Fouth quarter of 2001

The European Parliament Scientific and Technological Office Assessment publishes the WISE-Paris report on Sellafield (UK) and La Hague (F)

WISE-Paris, 25 October 2001

[Posted 25/10/2001]

At the end of August 2001, WISE-Paris handed over its report on the " Possible Toxic Effects from the Nuclear Reprocessing Plants at Sellafield (UK) and Cap de La Hague (France) " (1) to the Directorate-General for Research of the European Parliament. Commissioned in November 2000 by the STOA Panel (Scientific and Technological Office Assessment) of the European Parliament, after it was requested by the Committee on Petitions, the study was directed by Mycle Schneider, Director of WISE-Paris, and gathered nine French, British and American experts. (2)

Previous to the decision by STOA to publish the final report, the press had largely echoed some of the information concerning the potential impact of accidental situations at La Hague and Sellafield. The information concerned notably the consequences of an aircraft crash, a subject matter briefly dealt with in the report but was analyzed by WISE-Paris following the 11 September 2001 attacks (010926BriefNRA1v4.pdf).

The 150-page report was being examined since September 2001 by three European experts (3) named by the STOA Panel, which gathers around thirty European Deputies.
At the end of the Tuesday 23 October 2001 meeting, held behind closed doors, the STOA Panel decided unanimously, with one abstention, to publish the report submitted by WISE-Paris, together with the evaluation notes drawn up by the three experts.

The report written by WISE-Paris and the experts' evaluation notes will be downloadable from the European Parliament's Web Site in the coming days. A summary and the conclusions will be made available in eight languages (English, German, Spanish, French, Greek, Italian, Dutch, and Swedish).

For further information, please contact:

Enrico CIOFFI, Director-General for Research and Documentation, Tel. +352-4300 22535
STOA on the European Parliament Website : http://www.europarl.eu.int/stoa/default_en.htm

Mycle SCHNEIDER, Director of WISE-Paris, Tel. +33-1 45 65 47 93 ; Fax +33-1 45 80 48 58 ;
E-mail : mycle@wise-paris.org

Notes:

  1. Possible Toxic Effects from the Nuclear Reprocessing Plants at Sellafield (UK) and Cap de La Hague (France), WISE-Paris, August 2001
  2. X. Coeytaux, Y. B. Faïd, Y. Marignac, E. Rouy, M. Schneider - WISE-Paris; G. Thompson - IRSS (Cambridge, USA); I. Fairlie, D. Lowry (London, UK), D. Sumner - Independent consultants
  3. I. Croudace, Geosciences Advisory Unit, Southampton Oceanography Centre (United-Kingdom) ; P. I. Mitchell, Department of Experimental Physics, National University of Ireland, Dublin (Ireland) ; J. C. Zerbib, Senior Consultant, Commissariat à l'Énergie Atomique (France)

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