Village of Valko in Loviisa fears E.ON’s nuclear facility will cripple area

Radiation and Nuclear Safety Authority also confused about situation

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Fears have emerged in the Village of Valko in Loviisa that E.ON's planned sixth commercial nuclear reactor for Finland would desolate the village and damage property prices there.
      The German energy concern E.ON's Finnish subsidiary E.ON Suomi is seeking to buy a sea-front plot of land from the city of Loviisa right next to the island of Hästholmen, where the Finnish energy giant Fortum already has two nuclear reactors. Should E.ON secure the deal, the company would launch preparations to construct Finland's sixth nuclear reactor on the site.
     
If E.ON is granted permission to erect a nuclear power plant on the site, the nearby village of Valko would remain inside the plant's safety zone.
      A five-kilometre safety zone has been set up around Finland's present nuclear power facilities. According to the Radiation and Nuclear Safety Authority regulations, only two hundred people can permanently reside inside the zone. Should a serious accident take place at the plant, evacuation of the inhabitants of the surrounding safety zone should be possible to be carried out in a matter of a couple of hours.
      The sale of the property of about 100 hectares was given initial approval by the Loviisa City Board in mid-April (see linked article). The City Council is to decide on the deal at its May 9th meeting.
     
In the village of Valko, over two hundred people took part in the residents' emergency meeting organised on Wednesday.
      Valko resident Nina Bärlund shakes her head at the ambiguity of the whole undertaking: "Everything has happened so fast, and we have not been given much information at all of all the implications of the project. We do not know what is going to happen and when."
      According to Sonja Ilvetsalo-Koskinen, the convenor of the meeting, some 500-600 households would remain inside the safety zone, accompanied by Valko's Finnish- and Swedish-language schools, a municipal day-care centre, and Valko's harbours.
     
The participating Loviisa city manager Olavi Kaleva tried to convince the residents that the City of Loviisa would not put any of its inhabitants in danger and that no-one is chasing the people of Valko away from their homes.
      The participants, in turn, encouraged the city to put the brakes on the sale of the plot, until such time that all the effects of the construction of the power plant have been examined thoroughly.
      "Why rush in such an important matter?" the participants asked in some astonishment.
     
Radiation protection section head Olli Vilkamo of the Radiation and Nuclear Safety Authority admitted the Authority was also slightly bewildered over the planned power station's effects on population safety. Over thirty years have elapsed since the last time land deals were made for constructing nuclear power plants.
      "This is the first time I hear about this", Vilkamo confessed.
      If E.ON gets the go-ahead for its plans, the Radiation and Nuclear Safety Authority has to "look very closely" into what it means in terms of the radiation protection of the people in the area, as their number is well above 200.
      Vilkamo also gave the reminder that the city and the state still have many opportunities left to pull the plug on the project.


Previously in HS International Edition:
  German energy giant wants to build nuclear facility in Finland (18.4.2007)

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