Nuclear Waste Dumped in English Channel is Highly Radioactive

HAMBURG, Germany (July 9, 1997 2:51 p.m. EDT) - Nuclear waste dumped in the English Channel by a French reprocessing facility is highly radioactive, a health official in the northern German city of Hamburg said Wednesday.

The official added that German legislation bans waste with such high levels of radiation from being dumped in the sea.

The plant at La Hague, in northern France, has been at the center of a controversy with the environmental organization Greenpeace claiming the sludge from the facility has a radioactivity level 17 million times greater than normal sea water.

Greenpeace brought a sample of the waste to Hamburg by ship on June 27.

Officials at the French plant dismissed the allegation as "groundless," saying the waste from the pipe was quickly diluted in sea water to harmless levels.