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COMMISSION SHOULD INVESTIGATE FRENCH PLUTONIUM ACCIDENT IN ADVANCE OF U.S. WEAPONS-GRADE SHIPMENT

Brussels, September 13th. The European Commission is being urged to immediately investigate the recent accident at a French nuclear facility that is due within weeks to receive a shipment of U.S. weapons-grade plutonium. The accident at the Cadarache facility took place on September 6th, but was only confirmed by its owners the Atomic Energy Commission three days later. Two workers were confirmed as contaminated as well as other parts of the building. Greenpeace is concerned that the details of the scale of the accident, its consequences and decontamination are not being provided by the French authorities. Given the security and safety implications of both the shipment and the current situation at the Cadarache plant, Greenpeace has called on Commissioner De Palacio to suspend the shipment. The Commission authorized the shipment in a letter to the U.S. Government last December.(1)

The plutonium facility Atpu is operated by Areva/Cogema, is an old plant, and is required to be shut down in 2005 due to safety problems. The Commission warned in its 2002 safeguards report that there was an “unacceptable” amount of plutonium that was unaccounted for inside the facility. Also in 2002 the plant suffered an accident where plutonium dust contaminated a worker, and breached a cell wall.

The United States government is due to ship 140kg of plutonium to France later this week, on board two armed British nuclear freighters. The vessels are expected to arrive in the port of Charleston, South Carolina within the next few days. They will the cross the Atlantic to the port of Cherbourg and then on to Cadarache in Provence. There the plutonium will be manufactured into nuclear reactor MOX fuel, then returned to the United States.