Nuclear Asterix & Obelix with no power drink
Diet Simon - 06.08.2006 14:20
A village of 80 souls in northeast France is likely to face the might of the country’s nuclear industry as a waste dump. This although the hamlet of Bure lies on the Meuse River (which ultimately flows into the North Sea in Holland as the Maas) and scientists are warning that drinking water could be radioactively contaminated.
There are lessons to be learned from the Bure example for our own mad rush in Australia to the killer nuclear industry.
In writing this I’ve borrowed from various German and French sites, which I’ll cite as I go along. Indymedia Germany carried a report
on a three-day music festival against final nuclear dumping towards the end of July, the second time it’s been held. Thousands came.
About 30 politically minded bands played, including the “Stop Bure Brothers and Sisters”: „Le nucléaire on n’en veut pas, le nucléaire on n’en veut plus“ – we don’t want atomic power, we want no more atomic power. Youngsters of a circus thrilled children and adults. Forums with panel discussions on various themes connected with atomic power and civil disobedience were held.
The laboratory of the Agence Nationale pour la gestion des Déchets RAdioactifs, ANDRA, the national agency for the disposal of radioactive waste, was not far away so that many activists went there regularly to show their anger against atomic policy. On the Sunday more than 1,000 people gathered for a rally outside the laboratory. Symbolic graves were built for villages lying in a so-called “transposition zone”. A small stone wall was built across the access road – that’s become a tradition, as there are limitless stones in the area. The demonstration passed off peacefully and the police were fairly restrained. A likely reason for that was media presence.
Underground research has been done in Bure since the end of the 90s. Since the late 90s ANDRA has had what’s called an experimental laboratory in Bure and the Members of the Assemblée Nationale, the national parliament, have just given the green light for its experiments to continue. Long-lived and highly-radioactive wastes are to go underground in Bure if, as expected, the laboratory is transformed into a storage site.
Studies have been done on clay layers about 500 metres below ground. The site occupies17 hectares above ground. The laboratory consists of buildings on the surface, two shafts, a short tunnel at –445 meters, and, at –490 meters, a network of tunnels including reconnaissance tunnels. Investigations began in 2004 in the shafts and in almost 100 meters of tunnels.
Now trial drilling is to be done in the “transposition zone” of some 200 square kilometres surrounding Bure to identify the final dump location. That’s an area about an eighth of the size of Sydney (1,580 km2) and nearly twice the size of Paris (105 km2).
When the Assemblée Nationale passed this law, 19 of its 577 Members were present. People living in the area have collected 50,000 signatures to a petition demanding a referendum on nuclear waste issues, but the politicians are ignoring them.
Anti-nuclear activists are not taking this lying down and are trying their best to obstruct the plans with imaginative actions. State powers are responding with excessive repression. Atomic power means a zone without democracy.
Bure is in Lorraine, not far from the Swiss, German and Luxembourg borders. If my calculations with various route finders on the web are correct – and I won’t swear to it – I’ve narrowed the location down roughly as follows: 300 km east of Paris, 80 kilometres west of Nancy (France), 250 km northeast of Basle (Switzerland), 365 km almost due west of Stuttgart (Germany), 375 km southwest of Frankfurt/Main (Germany).
It’s a rural place, structurally weak and extremely conservative. Population density is six to eight people per square kilometre (almost the identical number of cattle, I read somewhere).
In political terms, Bure is the ‘ideal’ location for dumping highly radioactive waste.
Resistance is hard to do in the area, but is organising. Activists have bought an old house which year by year is being refurbished. The “House of the Resistance of Bure, zone libre” is open to all, anyone can come to inform themselves and join in; it has become an important part of the resistance. (Doesn’t that word have a good ring to it in France, ay?)
Military Police und repression
Transports of nuclear waste in so-called Castor caskets are military secrets. Anti-nuclear activists are arrested by agents of the Directorate of Territorial Security (DST), the domestic secret service, because they spread information about the safety of atomic reactors. An atomic state means a military state. That perception is to be used to try to cowe the Bure resistance. “Maybe our politicians are scared of the movement after the successful, huge, peaceful mobilisation (30,000 demonstrators) against the European Pressurized Water Reactor in Cherbourg, where hardly any police were to be seen,” say Bure activists.
The gendarmerie, who are part of the army and have had that kind of training, and their special unit, “Gardes mobiles”, were deployed at this festival; the number of security personnel was put at more than 3,000.
