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Deep Green: Atomic renaissance interrupted | Greenpeace UK

Deep Green: Nuclear Renaissance Interrupted
Rex Weyler
Garbage dump
The allegedly safe French nuclear industry faces critical pollution and waste problems. The French reprocessing plant at La Hague retains most of its high-level spent fuel in temporary storage. The plant releases radioactive krypton, tritium, iodine, and carbon-14 into the environment of surrounding villages and some million litres of radioactive effluent into the English Channel every day. French health scientists warn of local leukemia risks, and since 1997, Greenpeace has campaigned to close the site.

After a 1972 London Dumping Convention ban, the UK, France, and others nations turned to secretly dumping radioactive waste into the Sea of Biscay from ships MV Topaz and Gem. In 1979, the first voyage of Greenpeace ship Rainbow Warrior confronted and exposed this illegal dumping, winning the new ban in the 1980s.

However, after the 2004 Tsunami, massive drums of toxic and radioactive waste washed up from the Indian Ocean onto 15 beaches in Somalia. Villagers, who attempted to open the containers, were killed, burned, and contaminated by the waste. We don’t yet know if these drums came from France, the UK, the US, or elsewhere, but they represent the hidden cost of nuclear power dumped into the sea, a cost paid by the marine environment and the public.

With radioactive waste accumulating in 50 countries, the Somalia evidence demonstrates that clandestine dumping continues. Professor Geoffrey Boulton of the Royal Society in London has warned that UK waste will soon “multiply by 50 times” as existing power stations are decommissioned. Most plants worldwide, built in the 1970s and 1980s, are nearing the end of their life cycle, and no plan yet exists for processing the massive decommissioning wastes.

Deep Green: Atomic renaissance interrupted | Greenpeace UK

December 4, 2008 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | secrets,lies and civil liberties