Weekday
The weekly feature page of the University Daily Kansan
January 17, 1979
Story by Lynn Byczynski Photos by Randy Olson
After being arrested during the protest, Mary Harren, W. Michita, left, watches as her friends are frisked and photographed. Fifteen Kansas Highway Patrol troopers and 10 sheriff's deputies worked overtime Friday to assist with the arrests.
"I'm going to lie here till they take that damn thing back to Chattanooga." Francis Blaufus, a 57-year-old Coffey County farmer, above, said. He and 33 other persons blocked a train bringing a nuclear reactor vessel from Chattanooga Tenn.
After waiting three days for the train, which was delayed by freezing temperatures, protesters who were arrested, below, flanked by reporters and photographers, wait to be processed in bus that took them to the Coffey County courthouse in Burlington for arrangement.
Rising 140 feet into the air, the concrete nuclear reactor structure will house the reactor vessel that arrived by train Friday at the Wolf Creek nuclear plant. The nuclear reactor is expected to be operational by 1983.
Kansas Nuke
A train bearing a 340-ton reactor vessel equipped to use protesters with air horn blaring, drowning their chant,
Behind the 36 persons blocking the tracks, a small group of construction workers from the Wolf Creek nuclear power plant site near Burlington booded and shouted, motioning for the train to drive through.
"I think it would be great if it was someplace else," Bill Docker, one of the construction workers said. "But it's a good place."
Although the protesters on the tracks were much more emotional about the Wolf Creek plant, the demonstration staged last Friday by the Kansas Natural Guard remained peaceful.
The protest went off exactly as the Kansas Natural Guard, the Coeffey County sheriff and the Kansas Highway Patrol.
The "track-sitters"—those who were physically blocking the train—had taken a six-hour nonviolence training course, arranged by the protest group, to insure that their arrests would be peaceful.
The protesters came to the demonstration site, 10 miles from the plant, intending to be arrested, and they were. As they were led quietly from the tracks, they introduced themselves and talked quietly to the men arresting them.
One man carried a sign that read, "If you can't pour concrete, you store your nuclear waste?"
The officer inscribed him joked. "He can pour concrete, but I'm not saying they can pour it right."
Samples of the concrete base of the reactor failed strength tests, but officials from Kansas Gas and Electric, the Wichita-based utility building the plant, maintain that the fault lies with the tests, not the material.
The issue of the concrete that will provide a base for the Wolf Creek reactor is one that "could change things dramatically," according to Ron Henricks, head of the Mid-America Coalition for Energy Alternatives.
Bill Ward, an attorney for that group, filed a complaint with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission requesting that all construction at Wolf Creek be stopped until the concrete was proven safe.
"I have two questions," Ward said. "First is the concrete
safety. And second, what is the nature of their quality, con-
trol."
New tests are in progress and concrete pouring at the plant has been stopped pending their outcome. Other tests have not been conducted.
Robert Rives, vice president of systems services for Robert Gas and Electric, said "Fund evidence indicates that we have a clear roadmap."
Despite the delays, Rives said the plant would begin operation as scheduled in 1983.
Kansas Natural Guard members who tried to disrupt that schedule last Friday said their arrests had a more important effect than detaining the reactor vessel for 20 minutes.
"I think it served to increase opposition," Bill Beems, Lawrence senior, said. "This is the first time there's been any notice of the significant dissent about the construction of the plant."
Beeams was one of 10 Lawrence residents arrested and charged with criminal trespass for blocking the train. He and 19 other demonstrators pleaded not guilty to the charges, a courtroom inquiry found (Courthouse and bad to post between $150 and $200 bond).
The rest of the demonstrators played no contest and were released Friday night after paying $40 in fines and
Bill Higgins, Spring Hill senior, and Jeanne Green of Lawrence, said they paid their fines with loans from the
Only seven demonstrators spent the night in jail Friday and the last three posted bond and left Sunday. One of them, a man from Boulder, Colo., had been on the tracks but had not been arrested until he requested that an officer do so.
On Saturday, for the second time that weekend, sheriff's officers and National Guard vehicles were called to the protesters' campsite, this time to rescue four people and vehicles from the foot of snow that had fallen overnight.
"It's good that we've developed a good relationship with the law officers," Green, who was caught in the snowstorm, said. "You can hear us from here."