‘Pollution crisis’ at Mururoa Atoll?

Press, 7 December 1981, Page 1

‘Pollution crisis’ at Mururoa Atoll?

NZPA London Mururoa Atoll, France’s nuclear test site in the Pacific, is steadily sinking and storms have exposed buried radioactive and plutonium waste, according to the London “Sunday Times.” It quoted a report that it said was prepared for the “internal consumption” of engineers and technicians employed by the French Atomic Energy Commission. “A grave pollution crisis” had arisen, according to the report. The “Sunday Times” report, from Paris, said 2500 engineers and technicians in the commission were threat-

ening to go on strike because of the crisis. In Australia, the report continued, the Australian Government was deeply concerned about unsubstantiated reports that Mururoa was cracking apart from years of underground French tests. Both reports were seriously embarrassing President Francois Mitterrand’s three-month-old Socialist Government, the newspaper said. The dissident engineers’ report, circulated in leaflet form among their colleagues, said that repeated tests were causing Mururoa to sink 2cm after each explosion. Since the tests moved underground

in 1975, Mururoa had sunk more than 1,5 metres. Storms had caused greater havoc. On March 22, neartidal waves ripped apart the asphalt covering several pounds of deadly radioactive plutonium and flooded a 30.000 sq m storage area reserved for radioactive debris. Some of the plutonium and the waste was swept into the atoll’s lagoon. Some was swept out to sea and washed back on to the atoll. In spite of a clean-up. the engineers say the level of radioactivity is twice as great as it was four months ago-