Nuclear: more than 3,000 radioactive drums discovered off the coast of Brest!

More than 3,000 radioactive drums have been discovered in the waters off Brest. Very old nuclear fuel.

Jean-Baptiste Giraud, July 17, 2025,
https://lenergeek.com/2025/07/17/nucleaire-3-000-futs-radioactifs-brest/

In the nuclear sector, the issue of radioactive waste storage is posing increasing problems. During a mission off the coast of Brest, Ifremer and the CNRS counted more than 3,000 drums deposited on the seabed. They could pose a threat to France.

Nuclear waste is accumulating at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean

The return of a scientific mission off the coast of Brest has shaken the scientific community. After a month of intensive research, a team of experts revealed they had located more than 3,000 radioactive drums submerged in the Atlantic Ocean , a discovery that inevitably raises the question: should we be worried?

Behind this large-scale mission, a specific objective: to understand the fate of nuclear waste dumped between 1946 and 1993 by several European countries . During this period, more than 200,000 drums containing radioactive waste were dumped in international waters, at depths reaching 4,700 meters in the abyssal plain of the northeast Atlantic. The NODSSUM (Nuclear Ocean Dump Site Survey Monitoring) project has mapped an area of 163 km² where these drums are concentrated, some of which are in an advanced state of degradation.

The mission, led by the CNRS and Ifremer with the support of several national and international partners, used cutting-edge technologies to study the abyss. Aboard the ship L’Atalante, scientists deployed an autonomous submarine, UlyX, equipped with a sophisticated sonar system, allowing them to probe the seabed and obtain precise images of the condition of the 3,350 barrels.

No worrying radioactivity… for now

After several weeks of research, the good news is that the mission did not observe any “anomalous radioactivity” in the areas analyzed. For the researchers, there is therefore, as of yet, no reason to panic. However, not everything is that simple. Although the radioactivity does not appear to have crossed any worrying thresholds, some drums have shown signs of advanced corrosion, suggesting that material leaks may be occurring. The mission reveals that these leaks, although still difficult to identify precisely, could be due to the presence of bitumen, a material often used to seal waste in drums.

However, this is only a hypothesis. Future sampling will be necessary to better understand the exact nature of these substances and their impact on the marine environment.
This discovery raises many questions about nuclear waste management. Why were these drums submerged at a time when radioactive waste management was not as strictly regulated? While the practice of dumping waste has been banned since 1993, the question of the environmental impact of these repositories remains open. The results of this mission, still preliminary, underline that special attention will need to be paid in the future.

The next stage of the research will be to analyze the sediment, water and marine organisms in the area to detect possible contamination . In addition, a new mission is already planned for the coming years to study the barrels more closely and take additional samples , particularly of marine fauna that could be affected by this waste.