Radioactive mud dumped in The Hague

22 June 2004

AMSTERDAM — Greenpeace activists placed a barrel of radioactive mud from the French town La Hague on the Plein near the Dutch Parliament in The Hague on Tuesday.

The mud became radioactive due to discharges from the reprocessing industry in La Hague for Dutch nuclear waste. The environmental activist group is demanding that MPs oppose the extension of Dutch-French reprocessing contract.

The reprocessing of nuclear waste from, for example, the Borssele nuclear plant, uranium and plutonium is obtained from the waste.

But Greenpeace claims international treaties “obligate” nuclear waste to de stored directly without reprocessing because reprocessing occurs simultaneously with radioactive discharges.

Dutch energy company Essent NV – as the largest shareholder of EPZ, the Borssele nuclear plant – re-signed a reprocessing contract with the French Cogema.

Greenpeace is demanding that the Lower House of Parliament intervene and force Essent to store nuclear waste with reprocessing, such as now occurs in Belgium, Germany and Switzerland.

Subject: Dutch news