TL: SPENT NUCLEAR FUEL SUIT FILED AGAINST THE FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF GERMANY
SO:  GREENPEACE GERMANY (GP)
DT: AUGUST 7, 1997

To: Administrative Court of Cologne 
Appelhofplatz
Cologne


Hamburg, 7 August 1997


Legal suit 

filed by 

two French citizens (plaintiffs), represented by Guenther, Heidel, Wollenteit, Hack (lawyers)

against 

the Federal Republic of Germany, represented by the Federal Minister of Economics, Villemombler Str. 776, 53123 Bonn (defendant)

because of  the

export of spent nuclear fuel elements to the reprocessing facility at La Hague.

In the name of the plaintiffs we are filing suit.  We appeal that  

the defendant is obliged to refrain from granting export licensing for spent nuclear fuel material from German nuclear facilities to the reprocessing facility at La Hague in the future.

Reasons:

The plaintiffs are French citizens.  They live very close to the La Hague reprocessing facility in Normandy.  COGEMA reprocesses spent nuclear fuel materials and releases considerable amounts of radioactivity into the environment during this process.  Very high amounts of pollutants are discharged into the sea and released into the atmosphere.  Greenpeace Germany recently took sediment samples of the seabed near the discharge pipeline and discovered that radioactive contamination of the sediment is far higher than the limit allowed for by the German Radiological Protection Ordinance. A summary of the sample analysis results are attached to the file as 
Appendix K1.

Discharges from La Hague lead to a wide distribution of radioactive effluent water in the English Channel, the North Sea and the Heligoland Bight.  According to documentation of the Federal Office of Marine Navigation and Hydrographie in Hamburg, distribution of radioactivity after six months can be pictured as in 
Appendix K2,

and after 21 months, can be pictured as in 
Appendix K3.

Greenpeace sampling at La Hague was the subject of a discussion period in the Bundestag on 27 Juni 1997.

Results of epidemiological research that were recently published in France have shown that there is a causal relationship between the incidence of leukemia near La Hague being higher than elsewhere by a factor of 3 and the release of high amounts of radioactivity from the facility. There was proof of a correlation between the amount of time spent on the beach and the consumption of local fish to the occurrence of leukemia.  The study presents evidence that the reprocessing facility has widely contaminated the beach area around La Hague as well as the sea and that all persons who are in this area, even if for only a short time, are at a health risk.  A translation of an article by experts at the University of Besancon, Professors Jean-Francois Viel and Dominique Pobel is
Appendix K4.

The epidemiological results regarding La Hague are similar to results of other research projects that show there is an increase in the incidence of leukemia near nuclear power plants and reprocessing facilities. 

The Federal Republic of Germany is the main "supplier" to the La Hague reprocessing plant.  About 90 percent of the material destined for reprocessing from Germany is sent to La Hague and receives its licensing from the defendant.  Like no other country, Germany is responsible for the contamination of the biosphere around La Hague when it licenses nuclear shipments and allows the export of the above-named material.

The considerations presented by the plaintiffs and by Greenpeace are shared by many local state authorities and have been collated in 
Appendix K5.

The current status of debate around the radioactive contamination that is caused by La Hague and other European reprocessing facilities has been comprehensively and exactly delineated in a background paper published by Greenpeace which is in the file as 
Appendix K6.


The rest of the text deals with establishing the legal basis for filing this suit.