December 1999
Greenpeace wins Dutch court case on nuclear waste
Reuters News Service (Netherlands), November 30, 1999
[Posted 06/12/1999]
AMSTERDAM - Environmental group Greenpeace won a long-running court battle with the Dutch government yesterday when the country's highest court upheld its request for a ban on transportation of nuclear waste.
The Council of State ruled there was insufficient justification for transporting radioactive waste from the nuclear plant in Dodewaard in southeastern Netherlands to the Sellafield reprocessing facility in Britain.
The government had not given a sufficiently detailed description of the route from Dodewaard to the port of Vlissingen, the court ruling added. Greenpeace had argued that residents along the route should be informed of transport plans in case they objected.
The environmental lobby, which was awarded costs in the case, also said that radioactivity was released into the environment during waste reprocessing.
The court also ruled that spent nuclear rods from a reactor at the Energy Test Centre in the northern Dutch city of Petten could not be transported to a storage facility in the southwest.
Greenpeace had argued the site was suited only to mildly-radioactive waste.
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