Nuclear Waste Barrels
Found in English Channel
PARIS, France, June 19, 2000 (ENS) - Corroding, broken and disintegrated barrels of radioactive waste were among images released by Greenpeace today after a two week inspection of the Hurd Deep, in UK territorial waters of the English Channel off Cap de La Hague, France.
The barrels are remnants of some of the 28,500 barrels tipped into the sea by the UK between 1950 and 1963, Greenpeace claims.
Two Greenpeace vessels, the MV Greenpeace and the Twister, scanned the seabed at depths up to 100 meters (325 feet). Once they located radioactive waste barrels, a remotely operated vehicle fitted with cameras was dispatched to the seabed to make a closer inspection.
According to the International Atomic Energy Agency´s 1999 Global Inventory of Radioactive Wastes in the Marine Environment, the total radioactive inventory of the Hurd Deep is 57,942 GigaBequerels. Hurd Deep is one of several dumpsites used until a global ban was agreed in 1993.
"Although dumping radioactive wastes at sea from ships is now banned, paradoxically the discharge of radioactive wastes into the sea via pipelines from land is not," said Mike Townsley of Greenpeace. "Such double standards are not maintained for technical or scientific reasons, but only because the operators of the nuclear reprocessing facilities in La Hague, France and Sellafield, UK want to save money."
"It is cheaper for them to continue to use the sea as a radioactive garbage bin than to store this radioactive waste on land; for the nuclear industry, money comes first and the environment second," said Townsley.
The allegations are expected to add weight to calls for a ban on nuclear reprocessing in the region.
Next week, at the annual meeting of the OSPAR Commission, the intergovernmental organisation that regulates marine pollution in the North East Atlantic from Gibraltar to the Arctic, Denmark, Ireland and other countries will propose such a ban.
Hosted by the Danish government, the meeting will take place June 26 to 30 in Copenhagen. It will be the stage for the release of the Quality Status Report 2000 - a holistic and integrated summary of the quality status of the Northeast Atlantic.
http://ens.lycos.com/ens/jun2000/2000L-06-19-02.html
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