France's Cogema to take Greenpeace to court

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

France's Cogema to take Greenpeace to court

ROUEN, France, June 28 (Reuters) - French nuclear fuels group Cogema 
said on Wednesday it had filed a lawsuit against Greenpeace for 
allegedly damaging its property while filming radioactive discharges 
from the French coast. 

Cogema accused Greenpeace of endangering company divers when it set 
up a ``webcam,'' or Internet-connected camera, to transmit pictures 
of an underwater pipe spewing waste into the Channel to delegates at 
an environmental conference in Copenhagen. 

``By the outlaw nature of their presence in the zone, Greenpeace's 
behaviour has endangered the security of people and goods,'' the 
state-run company said in a statement. 

The statement was issued just hours after Greenpeace said it had 
fixed a cable linked to the camera that was cut by Cogema divers 
inspecting the pipe on Tuesday, two days after the ``webcam'' was set 
up. 

The company, which earlier said its divers had accidentally cut the 
line, said the environmental group had flaunted basic safety rules by 
motoring their inflatable ``zodiac'' dinghies over the surface while 
Cogema divers worked below. 

Greenpeace said the camera was again relaying images to a meeting of 
ministers from the 15 countries of the Oslo-Paris Commission (OSPAR), 
set up to protect the marine environment of the northeast Atlantic 
Ocean. 

Cogema said a device installed by Greenpeace at the end of the pipe 
was an attack on the operation of the plant and could threaten to 
upset the dispersal of radioactive waste. 

``The device put in place last night designed to obstruct the 
evacuation of treated industrial water from the factory constitutes a 
clear violation of property rights,'' Cogema said. 

Greenpeace said the device divided the discharge into six separate 
streams to show how easy it would be for the environmental group to 
cut off the flow. 

Ministers 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. 

A boat belonging to Greenpeace also remained in French waters off La 
Hague, which is located near Cherbourg, despite orders from local 
maritime authorities to leave. 

Cogema, which owns the 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. 

Hoping 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 (100 feet) 
under the sea in an area of fierce currents. 

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Sandy Perle					Tel:(714) 545-0100 / (800) 548-5100   				    	
Director, Technical				Extension 2306 				     	
ICN Worldwide Dosimetry Division		Fax:(714) 668-3149 	                   		    
ICN Biomedicals, Inc.				E-Mail: sandyfl@earthlink.net 				                           
ICN Plaza, 3300 Hyland Avenue  		E-Mail: sperle@icnpharm.com          	          
Costa Mesa, CA 92626                                      

Personal Website:  http://www.geocities.com/capecanaveral/1205
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