Champagne should be fizzy, not fissionable

zoom

That's right, a nuclear dump site just 6 miles from the famous Champagne vineyards in France is leaking radioactive waste into the groundwater.

According to the French nuclear safety authority, the "wall of a storage cell fissured" while concrete was being added to a recent layer of nuclear waste.

Greenpeace research released last week showed levels of radioactivity leaking from another dumpsite run by the same company  in Normandy  -- at  up to 90 times above European safety limits. That waste has seeped into underground water used by farmers, with contamination spreading into the countryside and threatening dairy production.

The Champagne site will receive a total of 4 thousand terabequerels of tritium -- more than three times the amount of tritium waste as the dumpsite in Normandy.

But in spite of these radioactive leaks in Soulaine, a new high-level waste dumpsite is being planned in Bure -- also in the Champagne region -- in which the most radioactive material in France would be deposited.

That means that the Champagne producers are facing two nuclear time bombs - one already leaking at Soulaine, and one planned at Bure.

Despite having a nuclear waste crisis the French electricity providers, Electricite de France (EdF), are seeking approval to build a new reactor at Flamanville, which will increase the amount of high-level waste.

Today, EdF's nuclear reactors produce 1,200 tons of highly radioactive waste every year. The waste expected from the new reactor would be the most hazardous waste ever produced in a French nuclear power reactor.

Ironically, the Spanish government has just announced plans to phase out its nuclear program in favor of clean renewable energy sources like solar power and wind energy.

So raise a toast to the Spanish government and wish the French and our own government luck dealing with the hazards of radioactive nuclear waste.

To our health!