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Nuclear Power Plant Community Seeks a Non-Nuclear Future

Region: Baltics, Lithuania
Author: Kristina Vilimaite, "Nuclear Communities in Transition" project
Consortium Member: ECOLOGIA Baltic Office
Status: Needs Funding Budget: $16500 Collected: $0 Needs: $16500
Goal: To continue assisting citizens of the nuclear power plant town Visaginas (in northeastern Lithuania) to make the transition from economic dependence on a closing nuclear power plant to a sustainable, non-nuclear economy.
Comment: The European Union is requiring Lithuania to close the large Chernobyl-type (RBMK) nuclear reactors at Visaginas as a condition of admission. The Russian-speaking scientific city faces a drastic change in their economic and social position when this occurs.

Project Need

Ignalina Nuclear Power plant in Lithuania has two Chernobyl type reactors (RBMK-1500). Lithuania is seeking to become a member of the European Union; according to the accession requirements the nuclear reactors should be decommissioned in 2005 and 2009 respectively. The "Nuclear Communities in Transition" project of ECOLOGIA has been working with the people of Visaginas town, where most of the nuclear power plant workers live. [Note: The Virtual Foundation is another, separate project of the same international non-governmental organization, ECOLOGIA - Ed.]. After the closure of the plant a lot of the workers are going to lose their jobs. If people see no future possibilities for living and working in Visaginas, the security of the nuclear power plant can be endangered.

Visaginas is located in Northeast Lithuania, near the borders with Latvia and Belarus. The town was built in 1975 specifically to provide living space for nuclear power plant workers and their families, and support personnel. 5000 people (out of a total Visaginas population of 33,000)currently work in the nuclear power plant. 2/3 of Visaginas inhabitants can not speak Lithuanian, thus they will have serious problems finding jobs in other places in Lithuania.

Project Goal
The mission of ECOLOGIA’s work in Visaginas is to assist citizens of the town in making the transition from economic dependence on a closing nuclear power plant to a sustainable, non-nuclear economy. "Let's take the decision about the future of the town into our hands" was the headline in the local newspaper after the first working meting on Local Agenda 21 for Visaginas, organized by ECOLOGIA. Local Agenda 21 is a sustainable development plan, where economic, social and environmental aspects are in balance. The plan should be prepared by local community, authorities and businesses together. When people perceive the development plan as theirs, the implementation is much more certain.

ECOLOGIA supports the preparation of a Local Agenda 21 plan in Visaginas. The concept of the plan was introduced during an international conference in Visaginas in February 2000; in November 2000 and February 2001 ECOLOGIA organized two working meetings for the representatives of all the sectors. Attending these meetings was an international team, composed of Russians, Belarussians and Americans, who shared their knowledge and experiences with community organizing, economic and energy issues, and Local Agenda 21. As a result of these meetings, the citizens of Visaginas prepared a draft Local Agenda 21 plan – within a month after the second conference. A Visaginas Community Council was created to work further on various spheres of town development, negotiate all the plans with the general public,and to represent Visaginas community needs when dealing with regional and national governmental authorities.

Previous Accomplishments

We have put a good deal of effort into strengthening the third (non-governmental) sector in Visaginas. Three NGO capacity building seminars were organized in October 2000, December 2000 and March 2001. These events not only developed the knowledge and skills of NGOs leaders in strategic planing, management, financial, legal issues and raised the activity in NGOs sector, they also strengthened partnership between NGOs. Participants start to feel “We are becoming a town community”, they want to work together and jointly solve problems, to create their own future.

There are many organizations working with technical and sometimes also social problems related to Ignalina nuclear power plant decommissioning – governmental structures, bilateral or EU funded projects. However, ECOLOGIA finds its unique role to work with Visaginas community directly and also stimulate better cooperation between decision-makers on Visaginas present and future. A Roundtable meeting “Institutional Co-operation for Solving of Visaginas, Ignalina Nuclear Power Plant Region Social-Economic Problems related to Ignalina Nuclear Power Plant Decommissioning” was held on March 12, 2001.

Visaginas inhabitants assert that ECOLOGIA’s work of the past two years has played a crucial role for unification of efforts in community, for development of the town's future vision and the reduction of uncertainty.

Plans for the Future

• Local Agenda 21: Support further development of Local Agenda 21 plan for Visaginas, which will provide new jobs and create a vision for a non-nuclear town. This is also crucial for the coordination of the Local Agenda 21 process and the governmental Ignalina nuclear power plant region development plan, and will ensure that the needs of this sensitive nuclear community are taken into consideration.

  

• Strengthening Non-Governmental Organizations:Strengthen NGO involvement and public participation in decision-making about the Ignalina Nuclear Power Plant and Visaginas' future. NGOs can be prepared to deal with pissues arising from the closure of Ignalina. Youth NGOs are particularly important, and will develop well with support and encouragement.

• Acting as the "Convener" The Visaginas community does not have a developed "third sector", and Visaginas citizens have not traditionally been involved in public decision-making. In this situation, ECOLOGIA's role as a convener has been very significant. We have fostered cooperation between national and international agencies and organizations working on the "nuclear region transition". We are positioned to gather information to communicate outside plans more clearly and coherently to the Visaginas community. Among other means, we use the Internet (cite web address) to ensure this information reaches a broad Visaginas audience.

• Work with mass media to encourage transparent decision-making Increased communication between mass media sources will increase the transparency of decision-making about Ignalina. ECOLOGIA uses an extensive network of media contacts in three languages (Lithuanian, Russian, English) so that not only local media, but also national media are updated on the results in the Visaginas community on local government and NGO levels.

• Integration Visaginas residents, for almost 30 years detached and isolated from the country in which they live, need to be integrated into Lithuania's social and economic life. Members of Non-Governmental Organizations need to be informed constantly about potential funding sources for their projects and helped to submit projects in the national language(Lithuanian. We hope to encourage them to participate in the meetings related to the Nuclear Power Plant issues that take place in Vilnius, our nation's capital; invite Visaginas residents to events that are held outside their home town so that they can see the successes achieved in the other parts of Lithuania.

• Community Foundation Development of a Visaginas Community Foundation would ensure local control, informed and open decision-making, and continued financial support for Visaginas in the future to ensure adequate and appropriate funding during the entire decommissioning process. Several organizations are working on this idea, but there are many social, economic and cultural barriers to its implementation in Visaginas.