Unitech is still lurking, so let’s keep up our guard!

Press release from the Collectif contre Unitech, Tuesday 20 February 2024

The Collectif contre Unitech (Collective against Unitech) would like to share the latest information on the project for a nuclear laundry and decontamination unit at Suzannecourt (52), as well as its concerns. Unitech’s procrastination over the last few years should not undermine our vigilance: the company has sadly accustomed us to many unexpected developments…

Legal update on the opposition to the project

At the hearing of the appeal against the bluiding permission in the summer of 2023, we learned that Unitech had sent a notice to the administrative court informing it of a “reduction in activity”. In other words, the company would be abandoning the “nuclear laundry” part of the project, while maintaining a nuclear maintenance and decontamination unit. Since then, we have learned that the administrative court has requested additional information from Unitech, which has not yet been made available to us. As yet, no hearing has been scheduled. We are keeping a very close eye on the progress of this appeal.

Where do we stand now ?

We don’t know. The Collectif contre Unitech wrote to the Haute-Marne Prefecture to ask for any information it might have on the progress of the Unitech project. Should a new order or an amending order be issued to endorse the abandonment of the nuclear laundry and provide a framework for the establishment of the maintenance and decontamination activity ? In its notice, the company announced that a new application for a building permit would have to be submitted. Unitech, still having learned nothing from its past mistakes, is showing a continuing lack of transparency towards the public and local elected representatives.

What’s behind the maintenance and decontamination facility ?

The Marne being protected from liquid radioactive discharges and detergents from the nuclear laundry is undoubtedly a major success for us and all the municipalities downstream from the Joinchère facility. However, we have no idea precisely what the maintenance and decontamination unit will entail, and we have every reason to be suspicious: in the initial project, most of the atmospheric pollutants came from the maintenance of equipment and tools for the nuclear sector… not from the nuclear laundry. Decontamination work and operations on the metals were responsible for 81% of the total radioactivity emitted by the site ! Substantial quantities of heavy metals (mercury, lead, arsenic, cobalt, cadmium, etc. – over 600 kg/year!) and volatile organic compounds (known to have mutagenic and carcinogenic effects and to trigger respiratory problems) were mentioned. The file also showed that the decontamination and container storage building emitted 15 times more radioactive pollutants than the laundry… All this less than a kilometre from homes, a kindergarten, a school and a shopping centre.

What about the “new project”? Here again, we cannot answer that question. But it’s clear that this activity is by no means harmless, and we have no confidence in this company, which has a record of withholding information and telling lies. Nor have we forgotten that the prefectoral order opening the public enquiry did not refer to the existence of this maintenance and decontamination unit.

The Collectif contre Unitech is ready to continue fighting the project on all fronts until the company has completely and definitively given up on the Joinvillois basin !

20/02/2024