candidate. If we are going to move past nuclear power, it is crucial that we take a close look at the different parties’ pledges on the nuclear issue.
　
Please direct questions or comments to [english@hani.co.kr]