More than 3,000 radioactive waste barrels mapped in the Northeast Atlantic

A team of scientists has drawn up a map of 3. Therefore, 350 stews of submerged radioactive waste that litter the bottom of the Northeast Atlantic, without seeing for the moment of abnormal radioactivity, they said on Friday July 11 when more than 3,000 radioactive waste they returned to Brest. Therefore, Led on board the ship The Atalantefrom the French oceanographic fleet. In addition, this expedition called Nodssum aimed to map the main immersion zone of thousands of radioactive waste barrels, immersed by European countries between 1946 and 1993.

These immersions were considered at the time as a normal solution for waste management from the nuclear industry. Therefore, The mission has explored a specific area located in international waters. Nevertheless, 1,000 kilometers southwest of Brest and 650 kilometers northwest of Corogne (Spain). The researchers were able to scrutinize the area thanks to the Sonar with very high resolution of the Autonomous submersible Ulyx of the French Research Institute for the exploitation of the sea (Ifremer). which carried out its first scientific mission on this occasion. In sixteen dives, Ulyx has mapped 3,350 barrels spread over 163 square kilometers.

About fifty barrels were more than 3,000 radioactive waste photographed in a variable state of conservation, with a corroded surface and colonized by anemones. Lefits of unknown matter, probably bitumen, have also been noted on certain barrels. The radiation protection measures have reported values ​​of the same level as environmental background noise. But more laboratory measurements on sediments, water and fish must be made in the coming months.

Fish. crustaceans – More than 3,000 radioactive waste

During the mission, scientists carried out sediment samples – using carotiers – and water. They installed more than 3,000 radioactive waste fish and crustaceans traps to assess the effect of this radioactive waste on marine organizations. The team of scientists had researchers from the National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS). the Institute of Research for Development (IRD) and others from the University of Bergen (Norway), Thune Institute (Germany) or the Memorial University of Newfoundland (Canada).

Until 1993. more than 200,000 barrels filled with radioactive waste was thrown by several European states in the Abyssal Plaine of the North-East Atlantic Ocean, in international waters, more than 4,000 meters deep. In June 1984. the atomic energy police station (CEA) and Ifremer had already carried out a photographic campaign on the same immersion zone in the North Atlantic, 4,500 meters deep: six containers had been photographed and seemed intact, but with corrosion marks.