[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 9 (Wednesday, January 24, 1996)]
[House]
[Pages H777-H778]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                    NUCLEAR TESTING IN SOUTH PACIFIC

  (Mr. FALEOMAVAEGA asked and was given permission to address the House 
for 1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. FALEOMAVAEGA. Mr. Speaker, I wanted to share with my colleagues 
and the American public an article that appeared in today's Washington 
Post. The article cites the French Government's admission that 
radioactive materials have leaked into the sea from its nuclear tests 
in the South Pacific.
  Mr. Speaker, while the French Government now tells the world it is 
just a small amount and it should be no problem, this radioactive 
material that has leaked into the Pacific Ocean from the Mururoa Atoll 
is iodine 131. Iodine 131 is produced only as a result of nuclear 
explosions.
  Mr. Speaker, President Chirac of France has already exploded five 
nuclear bombs on the Mururoa Atoll; let alone the fact that on the same 
atoll total, the French Government has exploded some 177 nuclear bombs, 
and that the contamination now on this atoll is worth several 
Chernobyls.
  Yet our Government is going to honor this man next week in 
Washington? Mr. Speaker, a defense secret report reveals that in 1979, 
the French Government detonated a 150-kiloton nuclear bomb only 1,300 
feet below the surface of this atoll.
  Shame on you, France, for doing this terrible thing to the people of 
the Pacific.

[[Page H778]]

  Mr. Speaker, for the Record I present the article by William Drozdiak 
entitled ``France Acknowledges Radioactive Leakage in South Pacific 
Nuclear Tests.''

               [From the Washington Post, Jan. 24, 1996]

 France Acknowledges Radioactive Leakage in South Pacific Nuclear Tests

                         (By William Drozdiak)

       Paris, January 23.--France acknowledged today that 
     radioactive materials have leaked into the sea from its 
     nuclear tests in the South Pacific but insisted that the 
     quantities were so minimal that they posed no threat to the 
     environment.
       The confirmation that radioactive elements such as iodine-
     131 have seeped into the lagoon near the Mururoa test site 
     seemed likely to revive the storm of protests that followed 
     President Jacques Chirac's decision to conduct a final series 
     of underground nuclear explosions before signing a global 
     test-ban treaty.
       Japanese Foreign Minister Yukihiko Ikeda said he will 
     demand a full explanation from France about the nature of the 
     leaks. Other countries in the Pacific region, notably 
     Australia and New Zealand, are expected to follow suit, 
     French officials said.
       Defying international criticism, France has carried out 
     five nuclear tests since September to verify a new warhead 
     and to perfect simulation technology that will be used to 
     monitor reliability of its nuclear weapons. A final test will 
     take place next month before the test site is shut down 
     permanently, French officials said.
       But the latest accounts of radioactive leakage at the 
     Mururoa test site have raised questions about the credibility 
     of the French government's arguments that the nuclear 
     explosions present no environmental menace.
       ``There is no way to assess whether there is a coverup 
     because the French do not allow independent verification,'' 
     said Tom Cochran, a nuclear-test specialist at the Natural 
     Resources Defense Council in Washington. ``What makes people 
     suspicious about whether they are hearing the truth is the 
     fact that these tests were really unnecessary in the first 
     place.''
       France has always contended that its underground nuclear 
     blasts inflict no damage on the fragile ecology of the 
     Mururoa coral atoll, 750 miles southeast of Tahiti, which 
     serves as its principal test site. Explosive devices are 
     bored deep within the basalt foundation of the atoll, and 
     French scientists say the intense heat from the blast 
     vitrifies the rock and traps all radioactivity before it can 
     escape.
       But Alain Barthoux, director of nuclear tests at France's 
     Atomic Energy Commission, acknowledged that traces of 
     radioactive material are usually ``vented'' into the lagoon 
     when scientists drill down into the rock to obtain samples 
     after every blast.
       Barthoux claimed, however, that such leaks involve 
     ``insignificant amounts'' of radioactive substances, such as 
     cesium, tritium or iodine, that vanish quickly in the 
     environment. Quantities of iodine-131, for example, which can 
     cause cancer when ingested by humans, shrink by half within 
     eight days and disappear entirely within 80 days, he said.
       Barthoux denied a report in the Japan's Yomiuri Shimbun 
     newspaper that small amounts of radioactive iodine were 
     continuing to leak into the water as a result of the latest 
     round of nuclear tests. The paper quoted sources at the 
     Geneva disarmament conference, where the global test-ban 
     treaty is being negotiated, as saying a French nuclear expert 
     disclosed the radiation leakage at a meeting in Washington 
     last November.
       The French specialist was quoted as saying the information 
     was ``extremely confidential.''
       France first acknowledged the release of radioactivity from 
     its nuclear tests when oceanographer Jacques Cousteau visited 
     the Mururoa site in 1987 and was allowed to conduct 
     independent tests of the water in the lagoon. He found the 
     presence of radioactive iodine, cesium, cobalt and europium, 
     but in quantities that were not considered dangerous.
       But he warned that Mururoa's coral crown was deeply cracked 
     and could pose a problem if testing continued. He said risks 
     grew that higher levels of radioactive residue could seep 
     into the lagoon.
       French Defense Minister Charles Millon denounced reports 
     from last year of widening fissures in the atoll as 
     ``unreliable.'' Foreign Minister Herve de Charette told the 
     National Assembly that ``never have any cracks of any kind 
     been spotted.''
       But a confidential Defense Ministry report acknowledged the 
     government has been aware, at least since 1979, that 
     Mururoa's underwater basalt foundation is fractured several 
     places.
       The report described the effects of an accident in 1979 in 
     which the French detonated a 150-kiloton weapon only 1,300 
     feet below the surface of the lagoon. The blast was supposed 
     to occur at 2,600 feet, but the bomb got stuck halfway down 
     the test shaft and the French detonated it there rather than 
     risk trying to move it.
       The explosion blasted loose more than 130 million cubic 
     yards of rock and coral, causing a tidal wave that injured 
     several French scientists and guards. The document also 
     described underwater avalanches that followed three tests as 
     proof the growing number of tests was posing serious 
     environmental risks to the Mururoa atoll.
       The fragile state of the site after repeated tests 
     persuaded France to stage its biggest blasts on nearby 
     Fangataufa atoll, where, in October, it exploded a 100-
     kiloton warhead, designed for submarine launch.

                          ____________________