Moruroa waste may be dumped at sea

Issue 

AUCKLAND — Greenpeace has released photographs of sea dumping of waste from previous French military operations in French Polynesia, giving credence to reports that waste from France's "clean up" at the Moruroa test site will be dumped at sea.

The photographs, given to Greenpeace in Tahiti by military personnel last year, show industrial waste from the Hao military base being dumped approximately eight kilometres from the atoll.

Dumping of industrial and radioactive waste at sea is prohibited by the London Convention, which is due to meet in London in November. Greenpeace has condemned any dumping of waste from Moruroa at sea, and says that France may be in breach of the Convention.

Greenpeace's Stephanie Mills said that waste from Moruroa might include contaminated construction material from laboratories, bunkers and rigs where nuclear bombs had been put together and tested. Material could also have been contaminated by plutonium dispersed on the atoll during "safety" tests. Radioactive waste is reported to have been stored over a 30,000 square metre area on the north coast of the atoll.

Greenpeace is calling on the South Pacific Forum, the South Pacific Regional Environment Program and Pacific governments to ask France about its intentions regarding "disposal" of contaminated materials on Moruroa, Fangataufa and Hao.

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