CBC reports, “An explosion at the Marcoule nuclear waste-management site in southeastern France on Monday has killed at least one man. …The site is located in the Gard region of France, in Langedoc Roussillon, near the Mediterranean Sea. …(France’s Agency for Nuclear Safety) says there was no leak of radioactive material. Four people were also injured in the explosion, according to reports. …The Marcoule site does not include any nuclear power reactors. It is involved with the decommissioning of nuclear facilities, and operates a pressurized water reactor used to produce tritium.” The Globe and Mail adds, “‘According to initial information, the explosion happened in an oven used to melt radioactive metallic waste of little and very little radioactivity,’ the agency said in a statement.”
– In Canada, the Council of Canadians has supported local efforts against a nuclear waste storage site near Pinehouse, Saskatchewan. The Nuclear Waste Management Organization is looking for a nuclear waste site to store about two million highly radioactive bundles in an underground complex.
– We’ve also expressed opposition to a plan to bury low level radioactive waste 680 metres underground at the Bruce Power site on Lake Huron. We’ve said ‘extreme caution is needed when nuclear waste and freshwater are involved’.
– And we’ve had an ongoing campaign against the shipment of nuclear waste across the Great Lakes, where it would be processed by Studsvik, a company in Nykoping, Sweden, which is situated near the shore of the Baltic Sea.
More soon.
