Greenpeace in nuclear discharge tussle with France

["Sandy Perle" <sandyfl@earthlink.net>]

Greenpeace in nuclear discharge tussle with France

PARIS, June 27 (Reuters) - Greenpeace refused on Tuesday to comply 
with French government orders to move away from La Hague, where the 
environmental pressure group has installed a camera on an underwater 
pipe discharging radioactive waste into the sea. 

Greenpeace used the camera to broadcast on the internet live footage 
of the discharge from the nuclear reprocessing plant at La Hague, 
northern France. It wants to persuade an international panel to ban 
sea dumping of radioactive waste from land pipes. 

Greenpeace campaigner Mike Townsley said French coastguards had 
ordered the group to move its ships the Twister and MV Greenpeace, 
its dinghies, divers and the webcam from the area by 0800 local time 
(0600 GMT) on Tuesday, saying the vessels no longer had ``innocent 
right of passage'' in French waters. 

``We've moved the Twister into UK territorial waters, but we haven't 
and won't move the MV Greenpeace, and we certainly won't move the web 
camera,'' Townsley told Reuters by telephone from the MV Greenpeace. 

``We're just making a peaceful protest. We haven't impeded anything. 
We're just showing the delegates at the OSPAR meeting the discharge 
they're supposed to ban,'' he said. 

Ministers from the 15 countries in the OSPAR Commission, set up to 
protect the environment of the North Atlantic ocean, are meeting in 
Copenhagen this week to discuss a proposal by Denmark to ban sea 
dumping of radioactive waste from land pipes. 

OSPAR has already banned other forms of sea dumping of nuclear waste -
- from ships, platforms and aircraft. 

Townsley said Greenpeace could face a one million franc ($142,300) 
fine for defying the authorities while MV Greenpeace captain John 
Castle might face up to six months in prison. 

Maritime officials, who sent a patrol boat to investigate, said 
Greenpeace was breaking international and French law by stopping, 
anchoring and diving near the pipe outlet. 

They said they would ``not start a naval battle'' but would report 
back to the public prosecutor, who could impose a fine or order the 
seizure of the Greenpeace boats. 

State-run nuclear fuels group Cogema, which owns the nuclear fuel 
reprocessing plant at La Hague, said the radioactive waste leaving 
the pipe was monitored before being dumped and met existing standards 
on health and environmental impact. 

In a bid to dispel its secretive image, Cogema installed 10 permanent 
web cameras at its reprocessing site seven months ago but it has not 
fixed a camera to the discharge pipe, located 30 metres under the sea 
in an area of fierce currents. 

``You can't see a lot because its deep under water and changes in 
tides and currents make installing that kind of material under water 
very difficult,'' a press official at the company told Reuters, 
adding that photos of the discharge pipe could be consulted on the 
company's internet site. 

Townsley said some eight OSPAR states favoured a ban on all sea 
dumping of nuclear waste but France and Britain, the only countries 
outside Russia which still reprocess spent nuclear fuel, were 
opposed. Twelve votes are needed to approve the ban. 

Cogema press officials were not immediately able to answer 
allegations by Greenpeace that the plant had ignored a legally- 
binding OSPAR commitment to significantly reduce the volume and 
concentration of nuclear waste dumped in the sea by 2000. 

Greenpeace said on Saturday independent surveys showed 80 percent of 
Europeans opposed dumping nuclear waste in the sea. 

($1-7.025 French Franc) 

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Sandy Perle					Tel:(714) 545-0100 / (800) 548-5100   				    	
Director, Technical				Extension 2306 				     	
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