GOVERNMENT STUDY CONFIRMS LEUKEMIA AROUND LA HAGUE; GREENPEACE CALLS FOR IMMEDIATE END TO REPROCESSING/RADIOACTIVE DISCHARGES

PARIS, 18 June 1997

A report revealed by the French newspaper Le Monde today confirms that there is a concentration of leukemia around the state-controlled La Hague plutonium factory. Greenpeace, which is currently conducting environmental monitoring of the plant's radioactive discharges, greeted the news with sadness, stating that it confirms their belief that COGEMA has victimized the local population by contaminating the environment with radioactive waste.

The study was commissioned by the French government in January 1997, following a leukemia study published in the British Medical Journal by Professor Francois Viel, which identified an increased level of leukemia around the La Hague plant.

"This confirms what Greenpeace has been saying for years," said Damon Moglen of Greenpeace. "COGEMA's victimization of the population of Cap La Hague must stop. We demand that the French government instruct COGEMA to immediately suspend all reprocessing and radioactive discharges into the environment."

In response to the new study, the new French Secretary of State for Health, Bernard Kouchner, has called for an investigation into radioactive contamination around La Hague and the improvement of the local and national cancer registry. Furthermore, Dominique Voynet, the French Environment Minister, issued a statement endorsing the independent sampling activities conducted by Greenpeace and calling for an immediate investigation into environmental contamination around la Hague.

The news comes one day after COGEMA illegally removed Greenpeace sampling equipment from the end of the company's discharge pipe, which annually pumps some 230 million liters of nuclear waste into the Atlantic. COGEMA's illegal seizure of the organisation's equipment came in response to Greenpeace's release of preliminary sample results. Greenpeace's analysis proved that COGEMA's radioactive discharges have turned the ocean floor into a nuclear waste dump. The sediment sample analysis, released on June 13, showed that stones covering the ocean floor were so radioactive that EC regulations would require that they be treated as controlled nuclear waste.

"It's about time that science catches up to common-sense--pumping nuclear waste into the sea is a public health and environmental catastrophe," said Moglen.

For further information:

Damon Moglen, mobile phone: ++31-6-5341-7947

Luisa Colasimone, ++31-6-5312-8907

email address: damon.moglen@wdc.greenpeace.org

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