The gendarmerie has tried repeatedly to intimidate local people. For example, locals who took part in last year’s festival were summoned to the police for talks some months later. The gendarmerie made it hard for visitors to reach the festival by blocking several roads with pretend-roadworks and detours.
Many activists would not be intimidated and went to the final repository building site to protest. But already on the Thursday evening, the day before the festival began, they were subjected to cruel repression. About 50 demonstrators of both genders had gathered when the Gardes Mobiles intervened. No teargas like last year this time, but four men and women were arrested. They were held in custody for 48 hours in Bar le Duc and then put in pre-trial detention. The following Thursday they had to front in court in fast-track procedures that made proper defence preparation impossible.
The activists were charged with serious violence, damaging property and making insults. The court heard that six police were slightly injured when resisting the activists’ move to the laboratory site, an ANDRA watchman was claimed to have suffered a wrist injury.
The four were obviously targeted by police because they are regarded as “group leaders” of the libertarian anti-nuclear movement. In the past they have contributed a lot, for example, to organising VAAAN, an anarchist village for the Easter EPR demo in Cherbourg.
The organisers of the festival and other alliances reacted promptly. Demonstrations were mounted for the release of the activists, media releases written, an open letter was sent to the state attorney. But their punishment is harsh nonetheless: six to ten months, suspended. Three of the accused, who hail from the west of France, were banned from entering the Départements Meuse and Haute-Marne for two years. They were also given fines. A solidarity group is trying to help them.
Donations are welcome. The organisation Cacendr (Alliance against Atomic Transports) is making its account available as a conduit: Cacendr, bank: La Poste CCP Nancy, a/c number NCY 06 228 44 G 031, cue words "proces Bar le Duc", international account ID: IBAN: FR1820041010100622844G03127, BIC: PSSTFRPPNCY.
”The resistance will certainly continue,” write the locals, “it’s not too late yet. Bure est partout, Bure is everywhere.”
The report on the German IndyMedia attracted some negative comment. “It can be regarded as a success that it was possible to organise relative strong and well networked resistance,” wrote one contributor, “it cannot on the other hand be successful if it so bourgeois-dominated. For this ‘no atomic power’ mentality – actually: none outside my door – leads to nuclear power being kept and the final dumps being put only where there is the least resistance, and not where it would make the most sense from a safety point of view.”
Someone else wrote: “At last someone who twigs it. The fact is, we’ve got the waste. The real issue is where to put it. It’s got to be disposed of somehow. That’s why I find such research centres good, because just saying no is living on another planet. Only if we get out of nuclear power immediately do we have a tiny chance to get a grip on this evil. To solve the problem cleanly we need facilities doing research. The best solution – namely to bury it under the homes of the owners – is unfortunately not practicable because the neighbours might be damaged. So we need solutions that we don’t get just by saying no, never.”
Some URLs you might want to look at:
· Nuclear France: materials and sites
· The Bure story in understandable scientific detail
· The Amsterdam-based anti-nuclear World Information Service on Energy (WISE) has a report that the discovery of higher than expected levels of radon gas in a village near Bure appears to corroborate the claim that there are geological faults which make the clay beneath Bure unsuitable for disposal of radioactive waste.
· Some pretty cogent questions and answers (in English) about nuclear power in general and in France in particular, from the French alliance
of 743 anti-nuclear groups, “Sortir du nucleaire” at:  http://www.sortirdunucleaire.org/english/downloads/NukeNoThanksFAQ.pdf
· The Institute for Energy and Environmental Research (IEER) in the US, was retained to evaluate the repository research programme at Bure. It was critical in its publication “Science for Democratic Action” ( http://www.ieer.org/sdafiles/13-4.pdf) of what was being done in Bure, saying there is “a readiness to harm”.
· Statement by the Movement for Bure against the burying of radioactive waste. “Nuclear waste is unmanageable, and is a real time bomb just waiting to blow us all up. It is treated, transported all round Europe, governments try to bury it, but no one really knows what to do with it. The nuclear industry is not only dangerous (the Chernobyl accident; risks of other major accidents; irrecoverable contamination of many sites), it also puts future generations at risk by offering no responsible solutions for the treatment of its waste.”
· A Google search “Bure Meuse nuclear English” yields about 20 sites.
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