Nuclear dump in Pacific?

Press, 5 December 1979, Page 16

Nuclear dump in Pacific?

By

KEN COATES

in London

France is considering dumping, radioactive residue from its industry reprocessing spent nuclear fuel from Japan and other countries in the South Pacific' Ocean. This assertion is made in an article in the first issue of a new London monthly magazine, “A.M.”, which is described by its editorial director, Mr G. Tham. as the only magazine of general interest for young people, aged between 20 and 45, in Britain. The article was written by “Richard Lenoir,” the pseudonym of a journalist who is a French citizen working in London. He says he does not want to be identified because the French authorities would then be able to identify his military sources. The article asserts an unnamed French naval officer as the source for a statement that Frencn Polynesia has already been used as a dumping ground for contaminated material from the nuclear tests carried out at Mururoa Atoll.

It says this has bcengoing on for several years and has been studied closely to determine movements of nuclerr waste in the ocean currents/ The article discusses the nuclear industry’s problem of waste disposal from reprocessing plants. While much residue is regarded as relatively innocuous, a second class of highly unstable, radioactive material emerging as a nitric-acid solution poses problems. The residue can be incorporated into glass blocks and a special vitrification plant at Marcoule, in the south of France, has been established. But according to the article this method of disposal using the seabed would not meet the requirement of the International Conference on the Law of the Sea that containment must be guaranteed for 100,000 years. Even encased in rust-re-sistant steel alloys, the material would be released into the sea w-ithin 2000 years. Glass would be dissolved well within a similar period. The article says that

according to sources in the Commissariat a FEnergie Atomique, the French Government organ-, isation controlling both military and civil nuclear activities, the plan to dump high-level waste in the Pacific depends on another expected decision by the International Conference on the Law - of the Sea: to recognise 200-mile territorial limits. “Such a decision wquld allow France to claim about two million square miles of ocean around the islands of French Polynesia, including two areas of very deep water,” says the magazine. “One of these, about 50 miles north of Isle Maria in the Tubuai group, has already been used to dump radioactive waste from the weapons tests.” The article also says that the French deliberately exposed Polynesians and in some cases French pilots and military personnel to radiation during the atmospheric tests. It says this was part of a research programme aimed at finding a successful therapy against radiation poisoning, necessary because of France’s

decision to build dozens of • nuclear power stations. The author of the article says he visited -French.. Polynesia several times and noted that the local people refused to eat fish because those who did became ill. He says that in military circles in France there has been persistent speculation that the test programme will end soon because of France’s reconsideration of the idea of an independent French nuclear force. One reason for an announced intention to keep Tahiti under French control, it is suggested, is planned use of the area for nuclear dumping. “A second is the fear that an independent. French Polynesia would take France through the international courts seeking repatriation for biological and ecological effects of testing,” says the magazine. In the early 19705, it says, France bought the acquiesence of governments in the Pacific. New Zealand’s price was access to the Common Market for its dairy produce plus a 75 million franc loan raised in France, its first in that country'.