Post-Crescent (WI)
October 3, 2003

Delegates seek ways to stop international weapons disaster; Communities work together to find solutions

By Kara Patterson
Post-Crescent staff writer

APPLETON — It’s past the time for the United States and other nations to overpower the shadow of a nuclear, chemical or biological midnight.

“We need to ask ourselves,” said Laura Holgate of the Nuclear Threat Initiative, “on the day after a catastrophic attack, what would we wish we had done before that day?”

That’s the message of international threat reduction specialists, who are visiting Appleton for a three-day International Community Partnerships conference of 127 delegates, including nearly 40 from Russia. The conference kicked off Wednesday with a sold-out address by former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev and ends today.

Earlier, Holgate, Thursday’s noon keynote speaker, drew upon a favorite saying of the organization’s co-founder, former Georgia Sen. Sam Nunn, to hammer home the urgency of the world’s weapons dangers.

“A gazelle running from a cheetah is taking steps in the right direction,” she said. “It’s no longer just a question of direction. It’s a matter of speed.”

Preventing a weapons disaster, Holgate said, demands teamwork and a trifold purpose: To secure nuclear weapons and materials at their sources, to destroy chemical weapons stockpiles and to strengthen homeland defenses against biological attacks.

Area residents Thursday also had the opportunity to hear about what’s holding up U.S. and Russian weapons site cleanups. Paul Walker, Sergei Baranovsky and Christina Bigler represented Green Cross International affiliates in the United States, Russia and Switzerland, respectively.

One overriding issue, Walker said, is the cost of facilities that contain, incinerate or neutralize hazardous materials.

The U.S. is expected to spend almost $30 billion to get rid of its 31,500-ton chemical weapons stockpile by the year 2015, Walker said. Russia may spend $3 billion-$10 billion to eliminate its 41,757-ton stockpile by 2020.

“We thought in the U.S. we’d have our chemical weapons stockpile destroyed in 1994,” he said.

Since the mid-1990s, Baranovsky said, Russian regions have held public hearings about chemical weapons disposal and its possible effects on the environment.

Also, Bigler added, Green Cross International offers education for at least 150,000 people who live in regions contaminated by the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster. These programs, she said, teach families how to prepare food safely and how to recognize signs of radiation exposure.

“This is a two-way process,” Baranovsky said. “There is a mutual exchange of information. We are also learning about what the public opinion is.”

In Shchuchye, a chemical weapons repository near Kurgan, Appleton’s sister city in Siberia, young people know little about how to protect themselves in the event of an accident, said Appleton North High School senior Peter Truby, 17, who recently visited the village with a competitive problem-solving team.

“There is an evacuation plan, but there’ve been no practice drills,” said Truby, who hopes the efforts of American and Russian teens will acquire for the region a disaster warning system, and gas masks and protective clothing for all Shchuchye families.

“They’ve been told if there’s an emergency, to put their shoulders to the wind and walk.”

Nolan Gnewuch of Appleton said the U.S. needs 2004 presidential candidates who will put weapons threat reduction at high priority.

“Until we have leadership in this country that puts emphasis on getting rid of these things we’ve created, it’s going to happen at a snail’s pace,” he said.

Kara Patterson can be reached at 920-993-1000, ext. 215, or by e-mail at kpatterson@ postcrescent.com