Liquid containing traces of unenriched uranium leaked on Tuesday at a nuclear site in southern France and some of the solution ran into two rivers, France’s nuclear safety agency said.
Authorities banned the consumption of well water in three nearby towns and the watering of crops from the two rivers. Also banned were swimming, water sports and fishing.
A spokeswoman for the nuclear safety agency, Evangelia Petit, said about 30,000 liters of solution containing uranium spilled on Tuesday at a factory at the Tricastin nuclear site.
It is about 40km from the historic city of Avignon.
Another nuclear safety agency official, Charles-Antoine Louet, said the liquid contained about 360kg of unenriched natural uranium, which he said is only slightly radioactive although toxic.
“The risk is slight,” he said.
The factory handles materials and liquids contaminated by uranium, the fuel for nuclear power plants.
The liquid spilled from a reservoir that overflowed. It leaked both into the ground and into two rivers, the Gaffiere and the Lauzon, the nuclear safety agency said. It said the cause of the spill was not yet known. Local authorities said the leak happened during the washing of a tank.
The nuclear safety agency said uranium concentrations in the Gaffiere river were about 1,000 times the normal levels, but were dropping rapidly.
France gets nearly 80 percent of its electricity from nuclear power.
Anti-nuclear group Sortir du nucleaire, or Abandon Nuclear Power, protested that authorities were being too reassuring about Tuesday’s leak.
“It is impossible that such a spill, containing uranium, does not have important consequences for the environment and for the health of residents,” it said.
It said the uranium, while not “very radioactive,” is “excessively dangerous” for people if ingested.
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