The opposition's turn to speak

Since 1992. Working against nuclear waste disposal into the Kivetty area had been one part of the activities of the association for nature conservation, Ala-Keiteleen luonnonystaevaet, since the site studies commenced at the end of the 1980's. The municipality of Konginkangas, where Kivetty was situated, was united with the town of Aeaenekoski at the beginning of 1993. Since then the anti-nuclear waste action was separated from the action of nature protection association and the Kivetty-movement was enlarged to the neighbouring towns and municipalities. The main working themes of the Kivetty-movement were to make the opposite views for the TVO's (later Posiva's) information known and to alert people of the issue. We questioned the safety of transport and storage of the radioactive waste. We were also worried about the image of large areas around the planned disposal site and also the social effects. In our work we co-operated with other environmental movements in Finland. Many of the authorities and head politicians of Aeaenekoski were either, for the nuclear disposal site or otherwise, they stayed quiet. Fairly soon we noticed that we had to go in for communal decision making if we wanted to end this silence. So we gathered a group of ten anti-nuclear-waste persons and took part in communal election in autumn 1996. In the election we co-operated with the Green league of Finland, which has previously not had representatives in the town council of Aeaenekoski. During the election four of us passed through and historically changed the power-relationship within the town council from the former socialist majority to non-socialistic. Environmental Impact Assessment, as the EIA studies went on, I was interviewed sometimes as an activist and as a member of the town administration. Discussions with the interviewers left me with the feeling that our opinions were valuable and that the views of the local nuclear waste supporters were not always realistic for the secondary economical impacts of the plan. The EIA process also handled other issues apart from just economical and technical, which had been on the focus earlier, for example in the information leaflets of Posiva. (authors)