Answer given by Mr Arias Cañete on behalf of the European Commission
3.8.2018
The Honourable Member seems to refer to deep sea disposal of nuclear waste between 1949 and 1982 that, however, according to our information occurred outside Spanish territorial waters. The Commission is not aware of any ongoing programmes to inspect the state of the waste containers referred by the Honourable Member or studies on their impact on the maritime environment.
However, as the Commission pointed out in its reply to Written Question E-002218/2018, the Coordinated Research and Environmental Surveillance Programme (CRESP) monitored the marine radioactivity relating to sea disposal of radioactive waste in the North Atlantic for several years until 1990[1] while the Commission carried out a study in 2003 on the radiological exposure of the EU from radioactivity in North European marine waters[2].
As also explained in the reply to E-002218/2018, the Oslo/Paris (OSPAR) Convention for the Protection of the Marine Environment of the North-East Atlantic and the International Atomic Energy Agency continue to monitor radioactive discharges and levels of marine radioactivity in the North Atlantic. Further information is available on their websites[3].
- [1] Coordinated research and environmental surveillance programme related to sea disposal of radioactive waste, CRESP activity report 1986-1990, OECD Nuclear Energy Agency, 75 — Paris (France).
- [2] MARINA II, 2003. Update of the MARINA Project on the radiological exposure of the European Community from radioactivity in North European marine waters; https://ec.europa.eu/energy/en/radiation-protection-publications. European Commission, Radiation Protection 132, 2003.
- [3] https://www.ospar.org/work-areas/rsc and https://inis.iaea.org/search/search.aspx?orig_q=RN:47013685. See, for instance, Inventory of Radioactive Material Resulting from Historical Dumping, Accidents and Losses at Sea For the Purposes of the London Convention 1972 and London Protocol 1996, IAEA TECDOC No 1776, 2015.