The controversial nuclear waste landfill project in Bure (Meuse) has been declared “of public utility” and listed “among the operations of national interest”, according to two decrees published in the Official Journal, Friday July 8. This project for an industrial geological storage center (Cigeo) aims to bury, 500 meters underground, 85,000 m3 of the most radioactive waste from the French nuclear fleet.
The necessary land expropriations will be “carried out before December 31, 2037″specifies the text, and those concerning only the “depths” no later than December 31, 2050, end of the pilot industrial phase. The decree adds that the National Agency for Radioactive Waste Management (Andra), which is piloting the project, “shall, if necessary, remedy the damage caused to agricultural holdings”. It will be responsible for the measures “intended to avoid, reduce and compensate for the significant negative effects of the project (…) on the environment and human health”.
A separate decree lists Cigeo among the operations of national interest (OIN), urban planning operations with a “special legal regime due to” of their “major interest”. These two texts are signed by the Prime Minister, Elisabeth Borne, and the Ministers for Energy Transition, Agnès Pannier-Runacher, and for Ecological Transition and Territorial Cohesion, Christophe Béchu. In December, the public inquiry commission had already concluded that Cigeo was “timely, relevant and robust” and that its public utility was “proven”.
The publication of these decrees immediately caused the opponents of Cigéo to react. The Sortir dunuclear network, in particular, denounced “an unacceptable public utility for a dangerous project”. The two texts “allow Andra to acquire the missing land control, to expropriate if necessary, and to start the so-called ‘preparatory’ works at Cigeo”the collective is indignant, considering that the site, “not allowed at this time”raised “very heavy questions in terms of safety”. “It is a public utility of circumstance on a mountain of major doubts”also indicated on Twitter the association Cedra52.