France, Alternative Libertaire AL (September) - Meuse: A nuclear garbage starts

The proposed landfill of radioactive waste in Bure, in the Meuse, is in strong opposition. 
---- Burying 100,000 m3 of nuclear waste and high-level long-lived (IL-LL HA) 500 meters 
underground for millions of years, this is the Cigéo project[1] in Bure. The first 
packages are planned for 2025... But that's not counting the opponents of this project! 
After the great celebration of 10 years of the House of resistance on 6 and 7 December 
2014, not the 100 000 7 June and the installation of an anti-authoritarian and 
anti-capitalist camp ("Bring your pick, we have ten days to bury Andra ") from 1 to 10 
August (see next page), the battle intensifies. A fortiori after the rejection by the 
Constitutional Council of the attempted coup in the Macron law to get this project under 
Article 49.3 of the Constitution, so without a vote of MPs.

Birth of an imposed project

The solution of burying radioactive waste is decided since 1991 following the Battle Act 
91-1381. One can only note the hypocrisy of the law that provides the "the populations 
concerned", while the ignorance in which is required the mobilization against the project 
is indecent; same observation with CLIS (Local Information and Monitoring Committee of the 
Bure laboratory, a time chaired by C. Battle, and whose main mission is to provide 
consultation and debate).

With its expertise, the latter chooses Bure after years of having swallowed subsidies: CHF 
5 million in 1991 for the four sites "in competition" (and retained despite strong 
oppositions), 10 in 1995, 10 million more 1998 for the last two successful and 18 million 
euros in 2000, 20 in 2006, 30 in 2010 and 40 in 20122. The basement of the area is 
supposedly perfect but demonstrate that Callovo-Oxfordian argillite Bure is a waterproof 
and crushproof rock forever visibly expensive...

Several people have filed a complaint before the District Court of Bar-le-Duc to denounce 
all illegal subsidies. The Administrative Court of Appeal acknowledged that "the subsidies 
were not provided for by law and altered the democratic debate, even though there is no 
evidence that these subsidies had an automatic effect on the advice of Commons 
concerned[2] ". Complaint dismissed, as an appeal to the Council of State on the 
non-consultation of the populations concerned. In 1999, a petition is filed in Nancy 
Administrative Court against an order contrary to the law on water: rejected. In 2005 took 
place the first public debate surface storage is chosen. But in 2006, the landfill is the 
only path holding[3]. Rightly the second public debate in 2013 was boycotted! In 2014, a 
lawsuit is filed against Andra to have minimized the geothermal potential of the area, 
demonstrated by several other studies (desktop geological and mining research between 1976 
and 1983, the physicist A. Mourot Géowatt in 2002 and in 2014): dismissed! And now the 
government is trying the forced passage! Criticize or question the nuclear energy is it 
not possible? Andra[4] thus implanted gradually despite oppositions, unless the time to 
relaunch the debate came.

Cigéo on the ground...

The 100,000 m3 of waste HA IL-LL (half of which is not yet occurred) represent 3.2% of 
total waste, but focus more than 99.9% of the total radioactivity[5].

Besides the 25 km2 of underground facilities and 220 km of galleries, the site is provided 
on several hundred hectares and will include at least 350 hectares of storage waiting and 
surface preparation (this first step had not arrived the ears of elected when selecting 
the site). But with two sets of ten cars per week and the corresponding road transport for 
one hundred and thirty years, it is necessary to provide a buffer zone for cooling and 
packaging waste before their descent[6].

In addition to the risks inherent in this type of project (transportation of hazardous 
materials, more than likely leakage and thus contamination of aquifers, irremediable 
pollution of soil and possibly of the atmosphere in the event of an explosion, possible 
reversibility in case of fire by instance, etc.), it is a project that imposed costly: 
estimates have increased from 15 billion euros in 2010 to 36 in 2012 and the Court of 
Auditors provides for an increase in this estimate[7]! It seems that money is lacking but 
to be world champions nuclear (from procurement to waste management), the French state 
does not hesitate to invest!

Self against repression

And Cigéo has its shadows. Andra says: "Studies have shown that storage will not have an 
impact before 100,000 years. "Who can honestly believe this lie? It is also still unclear 
whether the MOX (mixed oxides, very radiotoxic nuclear fuel) will be buried there; and 
finally Andra says on one side: "This is a facility to be closed permanently to limit 
burdens on future generations"; and on the other it ensures that this storage is 
reversible[8].

In a concern of eternity, Andra seriously considering methods to keep the site in memory: 
the plans will be recorded on permanent paper (no less!) And contemporary works will 
signal input[9]!

In 2004, Bure Free Zone Association and the Nuclear Exit Network were able to buy a house 
in the center of Bure despite the use of pre-emptive right of the Town Hall: a couple of 
Germans accomplice pretended to buy a second home[10].

The House of Resistance is self-managed. The activists it turns to ensure the maintenance, 
renovation, gardening and especially to provide independent information. Two examples of 
the dangerousness of the landfill: in 2008, saline water seeping into the mine Asse in 
Germany and degrades the drums; Cesium 137 is measured at nearly ten times the permitted 
standard. On February 5, 2014, a chemical fire broke out 655 meters underground in a deep 
storage site in New Mexico. This was followed by a release of radioactivity in the area... 
Who doubted? Bure will flee!

And this is not police repression (list of license plates, listening mobile phones, very 
regular checks, helicopters, etc.) that prevent us to say no to this project, "Neither 
here nor anywhere else! ". We do not want to be co-managers of the waste. They will be 
there, here and 500 meters underground! It is much more urgent to stop producing it. "The 
militants know very monitored and the fight will be tough. (...) This is the game. We did 
not attack only private interests. When one attacks the nuclear, we are attacking the 
state. They do not make you gift. "[11]

However, 7 June, over 1000 people have made a human chain to symbolically close Cigéo. And 
on the night of June 25, a small group sabotaged a site containing multiple electrical 
installations and a well, to analyze the condition of the rock and the water table was 
ransacked.

Benedict (AL Alsace)

[1] Industrial Geological Storage Center

[2] Bure: STOP 2014!

[3] Bure: STOP 2014!

[4] National Agency for Radioactive Waste Management

[5] www.andra.fr/pages/fr/menu1/les-dechets-radioactifs/les-volumes-de-dechets-11.html

[6] Bure: STOP 2014!

[7] The little black book of large unnecessary projects, Camille, 2014

[8] See Into Eternity, Michael Madson, 2010 and www.cigéo.com / images / Cigéo / site / 
pdf / 499b.pdf

[9] Bure: STOP 2014!

[10] Our anger is not reversible, collective BureStop55, 2014

[11] Lutopick - The house Bure against nuclear dustbin, May 15, 2013

http://www.alternativelibertaire.org/?Meuse-Une-poubelle-nucleaire-en