Test contamination ‘virtually zero’

Press, 6 July 1983, Page 1

Test contamination ‘virtually zero’

nzfa. Earis Radioactive contamination from nuclear explosions on France’s Pacific testing site at Mururoa Atoll has been “virtually zero” since they have been carried out underground, according to a report made for President Mitterrand. The report, handed yesterday to the Defence Minister, Mr Hernu, said that explosions posed a threat of tidal waves, but that "there is no danger that it will

vanish under the ocean.” Mr Haroun Tazieff, one of the world’s leading experts on volcanoes, headed a scientific commission of eight which wrote the report on the ecological and geological consequences of nuclear tests on Mururoa. The report regretted the absence of scientific teams. Mr Tazieff noted that “an official announcement each time a test is made and the publication of unimpeachable scientific documents

giving all the findings, without revealing defence secrets, would considerably improve the pyschological atmosphere surrounding the tests.”

France never offically announces its nuclear tests, which are usually revealed publicly for the first time by seismological observatories in Australia, New Zealand, or Sweden.

Increasing pressure has been placed on France by New Zealand, Australia and

other countries in the region to abandon the tests, which those countries say harm the South Pacific environment. The commission spent six days on the atoll last month, and returned to Paris expressing strong optimism about the results of test explosions on its structure. But it agreed that the series of tests had caused earth slips and sedimentation which could have resulted in changes in the

geological make-up of the atoll, such as the opening or closing of fissures. But these changes they said, would in any case have occurred naturally, although over a longer period. Mr Tazieff wrote that the impact of the tests and the shock waves they caused were the main dangers as they could cause tidal waves, but that danger was “very local” and precautions had been taken to protect site personnel and

material. The report “does not exclude” the possibility that radioactivity might “partially” escape from the cavity caused by the underground nuclear explosion. It suggested various ways of improving the quality of radioactive controls and a better co-ordination between the services doing this work as well as an increase of analyses at different depths in the lagoon and around the atoll.