France to test water near reactors after uranium leak

France’s ecology minister has called for tests of the ground water near all of the country’s 58 nuclear reactors after a uranium leak at a plant in the south polluted the local water supply.

“I don’t want people to feel that we are hiding anything from them,” Jean-Louis Borloo said in a newspaper interview Thursday.
Borloo said he wanted a government committee on nuclear safety to look into environmental conditions at all sites.

“In particular the state of the ground water located near all of the French nuclear plants must be verified,” Borloo said.

“I’m told that everything is under control, but I want to be sure,” he told Le Parisien newspaper.

France is home to the world’s second largest network of nuclear reactors after the United States and the facilities generate more than 80 percent of its electricity.

AFP