GREENPEACE CALLS FOR IMMEDIATE END TO REPROCESSING/RADIOACTIVE DISCHARGES
PARIS, 18 June 1997
A report revealed by the French newspaper Le Monde today confirms that
there is a concentration of leukemia around the state-controlled La Hague
plutonium factory. Greenpeace, which is currently conducting environmental
monitoring of the plant's radioactive discharges, greeted the news with
sadness, stating that it confirms their belief that COGEMA has victimized
the local population by contaminating the environment with radioactive
waste.
The study was commissioned by the French government in January 1997,
following a leukemia study published in the British Medical Journal by
Professor Francois Viel, which identified an increased level of leukemia
around the La Hague plant.
"This confirms what Greenpeace has been saying for years," said Damon
Moglen of Greenpeace. "COGEMA's victimization of the population of Cap La
Hague must stop. We demand that the French government instruct COGEMA to
immediately suspend all reprocessing and radioactive discharges into the
environment."
In response to the new study, the new French Secretary of State for Health,
Bernard Kouchner, has called for an investigation into radioactive
contamination around La Hague and the improvement of the local and national
cancer registry. Furthermore, Dominique Voynet, the French Environment
Minister, issued a statement endorsing the independent sampling activities
conducted by Greenpeace and calling for an immediate investigation into
environmental contamination around la Hague.
The news comes one day after COGEMA illegally removed Greenpeace sampling
equipment from the end of the company's discharge pipe, which annually
pumps some 230 million liters of nuclear waste into the Atlantic. COGEMA's
illegal seizure of the organisation's equipment came in response to
Greenpeace's release of preliminary sample results. Greenpeace's analysis
proved that COGEMA's radioactive discharges have turned the ocean floor
into a nuclear waste dump. The sediment sample analysis, released on June
13, showed that stones covering the ocean floor were so radioactive that EC
regulations would require that they be treated as controlled nuclear waste.
"It's about time that science catches up to common-sense--pumping nuclear
waste into the sea is a public health and environmental catastrophe," said
Moglen.
For further information:
Damon Moglen, mobile phone: ++31-6-5341-7947
Luisa Colasimone, ++31-6-5312-8907
email address: damon.moglen@wdc.greenpeace.org