Nuclear users win skirmish on waste

Press, 27 February 1984, Page 10

Nuclear users win skirmish on waste

NZPA-Reuter London A group of major industrial countries led by the United States has won the first skirmish in an international argument about whether highly radio-active waste could one day be buried beneath the ocean floor. The group, all nuclear energy users, blocked a move on Saturday at a 37nation meeting on maritime dumping to declare subseabed nuclear waste disposal illegal, a communique from the meeting showed. Their idea is to fire highlevel waste into soft seabed sediment in torpedoes or bury it there in some other way. This will not be technic-

ally possible for at least 30 vears, but officials in the United States-led group said it could be the answer to the problem of safe disposal of the waste, which remains radio-active for many thousands of years. A ban at this stage would have halted research into the possibility altogether, they said. Spain had argued strongly for the ban but the meeting of signatories of the London Dumping Convention agreed in their communique to postpone discussion of the question. It also accepted a commitment by the group comprising the United States, France, Japan, Switzerland, the Netherlands and Britain that they would

not attempt this kind of disposal unless and until the convention agreed on a scheme to regulate it. The debate over subseabed disposal, or “emplacement,” had been extended by several hours to allow delegates to reach agreement Spain argued that emplacement should be covered by a ban already written into the convention outlawing all dumping of high-level waste in the sea, delegates said. This legal question was shelved until the next convention meeting in September, next year. There was no vote, as the convention avoids formal divisions and makes its decisions by consensus.